Aviation Rekindled

My interest in aviation began when I was stationed at MacDill Air Force base in 1970. My private pilot license was issued 1/15/1971, a mere forty years ago. A commerical license followed in 1976 and then an instrument rating in 1977. After moving to Connecticut in 1981, the flying days were over. The topic of aviation was rekindled by Nick Nash, a summer intern at IBM shortly after we had formed the Internet Division of the company 15 years ago. Nick went on to get a degree, magna cum laude, at Harvard. He is now a Vice President at General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm. Nick was an excellent communicator and he asked me one day if he could do an interview on the subject of aviation. Nick titled the interview “I really prefer having an engine!”

Ten years later, I got very interested in aviation once again when the Elipse 500 was announced. The Eclipse was the first of a new class of aircraft called the Very Light Jet (VLJ). With a number of breakthroughs in aviation technology, the Eclipse promised to offer a dramatically more affordable business model for jet aircraft. The small six-seat business jet is powered by two lightweight Pratt & Whitney Canada PW610F turbofan engines. Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt in 2008. A new company was formed recently and they are building a new version of the aircraft, to be called the Eclipse 550, with planned deliveries in 2013.

Another VLJ was announced in 2006 — the Embraer Phenom 100 — developed by Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer. The Phenom was much more appealing than the Eclipse — significantly more space, larger windows, and great performance. My partners at Executive Jet Partners LLC (EJP) and I ordered a Phenom in 2006 and just over three year later, I went to Brazil to bring it back to Connecticut. It was quite an adventure. See the full story here.

EJP is a private company owned by three retired executives in Connecticut who have a love of aviation.  Two of the three are private pilots and all three love to fly.  EJP took ownership of the Embraer Phenom 100 executive jet in October 2009.  The Phenom has six seats – two for the pilots and four for passengers. It is certified by the FAA for single-pilot operation, but most passengers are more comfortable with two pilots up front. It can fly 1,365 miles non-stop at 41,000 feet altitude at an airspeed of  435 mph. Like many aircraft owners, EJP makes the Phenom available for charter when the partners are not using it. We hope to make a business out of aviation charter. To make that happen requires a good partner who is an expert in managing aircraft. Enter Corporate Flight Management (CFM). CFM is a private Smyrna, Tennessee company that manages aircraft; provides marketing, dispatch, and scheduling; coordinates maintenance; and provides pilot services. (See the CFM blogs for some interesting aviation commentary). CFM pilots are experienced professionals and are trained and certified in the aircraft that they fly. CFM has a division based in Danbury, Connecticut and currently has seven airplanes in their fleet, two of which are Phenom 100s. See the entire CFM fleet here.

Chartering a private aircraft is not inexpensive, but it is incredibly convenient.  When sharing the cost among multiple passengers, the cost approaches first class airfare.  One of the many advantages of private aviation is that the aircraft can take off and land at thousands of airports not serviced by the airlines.  For example, if you have a business or a personal reason to go from Danbury, Connecticut to Springfield, Illinois, there are no direct flights. A connecting flight through O’hare in Chicago departs Laguardia at 6 AM and gets into Springfield at 9:18.  If you live in Danbury, you would have to leave home at 3:30 AM. The available return flights take four hours or more. One flight leaves at 12:15 PM (which leaves you about an hour for your visit) or at 6:20 PM, arriving into Laguardia at midnight and getting home almost 24 hours from when you got up. A charter flight can depart directly from Danbury at 7:15 AM and arrive in Springfiled at 9:15 AM. You can arrive at the Danbury Airport at 7:05 and be in the air at 7:15 AM. You can take whatever baggage you want and use your laptop from takeoff to landing. Without even mentioning amenities, the best part is the return flight. It would be scheduled whenever you choose to depart. You can bring as much baggage as you want and be productive for your entire flight. The cost would be significantly higher than a commercial flight, but the convenience is incomparable.

Charter is not for everyone. It is incredibly convenient albeit very expensive. But if you want to splurge for that special vacation in Florida, Canada, or the Bahamas, or if you have a business trip where productivity and your time are valuable, then charter is worth considering. When it comes to passengers on a charter, you can have the plane to yourself, or bring three to seven others (depending on what kind of plane you charter) with you at no additional cost — you charter an airplane, not a seat. An interesting approach to sharing is at Social Flights – a startup company that is using the power of the Internet to enable like-minded travelers to find each other and share the cost of a charter. If you have questions about a charter or want to get a no-charge quote for a flight, contact CFM  at 615-220-1761, or e-mail them at charter.dispatchers@flycfm.com. If you just want to chat further about any of this, feel free to contact me at john@executivejetpartners.com.

Tags: Aviation, brazil, charter, embraer, flying, phenom

IBM at 100 – A Day of Nostalgia and Optimism

I was not exactly sure what to expect when I arrived at the world famous T. J. Watson Research Center at IBM last week. I have been there many times over the years but never to a birthday party. I walked in to the arrival tent where light refreshments were being served and the crowd of 350 invited guests began to build. One of the first people I saw was Allen Krowe. Allen had been CFO of IBM and then Vice Chairman of Texaco. I was his assistant back in 1981. I remember the day that he turned 50 years old and thinking that was very advanced. That was 30 years ago and NOW I am 15 years older than he was then. Then I saw Spike Beitzel. Spike had been a sales manager in Philadelphia for IBM’s insurance industry customers, the same position that I held some years later. Spike is a pilot, as was Allen, and many other senior IBM executives, including Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Spike is 83 and still flies his own airplane. It was nice to talk about aviation. It was a privilege to say hello to three IBM CEOs — John Akers, Lou Gerstner, and Sam Palmisano. There were four current and former heads of IBM Research there. One of them was Ralph Gomory. I am not sure how old Ralph is but he got his PhD in mathematics from Princeton in 1954. Whenb he retired from IBM in 1989 he became president of the Sloan Foundation. The pattern became clear — this was not just a birthday party for IBM; it was an alumni reunion for executives that worked for IBM over the past fifty years. Then I ran into the former heads of IBM Japn, IBM China, IBM Italy, IBM Brazil, and various other parts of IBM from around the world. Former Chairman Thomas J. Watson, Jr., said in 1957 that IBM “is a company of human beings, not machines; personalities, not products; people, not real estate.” That observation was true long before 1957 — and it remains so today. Although every IBMer makes a difference, there is a list of IBM Builders that were the pioneers who helped to fashion the IBM of the 21st century. Most of them were were among those in the tent; it was humbling to be in their midst and a thrill to shake their hands. Everyone had a smile on their face. It was a happy and nostalgic day that none of us will ever forget.

The main event took place in a really big tent. There were 2,000 members of IBM Research in attendance. During the opening ceremonies Sam Palmisano asked the thirty members of the Watson family in attendance to stand; everyone appreciated the heritage of the company. The family must have been proud to hear about Watson, the advanced Q&A system that triumphed at Jeopardy, and will surely change the way medicine is practiced as it transforms anecdotal medicine to personalized, evidence-based medicine. The program included some excellent videos about the past, present, and future of IBM. Senior VP Jon Iwata interviewed three journalists, Kevin Maney, Steve Hamm and Jeffrey O’Brien about the research they had done to write their new book about IBM called Making the World Work Better: The Ideas That Shaped a Century and a Company. I have known Kevin for quite a few years. When he quoted someone in his columns at USA Today, you always knew that he would not use information out of context. Steve Hamm wrote the story about my home when he was at BusinessWeek. He now works for IBM. It was an alumni event with journalists too! Another panel with Senior VP John Kelly focused on IBM research efforts around the world, in particular about IBM’s advanced work on environmental and healthcare initiatives. Sam and senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy Ginni Rometty painted a rosy picture of IBM’s future.  IBM also cares about the future of others. As part of its Celebration of Service, 300,000 IBMers around the world — nearly three quarters of its global workforce — volunteeried in more than 5,000 projects in 120 countries, helping millions in need. Since the beginning of the year, IBMers, retirees and their families have donated more than 2.5 million hours of service to communities worldwide. A lot of conofidence was exuded that another 100 years of innovation and growth are underway.

Tags: akers, Aviation, beitzel, evidence based medicine, gerstner, gomory, Healthcare, IBM, IBM Research, kevin maney, krowe, palmisano, personalized medicine, research, rometty, steve hamm, supercomputing, watson, yorktown

Social Flights

I expressed some skepticism about the LinkedIn business model in my posting of April 22, but there were not many doubters today as the IPO took off for the stratosphere. There were many private jets taking off today too, and a new startup in Smyrna, TN hopes to make such flights much more affordable. Although a private jet charter is incredibly convenient, it is not affordable for most people. If there were friends or family who were going along for the flight, however, the per person cost could become much more affordable. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to organize a flight for a dispersed group of people. Enter Social Flights. With more and more of the population using some form of social networking, getting people organized to share the cost of a private jet charter could become much easier. That is exactly what Social Flights is making possible. Suppose you live in Connecticut and you want to attend a USF football game in  Tampa, Florida. Is it possible that there are other alumni of USF that live within the NY-NJ-CT metropolitan area? Very likely. Do you know who they are and their email addresses? Very unlikely. Might these fellow alums be users of Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn? Good chance. Social Flights becomes the gearbox that connects you, your fellow alums, and Corporate Flight Management (CFM), a jet charter operator based in Tennessee but with a half-dozen airplanes in Connecticut.  CFM can provide competitive quotes for use of a private jet that is owned by others, but made available for charter when not being used by the owner. You and your soon to be alumni-friends may end up geting very spoiled in a private jet for $1,000 each. The cost will never meet a Jetblue discount ticket, but for the convenience of being able to step on the plane and be in the air ten minutes later, the premium may be easy to justify. CFM jets use professional pilots and have safety insprections that equal what the best airlines can offer.

What Social Flights is doing is what all busineses will eventually do — making social networking an integral part of business planning and operations. I view social networks as a natural evolution of the Internet. The Internet is the basic communications infrastructure that enables every computer in the world to be connected to every other computer in the world. Sitting on top of the Internet is an application called the World Wide Web that provides application services such as email, electronic banking, and e-commerce. On top of the Web is a new layer of functionality called social networking — or the social Web. The social Web enables services such as instant messaging, tweeting, crowd-sourcing, collaboration, and widespread sharing of information. The social Web is people driven, not company driven. It is grass-roots people-power that provides product reviews; medical experiences and doctor referrals; book, restaurant, and wine recommendations; and, of course, travel planning for alums who want to charter a private jet to go to a football game, or business people who want to go to a conference. Finding a way to fill empty seats on private jets has been a dream for many years. By leveraging the social Web, Social Flights may have found the key to making it happen. I suspect we will be hearing a lot more about Social Flights. The Fast Company story and New York Times blog posting have said some positive things already.

Tags: Aviation, CFM, charter aviation, charter jet, Corporate Flight Management, facebook, internet, jet charter, linkedin, private jet, social flights, social media, social networking, twitter, World Wide Web

The Checklist Manifesto

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had met Dr. Gawande in New York a week or so ago and was quite impressed with his talk about “How To Live When You Have To Die“. The ChecklistManifesto is an easy read because the recommendations are practical and understandable. Dr. Gawande uses examples from medicine and aviation to make the point about how easy it is for people to forget things that can jeopardize the lives of others.

Being a pilot, I already appreciated the importance of checklists. When learning to fly, the checklist is fundamental. You learn to use it all the time, no matter how much experience you have. The book is replete with examples of how things went wrong in a medical setting when a simple step was skipped due to the frenetic pace of the operating room and possible distractions and interruptions.

No one likes to talk about the error rate in surgery, but suffice it to say that the numbers are non-trivial. Thousands of people are harmed in some way. Dr. Gawande believes that simple checklists can dramatically change the numbers. He cites studies where this is proven. His focus and enthusiasm for patient safety is having a positive impact around the world. I look forward to reading his two other books: Complications and Better.

Tags: Aviation, checklist, surgery

Kindle 3

The new Kindle 3 — “Smaller, Faster, Cheaper“” — arrived on Friday morning, a few days earlier than Amazon had promised. I would say that the new device will assure Amazon’s lead for some time. It is really fantastic. I had no complaints with the Kindle 2 — in fact I love it — but the new one has a nicer feel to it. The slightly smaller size allows you to truly read “one handed”. The power switch was moved to the bottom from the top and I find that much more convenient. The new color seems more with the times. A few other button changes but overall it is pretty much a refined version of the Kindle 2 which was a refined version of the Kindle 1. I am sure we won’t have to wait a year for the Kindle 4.

The Kindle 3′s new no glare screen has increased gray-scale contrast — it is clear as a bell and it loves the summer sun. The battery life is supposed to be one month. The migration from Kindle 2 to Kindle 3 was trivial. Took the new device out of the box, plugged it in, and turned it on. I clicked “register” and gave it my Amazon account id and password. I also gave it the SSID of my Wireless Access Point here at the Lake and that was it. In seconds I was reading the book that I had started on the Kindle 2 (and read parts of on the iPhone 4 and the Kindle app on the iPad).

I still love the iPad but when it comes to reading  books the Kindle is hands down better and with the Kindle 3 that advantage will be multiplied. The new Kindle comes in two flavors: one with WiFi for $139 and one with WiFi and 3G for $189. For most of us the WiFi model is more than adequate. If you are going on a trip you can download your favorite newspaper plus a book or two or more using your home WiFi and you are set. You don’t really need 3G for other applications because the Kindle doesn’t have other applications! That is what your iPad is for.

The magazine, book, and newspaper publishers still haven’t figured out what to do about the rapid adoption of e-readers. The iPad is great for reading news, but which news source is best to read?  The New York Times has the worst model. They offer a dozen stories and plan to charge if you want more. The Wall Street Journal charges $3.99 per week for their news on the iPad but if you want to read a WSJ story on the web or your iPhone they want you to take out another subscription. Wired and Time want you to pay $5 per issue of their magazines.  I believe people will be willing to pay for good content but nobody yet has the right model. I have experimented with quite a few news “readers” that display the RSS feeds of just about all publishers. I currently like NewsRack the best. None of the news readers are perfect but they are all getting better.

Meanwhile the Kindle DX has found a temporary home on eBay. The auction began Friday evening and already has 13 watchers and eight bids. The Kindle DX has been in use for airport and approach charts on the airplane but is no longer needed now that the pilots have iPads. This is a good example of where a “multi-purpose” device is better. There are many applications that are very handy in the cockpit and the iPad becomes an EFB (electronic flight bag). Hopefully, the pilots are not reading books while flying!

Tags: amazon, author, Aviation, efb, electronic flight bag, ipad, Kindle, kindle 3, kindle 4, publisher, WiFi

Kindle Sales Defy iPad

PC World Magazine says “Amazon Kindle Sales Defy IPad by Rising Each Month in Q2“.  This does not come as a surprise for a number of reasons. One is that the Kindle is a great product that is highly intuitive and easy to use. People get addicted to it and they tell their friends and family about it. I have been wanting to read Michael Lewis’s The Big Short but it was not available until recently on the Kindle. I waited. Great book, by the way. I know people who told me a few years ago that they had no interest in the Kindle but now are addicted. It was a popular gift item last holiday season and with the price reduced (again) it has become attractive to a much larger audience. Another factor is that the iPad is not the Kindle killer that some had thought. As described here a number of times, the iPad is great but not for for long periods and not for reading outdoors. Summer reading is the sweet spot for the Kindle.

Now we have the new Kindle DX.  The “old” Kindle DX was already quite nice.  We have been using it as an “electronic flight bag” for roughly 15,000 approach and airport charts. The Kindle reduces clutter in the cockpit but the iPad does a better job as an EFB since it has numerous aviation applications that enable pilots to calculate weight and balance, get the latest weather, and file flight plans directly with the FAA. Now that we have the iPad the DX can revert to the original reason we got it — reading newspapers and magazines. The DX is great for books too but the smaller Kindle is more comfortable to hold. The sweetspot for the DX is magazines, newspapers, and documents. Putting the DX on a stand and flipping through the Sunday paper is a treat. And now with the new DX it will be even better.

The new 9.7″ diagonal, high contrast e-ink screen has 50% better contrast than it’s predecessor. The Kindle DX display looks and reads like real paper, with no glare. With the free 3G wireless (no monthly payments and no contract) and the lower price, the DX is going to be a good choice for many people. Battery life is great too — read for up to 1 week on a single charge; turn wireless off and read for up to two weeks. The built-in PDF Reader has enhanced zoom capability to easily view small print and detailed tables or graphics. For professionals who have thousands of documents it will be a natural.

There will be a lot of competition for tablets and e-readers but from what I have seen so far the iPad and the Kindle, and the Kindle DX are the best. I love my iPad but for reading books the Kindle is better. I especially like being able to go back and forth between the iPhone 4, the Kindle, the Kindle DX, and the Kindle e-reader on the iPad and always have the bookmark synced to where I last was reading. As for newspapers and magazines the next move needs to be from the publishers who seem frozen with indecision. They want to charge a lot of money for their content but most of us don’t want to pay. Why pay for a New York Times app on the iPad when you can read the New York Times blogs on Pulse for free? As for magazines there is great potential for electronic versions but I don’t think people will pay the $4.99 for each new issue that Time and Wired are charging. I expect a lot of news about the news in the months ahead.

Tags: approach plates, Aviation, documents, dx, e-book, e-ink, e-reader, efb, flight charts, ipad, Kindle, kindle dx, magazines, New York Times, newspapers, pdf, time magazine, wired

IBM Happenings: March – April 2010

The months of March and April were busy ones at IBM with the usual flurry of announcements in hardware, software, services, acquisitions, and strategic alliances. See the list of the current press releases and also an index for prior months here. The major focus of the company remains on a “smarter planet” and the dimensions of this thrust continue to expand. An area of personal interest to me is aviation so I was pleased to learn about a joint project between IBM and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) working on a Research and Development project to protect the nation’s civilian aviation system from the ever-growing threat of cyber attacks.

Faa.gov is the official website for the Federal Aviation Administration. The site deals with many vital aviation topics including flights, airports, policies, news and events affecting aviation, pilot resources, weather, a wealth of safety information, regulations and guidelines, air traffic data, research, licenses and certificates, training and testing, alerts about specific airports, and medical and aircraft certification. The site has approximately a half-million monthly visitors who view an average of two million web pages. Needless to say faa.gov is a vital national resource. It is also a potential target for those who would like to harm it.

The joint project is part of IBM’s First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) program which engages scientists from IBM Research with clients to explore and pilot emerging technologies that address real world problems. In the case of faa.gov the IBM researchers and cyber security experts will design and build a prototype security system capable to accommodate the FAA’s high-speed networks. Building on IBM’s vast experience with analytics, the project will introduce first-of-a-kind security technologies and entirely new approaches to protecting large digital and physical infrastructures from hacking, botnets, malware and other forms of cyber attacks.

The prototype system will go beyond traditional security approaches of encryption, firewalls, intrusion-detection devices and anti-virus software. A flexible model is being designed to look retrospectively at event occurrences and system compromises. It will be able to correlate historical traffic patterns with dynamic data from monitors, sensors and other devices which capture information about network traffic and user activity in real time. Using “streaming analytics” and customized executive-level dashboards, the system will enable the FAA to continually analyze the massive amounts of data flowing through its networks and get instant and accurate insights about possible network threats and anomalies suggesting a possible attack in time to take action. The FAA will also be able to store real-time results in a data warehouse for later analysis and training.

“Cyber attacks have become a global pandemic and no system is immune,” said Todd Ramsey, general manager for IBM’s government business. “Through this collaboration with the FAA, as well as others underway in government and the private sector, we hope to develop comprehensive solutions for protecting the digital and physical infrastructures of critical national networks and enterprise systems.” IBM has also established the IBM Institute for Advanced Security in Washington, D.C., to help government agencies and other institutions gain access to tools, resources and expertise to address cyber security issues.

Complete index of IBM Happenings for 2004-2010

Tags: analytics, Aviation, cyber attack, faa, IBM, IBM Research

Brazilian Adventure – Summary

I did not really have to go to Brazil for the delivery of the Embraer Phenom 100 — JetQuik demonstrated that they could have done it very professionally on their own — but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. No doubt about it, this was an educational experience. Although a somewhat experienced pilot with 500+ hours of flying, that was a drop in the bucket compared to what I learned over the course of nearly ten days with Bill and Mark and the Embraer team. Reading a great deal about the Phenom was informative but nothing compared to spending a week in the hangar and 15+ hours in flight. It is an incredibly well engineered airplane and I will have more comments on the technology aspects of it in future posts.

After arriving in Connecticut from Ft. Lauderdale, Bill and Mark took the Phenom to Stevens Aviation in Dayton, Ohio where it is undergoing some enhancements. Embraer had thought of just about everything but not quite everything, especially in the areas of collision avoidance systems, air-to-ground communications, and audio/video. The interior walls of the plane have to be removed and a half-dozen wiring harnesses have to be installed. The FAA has to inspect and approve every minute detail. The plane will return to Connecticut before the middle of November.  Just so happens I will be in Ohio at that time for a board meeting and will return with the Phenom. 

After yet another FAA inspection, the Phenom will be put into “service” with Diamond Air Charters, Inc., a charter aviation company in Danbury. The plane will be made available to anyone through flyDiamond.com. Federal Aviation Regulation Part 135 provides stringent standards — above and beyond what private ownership requires — to insure excellent safety, properly trained and experienced pilots, and regular inspections of all operational aspects of the aircraft and the business. Will the demand be there? Remains to be seen but I believe it will. The VLJ — very light jet or “microjet” — fills a niche that is getting harder and harder to fill by normal commercial aviation. The market segment I am referring to is traveling between small and medium sized towns and cities. 

If you need to fly between San Francisco and New York City, you can not beat commercial airlines — as of this writing $242 round trip with one stop. On the other hand if you want to go from Danbury, Connecticut to Roanoke, Virginia is costs $904 and takes seven and a half hours plus the time to drive to Laguardia and be there in time to park and get through security. In other words it takes a whole day to get there. The Phenom can go direct from Danbury to Roanoke in 80 minutes. Admittedly it is much more expensive, so it comes down to how much is your time worth. For many busy business executives their time is worth a lot. Being able to be in Roanoke in time for coffee, make a presentation, close a deal, and be home for dinner is very good from both a business and personal point of view. Roanoke is a random example — there are more than 5,000 general aviation airports, most of which are not accessible to commercial aviation but are accessible to very light jets. The U.S. Congress put a wet towel on aviation temporarily but there is another side to the story. See No Plane No Gain.

t was a pleasure to share the Brazilian Adventure in JetBrief and patrickWeb. Below you can find links to each of the stories and a printable document that includes all the stories.

  Day 1 – Flight to Brazil
  Day 2 – Intro to Sao Jose dos Campos
  Day 3 – Test flight and barbecue
  Day 4 – Squawks and the FAA
  Day 5 – FAA Redux
  Day 6 – Campos do Jordao
  Day 7 – Geocaching
  Day 8 – Departure and fuel
  Day 9 – Caribbean islands
  Day 10 – Florida to Connecticut
  Trip Summary
  Printable version including all the stories

Tags: Aviation, brazil, embraer, faa, JetBrief, phenom

Brazilian Adventure – Day 10

On the morning of Day 10 the three member crew — Captain Bill, Flight Engineer Mark, and assistant navigator John — departed Fort Lauderdale – Hollywood International Airporton the last leg of our 5,000 mile journey and climbed to 41,000 feet in about a half hour. From that point, we were able to fly non-stop to Danbury, Connecticut (KDXR) and land with 493 pounds of fuel on board. The range and performance of the Embraer Phenom 100 far exceeded my expectations. At cruise we were burning 76 gallons of fuel per hour. By aviation standards this is very efficient. Our speed varied but likely averaged above 375 mph. 

The winds aloft were highly variable with a constant crosswind from the west that reached as high as 137 knots. At times, we had a headwind component, and at times a tailwind component, with the overall average probably netting out to zero. However, the strong crosswind component required that the plane crab into the wind by as much as 19 degrees. This meant we were tracking northbound over the ground with our nose pointed west. Airplanes like to fly straight and the significant crab angle is not good for efficiency, making the non-stop performance all the more impressive.Once we got to the New York area, there were quite a few vectors due to traffic. We experienced moderate turbulence as we came down from high altitude and the winds on the field were gusting at more than 30 miles per hour. It was quite bouncy, but Captain Bill greased the plane onto the ground very smoothly. The Phenom 100 — tail # N784JP — continued on to Dayton, Ohio where it will spend a few weeks at Stevens Aviation for the installation of some additional features.

Speaking of Captain Bill, I must say that the services, advice, flight planning, and piloting skills provided by Bill Minkoff and Mark Stear of JetQuik were superb. I got to know them really well during our extended (partly unplanned) stay in Sao Jose dos Campos. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate them an 11. There is much to share about what happened between Day 1 and Day 10. Stay tuned.

There are quite a few pictures and movies of Embraer people and jets in the Picasa Web Album - there are many more and at some point I will get them organized.  Note that the Phenom tail # of the plane we flew back was PT-TGX for the first month or so of it’s life. (All Brazilian airplanes have a tail # starting with PP, PR, PT or PU. All American airplanes start with N, dating back many years to the Air National Guard.) An alcohol wipe of the engine covers on October 1 (Day 4) removed the PT-TGX letters and revealed the permanent tail # of N784JP.

Tags: Aviation, brazil, embraer, phenom

Brazilian Adventure – Day 9

A lot of flying would take place on this day, starting out from Belem, which we were all happy to leave and heading northwest along the coast of Brazil to our first stop which was at Georgetown, Guyana. We passed over the country of Suriname on the way.  Suriname is the only Dutch-speaking region in the Western Hemisphere that is not a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Georgetown is the capital and largest city of Guyana and it is situated on the Atlantic Ocean coast. Nicknamed the “Garden City”, Georgetown would be our launching point into the Caribbean. Now that we were out of Brazil the fuel prices began to get better.

The flight to St. Marteen – about 185 miles east of Puerto Rico —  was over the ocean but never far from an island — hundreds of them. Think of all the famous vacation spots and we flew over all of them. There have also been some famous movies and pictures of very large airplanes landing just barely above the beach at St. Maarten. Our landing was not that dramatic but it was a beautiful sight to see and Captain Bill greased the Phenom onto the runway as usual. The best part about St. Maarten was the fuel price — $2.55 per gallon, less than half of what we paid in Brazil. 

Taking off over the beach we headed straight for Florida 41,000 feet. It was hard to make out which island was which but the Bahamas were down there for sure. We landed in Ft. Lauderdale early in the evening and began the import, immigration, and customs processes. The customs agent looked the plane over but much to our surprise he did not go aboard and inspect. Once inside an agent requested passports and asked if anyone had a visa. Our friend and Brazilian pilot, Captain Rafael Silva did and after presenting it he was accosted by a highly uninformed, rude, and antagonistic customs agent.  There was something the agent did not like about the documentation and he berated Rafael for no reason and threatened him with fines and delays. I was so thankful to be back in America but highly embarrassed that such a crude person wore a uniform of the U.S. Government. The despicable treatment put a chill on the thrill of being back home. After the rants were over we loaded our bags into the Hilton van and headed to the hotel. We celebrated the return to the U.S. at the Crab Shack and introduced Rafael to something they don’t have in Brazil — Keywest Conch chowder.

Tomorrow’s posting will be a summary of the trip. Stay tuned.

Tags: Aviation, brazil, conch chowder, embraer, key west, phenom