So you are a small business, with an owner who also flies. You want to be
able to fly for business and you don't want a corporate aviation department
'cause you cant afford one. For most smaller businesses or just rich guys
that want to make their privates look larger, they can buy a jet, like a
baby Cessna and make the guys at the country club turn green, but that cost
real bucks, not just to own, but to feed. So you buy a King Air, which is a
nice flying aircraft that can go lots of places the baby jet can't, uses a
whole lot less fuel and costs a whole lot less in maintenance. Common stage
lengths are less than the range of the aircraft, and in shorter stages, the
100 mph or so deficit for the king air makes little difference in overall
trip length, as to and from plane and loading and unloading and such are a
bigger factor. If you don't have limitless amounts of money, it's easy.
Also, corporate flight departments are a good customer but only a small part
of the customer base. If you are a corporate department, that means that you
probably own more than one aircraft, then both King Airs and Citation tens
are a part of the inventory, but baby Cessna jets are not. The meat and
potatoes of the business jet market are companies that own a single plane,
and base it at the local FBO, and either have someone in the company that
can fly, or pilots on contract or found at the FBO. It's unlikely that these
most common customers are interested in NY-LA flying or transatlantic
flights.
Jets aren't like cameras The engineers that design them don't throw
something for everyone in them, they have the "horses for courses" thing
down better than the camera designers, or are better able to resist the
demands of the marketing people. But I guess if Avanti's were that big a
thing, the skies would be full of them. Or, the Avanti subassembly factory
that was once here in the air capital would still be open.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Norton
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 1:27 PM
To: Olympus Camera Discussion
Subject: Re: [OM] IMG: A Few Interesting Airplanes
What's the Avanti's range? How does it compare with a King Air?
It's about the same as a King Air 200/250. Around 1700 miles, minus
IFR reserve offset. The 350 (especially the ER version) is a different
animal for range.
But the problem is that the Avanti is a pretend jet. As a pretend jet,
it needs to compete with the jets. While the small jets are in that
same range, the cabin and feature set of the Avanti puts it in the
midsize jets which have longer legs. It has found a niche competing
against the King Air 250 and 350, and the Jungle Jets, but it is
lacking in the long legs because it has to stop to refuel along the
way, which ends up adding enough time to the run that it defeats the
purpose of flying private or charter in the first place and you lose
out, cost-per-mile, to the jets. As long as you are flying anywhere in
the country from interior city to interior city, it's fine, but
coastal to interior is tight, and coastal to coastal is out. To do the
North Atlantic run, it's big problem is that it needs to be running in
the tracks, but it's too slow to run in the tracks, and it can't
anyway, because it has to make a stop in Newfoundland and Iceland.
One could say that it shouldn't matter, because that is the realm of
jets. That's true, but it also means that a corporate flight
department has to have both types of aircraft. Fine if your
organization is big enough, but for a small company that can't afford
both, it means having to charter or outsource to the airlines or
freight companies.
AG
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