Swedish Blender

Not a corporate guy but I fly out of Anchorage. We just had 125knots on the tail coming back from Asia earlier this week. It will probably be worse in winter and right on your nose which will make a long flight even longer.

May not be a bad idea to go to HNL. Weather will be better and if the plane has a maintenance issue on your stop, you’re in Hawaii vs Alaska in the winter.

galaxy flyer

With those kind of winds, your Citation flight is stopping in Petropavlovsk, 1900nm from ANC. You might make Sakhalin Island. I’ve operated st China with a Challenger and stopped at Khabarovsk, but that too far inland for TYO.


Gf

PT6 Flyer

And from HNL to NRT (or HND) there are MAJ, PNI, TKK, GUM, SPN if you need to stop. From GUM you could even hop-scotch to the Philippines if you needed to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuPKFg4S6Mc&t=103s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKZZQP207SI

galaxy flyer

GUM is probably beyond the westbound range of a X—3200nm great circle, but MAJ is a good tech stop.

GF

RRonin

Thanks for the intel. I suspected as much. I think we may have to route through HNL. I can probably pick up a show there if we do it right. It'll give the band the excuse to go hunt own Don Ho! LOL!

RRonin

I've had more than one pilot tell me that winds would be an issue. And since I don't really wanna puddle jump to Tokyo, perhaps journeying a bit south to HNL is a better route. I'm almost happy to hear this as I didn't like the prospect of WINTER on a small jet... LOL!



You guys rock. I'm learning a lot! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

RRonin

While I hope to NEVER make THAT trip, it was certainly entertaining. The only good thing about hopscotching your way across on that trip would be the Scotch! LOL!

RRonin

I'm thinking that while it's going to be more expensive, the best route for us will be SEA-HNL-Tokyo. Not sure which airport yet, but I'm sure that you guys will give us the best idea.



Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with me. It's appreciated.

awax

On the purely economic side,

8 pax * $7,000 per pax with a lay flat seat (SEA-HND round trip on Delta)

$56,000

(United shows SEA-SFO-HND for 8 pax business class at $37,500 RT, FYI)

Citation X hourly operating cost according to AOPA is about $4,000/hour. Maybe you can do better with a charter company. From Seattle in the winter the best case is 8+ hours, with a tech stop it'll be longer, obviously.

$4K per hour x 16 hours (round trip)

$64,000

It'll take longer and you won't be able to sleep, but if going by private jet is important, my WAG makes it seem like it'll be at anywhere from a $8K-$26K premium with a sacrifice on lay flat for all pax.

The best advice I've seen in this thread is call a charter company and get a quote. As for finding a flight instructor, I'm not sure what the threshold is for having to jump through TSA hoops, but you may encounter that as well.

https://www.pprune.org/biz-jets-ag-f...itation-x.html


https://www.aircraftcostcalculator.c...ting_costs.pdf

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=SEA-HND...&EV=370&EU=kts

RRonin

Thanks for the advice. One of the reason for the private aircraft in the first place is the value of the cargo on board. I'm traveling with several vintage guitars that are extremely valuable and impossible to replace. TSA and airlines are notorious for destroying musical instruments or having them just disappear into thin air.



And I might be mistaken but I'm under the impression that sleeping on the X+ or the G450 is anything but uncomfortable. Both aircraft have lay down seating and the G450 has "night mode" where sofas and seats turn into beds. Am I wrong in this assumption?