So I've been doing some research on these newly emerging VLJ's like the Phenom 100, 300, CJ1, and Eclipse 500. Dayjet is planning to operate more than 1000 VLJ's within 5 years and Avant Air and Flight Options has orders for Phenom 100 and 300s respectively. So my question is, would you as a pilot be "happy" flying one of these babies till you hit 65? This idea is contrary to the popular belief that a pilot would be most satisfied if he/she would retire flying a wide body. Money is not that of an issue since you can easily git 6 figures by the time you retire and the QOL is much better than most majors and legacies (so I hear). I would like to hear some thoughts about this.

 

QOL advantages are there for VLJ pilots...home every day, probably never leave their own time zone. There are some downsides...

- No travel bennies

- 5 days on, 2 off in VLJ's. I get 4 on, 4-6 off at a regional.

- Economics...I doubt that 1-3 paying pax will ever be able to support a payscale better than a regional, and probably not even that. I understand they are paying OK now, but that's startup operations where they expect to lose money. Will they ever be able to earn enough to pay 2 real pilots? I have always thought that the biggest hole in the VLJ concept was the fact that, however tiny, they are turbojets, and will need real pilots to get insured (and the owner-operatots will need babysitters). Six figures by the time you retire is nothing...many college grads are starting at $70K, and getting six figures by age 30.

I'm sure it will work well for some pilots, but if they put thousands and thousands in service, they will have trouble finding people to fly them I think.

 

I really don't know how Dayjet is paying 2 pilots to fly those things, not to mention Eclipse still isn't FIKI or RVSM(last I checked, updates anyone?)

Where you'll actually make money flying a VLJ is part 91, single pilot. Two pilots in these things just take away too much from it's useful load in my opinion.

 

The only proven design so far is the Mustang. Pretty slick little plane.

 

Good luck with insurance on that...not going to happen for a commercial operator (which would have to be 135 anyway). The VLJ commercial operators have always said they will use two pilots.

The only folks who will get insured to fly VLJ's single-pilot are going to be owner operators...who happen to be FDX CA's. Most owner-operators will require a baby-sitter.

 

The operator I was working for, who had #4 of the E-500 on order, was going to be approved insurance-wise for single-pilot ops. So I guess it's just how you work it, but still seems to be overkill. Insurance companies are our own worst enemies.