Encore, XLS and Phenom 300 @ Netjets
 

Looks like a buddy has an upcoming Netjets interview. On the other aviation board someone from Netjets mentioned the majority of people in a recent class got placed in the XLS, Phenom and Encore. Having never flown any of these myself, can people provide comments about life on these fleets at Netjets? Buddy is not large or overweight - maybe 5 ft 9 inches and 160 lbs (I know all of those aircraft are tight up front). And yes, he is aware of the continuing contract negotiation challenges and management issues.

What are the pros & cons of each of these fleet types? How often will you fly on each fleet? If you fly one of these types, what do you like and dislike about it?

PMs also welcome.

Doesn't really matter as you will have no choice in aircraft assignments. All fleets work hard right now. Obviously it is nice to have an APU. In the fractional world you can really only upgrade owners so the bigger the plane the more you fly but like I said all fleets are busy. Upon hire you are locked into your fleet for 39 months.

That's not really true about only upgrading owners. Yes, if the company is put in that position, then an equal or upgraded plane is necessary. However, there are many, many times where the owner of a larger plane requests a downgrade for a trip where flying the larger plane is unnecessary.

I've only flown the XL at NetJets, so I can't give you much perspective about other fleets.

The XL(S) is the largest fleet. If the one you are flying breaks, there's another one not too far away. It is a busy fleet. In the past it was one of the busiest, but with new pilots coming aboard, it doesn't seem as bad as it was.

If you like long, boring legs, this is not the fleet for you. My quarterly reports show average legs are about 75 minutes and I average about 2.5 legs per day over the long term, but 5 leg days are not all that unusual. The XL flies a good mix of big airports/small airports and even after all these years, still go to places I've never heard of/been.

The XL's baggage compartment is a good-news/bad-news deal. The bad news is that passengers count on the large capacity and bring huge amounts of stuff that have to be loaded/unloaded. The good news is that when 2 SUV's show up, there's a place to put it all without having to tell the pax that it has to be shipped Fedex/UPS.

It has an APU, but the cockpit is still quite hot on summer days on the ground.

The airplane was never designed for NetJets' operation. It has drain masts that split your skull when you go to open the baggage compartment, the baggage door has a key-lock and four latches that have to be done/undone for baggage access, the cabin is "stand-up, if you're not too tall, everything in the cabin and cockpit is "dinky" and easily broken. A lot of the maintenance write-ups involve items that were under-designed for hard usage. If you can imagine a C-172 being used like a Greyhound bus....that's NetJet's XL fleet.

It's certainly the worst flying airplane I've ever flown. Some guys love it....take your pick. Switches in the cockpit are counter-intuitive and the cockpit layout is not conducive to smooth crew coordination. The automation is, by today's standards, pretty bad. There's no tiller and the brakes work differently on the XL and the XLS. Autopilot is primitive, no WAAS and the FMS is very quirky and takes time to learn all the traps. The two position stabilizer (or, as I prefer to call it, de-stabilizer) takes getting used to and was obviously added as a "fix" after the airplane was designed. Having said that, the XL fleet would still be my first choice because of the trips it flies and the pilot group is largely without a lot of....er, "characters".

Mooneymite,

Great review! Exactly the level of detail and opinion that is helpful to people on these boards. Would love to see comparable reviews of the Phenom and Encore from Netjets pilots - or other XL/S opinions.

The best thing to tell him is its random but they all pay the same, the class on 3/9 was split up in the following way:

CE-680 - 7
CE-560EP - 2
CE-560E - 2
EMB-505S - 8
H800XP - 4

I have been on three fleets, I prefer the bigger fleets as its less work doing a transcon and maybe another flight, not 5 legs with three of them passenger legs. Its really whatever they can fit into 14 hours of duty. During the interview he will probably have a chance to take a look at some of the airplanes when they show you around CMH hangar. Whatever fleet he is assigned to it will be longer than 39 months before he will hold a bid to something else, 90% of the seniority list is off seat lock and the company isn't putting out any substantial bids, unless you get displaced. I believe the training in the CE-560XL is backed up so the next class will likely have some XL slots.

The Phenom has the same mission and capabilities as the Excel, so trips will largely be the same as listed above. It has an equally large baggage area as well. It has very modern avionics, FADEC engines, conventional swept-wing handling, and the autopilot does a very good job compared with the Excel. Cabin cross section is small but the pax seats have plenty of legroom. The cockpit is small but you can make certain adjustments in cruise to stretch your legs. Additionally, you can display charts on the panel so there's very little fumbling with the ipad in the cockpit. There is no electric cabin heat so the only way to get warm in the winter is to run an engine. I used to fly the Excel, overall I miss the larger cabin but that's about it.

The mighty XL is certainly unique, but the trip variety is attractive, it's the only corporate jet I have ever flown,mooney mite was pretty spot on.

Encore Fleet
 

Hi everyone, I was in the 02/09/15 new hire class and was assigned to the Encore fleet. I'm currently awaiting IOE. Could you shed some light on QOL, mission, etc. For the fleet I'm assigned to? Thanks!

So we're the bigger airplanes awarded to the higher seniority in the class or just randomly?