Hi, I am new to the world of very light jets and quite interested in the SF50. I am also not a pilot. What I am looking to explore is if I can have access to a Vision Jet to get between East Bay, Northern California (Concord / OAK are closest airports) to Salt Lake City around 10 rounds trips a year. Stays are typically 3-4 days max before returning. I would be highly interested if there is an owner looking for a thoughtful minority owner that would allow me to access the plane and share costs. If there is either an existing owner or potentially a partnership that could make sense, I’d welcome the discussion. Please do call or email. Regards, Andrew
Please DM me here and we can find time to speak if there is interest.
Hi Andrew, fist thing first… Find a good school near you and start training for your PPL, then IR, then do some flying to build up some time. Eventually there should be more (or at least one!) SF50s available in the Bay Area that could offer instructional flights as well, but count on $1500 to $2000 an hour. It is already very hard to just find typed CFIs around here… Be patient, committed and perseverant.
Your post doesn’t spell out whether you have in mind training to pilot the aircraft yourself, or if are you open to hiring a professional pilot. And are you new to general aviation? Or only to VLJ’s?
Since you started with “I am not a pilot” and “I want a piece of jet”, I expect there are a bunch of eyebrows raised wondering if you might need some assistance knowing what questions you should be asking besides “how much?”
Legend has it that Elon Musk showed up at the flying club many years back wanting to learn how to fly, but starting out in a LearJet. Non pilots don’t necessarily know that’s not how it’s done.
Andrew, appreciate you writing me and thoughtful advice on the note. I am not from aviation nor even looking to be a pilot. COVID has changed the world for us or at least our fear to fly this route (east bay to SLC) 10 round trips a year. I have been investigating charter which is incredibly expensive and a bit overkill in a safe plane that gets us there. It’s what lead to me learn about smaller planes such as the SF50. My thought which may be an incredible long shot is someone owns a plane or wants to own a plane and me being a minority partner or a proper dry lease could work where I then find a pilot willing to make trip and ideally we dock plane there for the typically 3-4 day stay and I make arrangements to fly the pilot back and forth or if economical the plane back and forth each time.
Anyway, appreciate your advice and I may be trying to find a needle in a haystack of a situation that could work.
It’s not really an unrealistic or impractical idea. My company does exactly this (management and pilot support of light turbine aircraft). Unfortunately the Bay Area is well outside of our area of operation- but it wouldn’t surprise me if a local service may be able to make things work for you.
Thanks Nach. My trip is between East Bay to Salt Lake which is around 550 miles. I did see their site but the much smaller plane for 4 of us and over 3 hours seemed a bit much for the trip. I very much appreciate your advice.
May I suggest upgrading to full a membership, you will have access to a vast wealth of information and your posts will only be viewable to full COPA members.
There are only two categories open to you as a Guest member, and the information contained within these categories pales in comparison to the over one million posts on the member side.
(The vast majority of COPA Members won’t post in the open categories, mainly for the reason you stated.)
Andrew have you considered flying in a Cirrus SR22T part 135 (charter). Will be a longer flight than in an SF50, but you only want to fly 10 times a year.
I have a hangar at OAK and I’m interested in a SF50 partnership, but I can’t send private messages on the COPA forums yet. If you see this and are still interested, shoot me a message at kyle@kyleharmon.com (hopefully listing my email is allowed).