The shape, youll see, is not simply for show, though ironically it shows very nicely. The caution terrain aural warning was sounding continuously as Villi maneuvered us to the left in visual conditions to fly around the hill, inconveniently placed on the extended certerline of the runway. | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Content Policy. It pulled the concept off. I think that it should be obvious to everyone here that comments by Mandarin Jet and a few others should be taken with a grain of salt. But it didn't help in the fact VNR was born in the Decade from hell. Operationally this company is in big trouble. Anyone interested in the truth can re-read Piaggio drivers 4 part post. Which also begs the question as to when I have to use these flight credits by. Chad, Gulfstream Aerospace Celebrates 25 G700 Speed Records, A New Pilot Gets an Accelerated Course in Flying, Your Ideal Aircraft Might Be the One That's Easy To Fly, FAA Documentation Concerns Halt Boeing 787 Deliveries, Piper Reports 15 Percent Rise in Aircraft Deliveries, Cessna Citation Special Olympics Airlift Set to Take Off, Photos: Arizona Storm Destroys Dozens of Airplanes. They are a public company and having your fleet grounded is a material issue yet they are not disclosing this issue as far as I can tell. Slightly heavy control forces in roll assisted me in flying this accurately. I followed Lorenzos example, if anything being a bit more aggressive with the speed decay. On climb-out, especially given the steep angle of attack of the impressive-climbing P.180, its hard to see much out front at all. Villi led a thorough guided tour of the outside of the airplane and explained all of its many unique features. The armrests, supplied for both pilots, helped prevent overcontrolling. First, with a far aft wing the engines two Pratt & Whitney PT6s in a pusher configuration can be mounted very far aft as well, which helps keep the interior noise low. We were cleared through 8,000 feet very quickly and then up to FL350, set up using the flight guidance panel (FGP) on the glareshield and appearing in cyan in the top right hand side of the PFD. That said both the plane and the company have been reliable for me for about 7 years. That said, they never even sent me a quote, which I got elsewhere for a king air (and a Lear 55, I am taking the King Air). Here is the sentence: We leveled off at FL350 19 minutes after takeoff, I left the torque at 75 percent, and allowed the Avanti to accelerate to Mach 0.64 with an indicated airspeed of 216 knots and a TAS of 373 knots. Grant has been flying the Avanti for years with thousands of hours of experience in the airplane, much of it under typical charterlike conditions. With regard to maintenance all you need to do is get an engineer to do you monthly checks and for the big ones send it to Dusseldorf. He's been flying for 10 years and is available for piaggio owners The engines have pneumatic boots on the intake combining with an engine particle deviator door to avoid ice entering the engine core and a warm bleed air supply to the engine oil cooler intake. I have only been an owner for a short time but the flights I have taken have been flawless;The pilots seemed happy and very professional. But that there are some management issues. Taxi steering was selected on the column switch, and the airplane moved easily at our ramp weight of 10,800 pounds. Because there is no overhead panel, I had sufficient head room to allow me to clumsily maneuver myself into position. Grant handled the radio tuning. A traffic target can be out of view in certain positions, at around 2 oclock for the left-seater or 11 oclock for the right-seater. We exited left at the end, and Lorenzo cleaned the aircraft up as I got my last chance to handle the Avanti Evo while we taxied back toward the ramp. As we climbed, the Vmo of 260 knots was displayed at the top of the speed tape on the PFD and the climb speed was maintained at 160 knots, reducing by one knot for every 1,000 feet above FL300. This, along with the airplanes great cabin and operating economies, has made the Avanti II the airplane that has helped create the remarkable success of charter and fractional operator Avantair, which operates 57 Avantis. I still recall going into one of the back hangers and see MX personal taking parts off of other P180s and putting them on other P180s. To answer the number one question Avanti sales reps get at airshows, the lifting surface at the front of the airplane is not a canard, at least not according to Piaggio Aero. The second engine was started and after-start checks completed. WebFlightSafety offers the only formal pilot and maintenance training programs available for the Piaggio P.180 Avanti, the Avanti II and the Avanti EVO. There is a lot owners don't know and it is shocking. Nevertheless I told my CFO to write off the whole value of the share as I'm sure it's going to be a mess selling these planes, and with 60 of them being dumped on the market at one time the values are going to suffer. Compared to the Avanti II it has redesigned nacelles, winglets, and a reshaped front wing, leading to a 3% reduction in emissions along with a 3% increase in climb performance. But this further action is necessary to ensure every aspect of our operation will allow us to reach the next level of safety and performance and exceed the highest industry standard, said Steven Santo, Avantair CEO. Of course we do. For private owners, charter customers and fractional owners, the big cabin is a major selling point. I love the Piaggio and Avantair has always been great to work with, but now I am concerned about my share and their financial situation. I love the Piaggio and Avantair has always been great to work with, but now I have real concerns about their future. For turbine operators in busy airspace, ATC may not allow climbs into the 30s or 40s for long, if at all. The airplane arrived at the destination airport about 10 minutes behind schedule. Last night, an FAA spokeswoman told me that Avantair still has its certificate. If Avantair does not make it through this we could probably partner of a cheap Piaggio. As it wraps itself around the pointy nose of the P.180, the windshield stretches out for several feet in front of the pilots and wraps back around them tightly. In ground idle and with power pulled back to idle, the airplane still has a tendency, like many turboprops, to get going too fast, so you need to use beta to keep things slowed down. departed the aircraft. Once there, I found the cockpit comfortable. If the fleet was grounded last saturday then why were pilots sent out assignments to fly? FlightAware General. Any altimeter setting mismatch is shown by a yellow line beneath the altimeter setting on the PFD, and the pressurized cabin is set to climb at 300 fpm. I can't speak for the maintenance personnel involved in this, but I know that the pilot and co-pilot were both fired for failure to perform a pre-flight check. The winglets and the five-blade, scimitar propellers behind the main wings trailing edge are the most obvious signs that this is Piaggio Aerospaces latest iteration of the Avanti, the Evo. If Avantair doesn't do this, FAA will shut them down. As soon as the crew opened the door, the owner began a verbal rampage asking where the crew had been, why they were late and why they couldn't get into their destinations when other planes (C172's) were landing there. Of course, with higher operating weights you wont be able to carry as much fuel or, hence, get as much range, though the truth is that most flights in a 400-knot airplane are less than 1,000 nm anyway, and with a thousand-mile range as the target, you can liberally load the P.180. Piaggio will also increase the Evo's maximum zero fuel weight (MZFW) to 10,200 pounds, up from 9,800 pounds. All rights reserved. Findings as to risk: Villi switched on the V-bar flight directors on the PFD of the Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 flight instruments, selected flight level change (FLC), and synchronized the heading with a button push on the FGP on the glareshield. This kind of range makes the P.180 a great bet as a regional airplane or one thats based in the Midwest. A lot of the airplane have recurring maintenance problems that just get put off until something really breaks and the airplane is grounded. Contact me at Atomicapril @ gmail.com. The airplane has been constantly improved over the past decade, with new interiors, higher max takeoff weight, higher Vmo and avionics upgrades galore. If materials were a conservative approach, configuration was not. The effect is a view that changes substantially as you point the nose up or down in various phases of flight. On first glimpse, the cabin interior is impressive, with a two-place bench seat opposite the door, a single sideways-facing seat on the same side as the door and four club-arranged seats leading to a full privacy toilet. We are confident we are laying the groundwork necessary to offer outstanding service and reliability going forward.. It was spot on. Willing to purchase them from you. source: Bill, I appreciate the info and your honest evaluation. In simpler terms, that means the engines maintain their 850 shaft horsepower to a higher altitude thereby increasing true airspeed of the airplane through the thinner air. The release I posted above came directly from Avantair media relations. This action is voluntary and involves the temporary stand-down of [our] aircraft, Avantair said in a statement. Because of the rake angle of the windshield, the glareshield is very deep and provides a perspective unique to the Avanti. Mr. Sabatini previously was the top career official at the FAA. He descended to 1,000 feet to position for a visual arrival to Runway 10 with a touch-and-go. The original $5.00 stock traded at .11 cents today, a loss of 98% of its value. How do I get out of my lease and is there an opportunity for owners to get together to take action? I am under a recent lease agreement. P180 Avanti Navigation. So last saturday I was scheduled to fly from Dallas to Las Vegas at noon. Landing the P.180, as Id heard previously, is interesting in that the attitude is very flat. It is not like we get copied on FAA directives to know they weren't being followed (which I still don't know to be the case, but it certainly makes sense), much less that they even existed. I just read about the one that flipped, but understand, it is only this issue that has me looking at ntsb reports, it is not something most fractional owners do before every flight. Passenger oxygen deploys at 13,000 feet. While canard configurations like the Beechcraft Starship were gaining a lot of attention back then, the exotic Avanti begged to be even more different with its three-lifting-surface arrangement versus the canards tail-forward setup. You need to check your facts pal, they offered voluntary leaves to avoid furlough up until recently a handful of people have been fired for the slightest error in judgement. I wont get into the details of it here, but suffice it to say Grant was busy with taking notes as I flew the airplane. This is a place worth fighting for and we will hope for the best. Mandarin.. Advertising of any kind is not allowed in our comments section. Now thats not bad for the performance you get (6 pax plus bags 1300-1500nm). Had this been a real emergency, flight deck oxygen masks are stowed outboard of each pilot seat, readily accessible. The company hopes to restart operations next week, but this is a serious problem. We continued to decelerate and shortly after selecting landing flaps, I turned toward the hillside on my left to line up with the runway as we passed through 600 feet. Your management sucks! This produced a rate of descent of just over 4,000 fpm, the maximum, as there are no flight spoilers and the gear limit is 180 knots. Technology and Comfort Sounds like they are on life support and being read their last rights. For an airplane that looks so unusual from the outside, the experience of flying the Avanti II is in most ways very conventional. Despite the fact that it took me a while to get a feel for the trim button theres a little activate button in the center of the trim hat the hand-flying was nothing short of delightful. Max cruise speed / 400 KTAS I managed the deceleration to approach speed with very small movements of the power levers and maintained final approach speed quite easily. Safety is Avantairs top priority. Takeoff over 50-ft obstacle (sea level) / 3,262 ft The company simply does not have the capacity to handle the demand and corners have been seriously cut to try to cover that demand with inadequate resources. The fuel penalty for flying in the 20s is not as extreme as it is in turbofan airplanes. It's because they MUST do it. Why wouldn't they do it maybe 5 aircraft at a time? So to Don, you dont happen to live in Vegas do you? Fastest Turboprop It was fast-paced fun, and once again I had to remind myself that there were props somewhere back there, especially when I noticed our initial rate of climb was pushing 3,000 fpm. I was pleasantly surprised at how nicely the Avanti II handles. Both flights continued to their destinations without further incident. The power levers were manually adjusted as we climbed to maintain 100 percent torque, shown on the engine indicating system on the top of the central multifunction display (MFD) in green. The plan for my flight was to climb to 30,000 up to the Wichita VOR to do something Id never done before, an RVSM check. Merry Christmas, kool-aid drinkers. First, the gear came down below 180 knots, then mid- and finally full-stage flaps and we were nicely stabilized at 500 feet. Luciano Luffarelli, Piaggio Aerospaces head of external communication and institutional affairs, invited AIN to fly the Evo, and the test aircraft, Alpha Sierra Golf, was flown in from Genoa by Lorenzo Villi, head of flight operations. During the descent, we briefed for some stalls, the handling qualities of which Villi was obviously keen to show me. Turboprops behave in certain ways, and jets in other ways, but the Avanti II is a true hybrid, a product that blends the best traits from two very different airplane categories to arrive at some third niche, which at present it occupies by itself. Some operators use a Garmin 430 mounted on the far left side of the panel. They caught a wing and oveturned, but everyone was safe. These were retracted as we accelerated toward 160 knots. I call it a three-surface design, with forward wing, main wing and tail. The forward wing (not to be called a canard, as it has no moving flight controls other than forward flaps) is positioned on the underside of a gracefully sweeping nose and is home to two pitot tubes underneath and, unusually in Western types, has a significant anhedral. Height / 13 ft 1 in I HOPE they make it but I'm already making plans for other options. Now, to the flight deck and our seats. He then lowered the seat and sat down. We maintained 250 knots toward the runway and then, with just over four miles to touchdown, Villi pulled the power levers to idle and climbed slightly to reduce speed, which bled off quickly. Being a turboprop, however, it uses a fraction of the fuel jets would use. The Avanti takes that formula and pushes it to the design edge, achieving that performance with a great deal less power than in comparable jet products and with the best cabin in the class by a long shot. Frequent heading changes are required to stay in the area and this allowed me to quickly get a feel for the Avanti. The foreplane is essentially a portion of the wing moved to the front to allow the main wing to be moved further aft in order to create a larger cabin. The Avanti II's efficiencies can reduce operating costs by as much as 40 percent, according to Bingham. While things have been dreary throughout the aviation industry for the past 5 years, Avantair was the only fractional airline that did not furlough or terminate pilots due to staffing reductions. WebThats why the Piaggio Aero P180 Avanti II is a green aircraft. A friend owns a In reality, the P.180 is a fast, sophisticated, high-flying airplane that requires the same kinds of skills and training as any single-pilot business jet. Piaggio can do it, too. Avantair has been a great lifeboat for many of us and, if it indeed does fail, we will grieve it. I stayed on the flight director as we climbed, quickly getting into IMC and getting rapid-fire climb-and-maintain clearances along the way. Whatever the outcome, it was and is an honor and a blast to serve our Owners and work with my fellow VNR employees. But as soon as Lorenzo released the back pressure and added power, the aircraft recovered and we were flying at 140 knots. WebAt approximately the same time, the Piaggio P.180 received a traffic advisory. The biggest problem I had was in remembering that I wasnt flying a jet and that mounted 30 feet in back of me, completely out of sight, were two turboprop engines. Management is out for their gain and don't care for the customers, after all it is the customers who legally own the airplanes, not the company. We are grateful for their understanding and patience as we work through this important process. It just so happens to be one of the most unusual looking ones too. If not pilots for a direct competitor that would benefit from a VNR no longer there, I would guess that they might be disgruntled former employees filtered out by VNR's well-known tough training program. I got an email at about 10:30 last night saying cancelled for the reasons stated in this email, with the same offer to find me a charter ay my expense. Several years ago I shared a King Air 200 with another company which was great until the partner got into financial trouble and couldn't pay their half. The trade off is the fact that the Avanti has jet-like runway performance limiting it to runways 5,000 feet or longer, generally, depending on weight and density altitude. 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