Posted on 06/24/2017 5:36:09 AM PDT by KeyLargo
How Private Jet Travelers Were Still Flying Despite The Heat In Phoenix
Doug Gollan ,
Contributor
I write about luxury travel from private jets to experiences
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
If you tuned on the news this past week you learned this time there were no “tapes” and that airplanes sometimes can’t fly in extreme heat. Nearly 50 flights by American Airlines were canceled, impacting thousands of passengers when temperatures at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport approached 120 degrees. While thousands of airline passengers were being inconvenienced by weather as happens to tens of thousands of flights per year, private aviation fliers in many cases were getting where they were going ahead of schedule.
In some cases, even when flights can operate in extreme heat, particularly at higher altitudes, to fly, the planes can’t take off at their normal maximum takeoff weight thresholds. Instead, airlines need offload passengers or luggage and sometimes both until they get down to a safe takeoff weight.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Fractional ownership and other private jet ptions are extremely expensive.
It is like suggesting that rather than drive your won car every day to work you should get a party bus and sleep comfortably until you get to work.
Who knew? Thank goodness for this article or I'd never have realized that.
I took off from Parker in Arizona in a 172 on 4th of July weekend 1992 heading for Burbank through the desert route, it was 126 degrees on the ramp, we climbed out at at a blistering 150fpm and did not reach altitude until Goffs!!! at 7500 ft msl the outside air temperature was still 85 degrees! Density Altitude can be a Killer!
I learned my lesson long ago about density altitude when taking off from an Arkansas airport short runway 90 degree heat in a Cherokee 140. I should have departed in the morning cooler air. The extra cooler full of caught fish didn’t help either.
Anyway, I maneuvered around the big trees at the end of the runway and sweated milking it clear of the branches.
I should have written a ‘Never Again’ story about that experience.
my instructor beat into my head ‘time to spare, go by air’
High on my list of “Why am I still alive?” is the event I call “The day I learned what ‘Macon reporting thunderstorms in all four quadrants’ meant”.
The coastal media elites don’t understand what they have done to the middle class.
This appears to be straight along the lines of: ‘Can’t afford bread? Let them eat cake’. - Can’t afford first class on the airlines? Rend a private jet.
I was in Alice Springs Australia for a weekend and checked out the travel options to go see Ayers Rock. The local travel agency said there were two. A bus which took 5 or more hours and gave you and hour or two at the site after which you returned on another 5 hour plus ride. It cost about $100 Australian dollars. The alternative was flying in a small plane which would take an hour or so each way and you had most of the day to explore the site on top of being able to fly over the site as well. It cost about $400 Australian. I took the plane. I wanted to at least enjoy the experience and the bus didn’t seem too much fun.
If multi million $$$ contracts are involved and ESPECIALLY if 2 or more people are flying, then private @ $5-$10K an hour can be well worth it.
Time is money.
Time checking in.
Time going through TSA
Time waiting to board
Time boarding
Time waiting for flight delays
Time in flight
Time landing and deplaning
Time waiting for your bag
Time getting to and from a busy airport.
For a time conscious exec., on a commercial plane that is mostly all useless down time.
On a private jet, they can fly into a smaller, less congested and closer airport. Park the car, or get dropped off and 5-10 minutes later, be wheels up.
While on the plane, if co workers are with, details can be gone through or phone calls can be made (unable on commercial).
Plane lands goes right to its area and 5-10 minutes and you're in your ride, leaving the airport.
Flying ORD-LHR, first class, Depending on when you book, that flight might be $4480, a month from now, to $8643 within the next 2 weeks.
8 people could cost $68k flying commercial. $80k in a G450.
If the company owns its own jets and flies regularly, it's much, much less expensive. $3k an hour for fuel. 8 hour flight = $24k in fuel, plus airport taxes and fees for landing.
No mention of co$$$$t
The article is directed at Company CEOs and their company travel decision makers and not us ordinary schlubs. 
You need a VSI calibrated in furlongs per fortnight.
Post of the day!
“Density Altitude can be a Killer!”
Density Altitude IS a Killer!
Between 1975 and 1981, I lived and flew out of Flagstaff, AZ, which is 7,000 feet above MSL.
In the summer, density altitude IS a problem, and it was not unusual for “flatland furriners” to get in trouble. There were a few fatal accidents in that 6 year time span, and more than one aborted take off! All due to DA!
At a certain level you are right. If I had a company and it required reimbursed international travel built into the contract I would DEFINITELY look into fractional ownership.
Also if I had a company that required key executives to go
somewhere together and I didn’t have a company plane, as in your example, chartering makes more $$ sense.
But for 99.99% of people, that really isn’t an option. The article is just an advertisement for chartering or fractional ownership and I have seen similar ads that were actually flagged as ads.
Up until about a year ago I flew weekly for the prior 15 years. My annual flight expenditures were around $30K — not near enough for this option.
I know that
I have never been drug from an airline. I did manage to get a jack hole taken off by police. I had a reserved seat he was stand by. Didn’t go well for him
At a local military base next to my work, on a very hot summer day, a load master didn’t compensate for the hot thin air. The helicopter pilot got the rotors up to speed, and “jumped” up and forward before he realized he didn’t have enough lift. Helicopters can store a huge amount of energy in the rotors, and use it to do things the engines can’t sustain. He put the stick straight up to stay off the ground, but he didn’t have enough to pull back and stop the forward motion, or enough to gain any altitude. He wound up flying ten feet over parking lots and playgrounds for a half mile before finally being able to skid in to a safe landing in a baseball field.
Dale Dye, a decorated retired Marine, used to have a regular show o KFI L.A. He hated helicopters with a passion.
He often repeated the old adage that “helicopters don’t fly, they just beat the air into submission.”
What happened to that pilot is an example of the accuracy of that statement.
:)
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