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Comment by anovikov | Hacker News Reader

Its speed and range specs are so poor that it is joke of a jet. It performs worse than many turboprops. Can totally see no point in owning this.

There are no 'real' jets below Embraer Phenom 100 $4M price tag, sorry. Cessna Mustang at $3.3M but it doesn't have 'real' toilet. Or Eclipse 550 at $3M but it has none at all.

There are aftermarket conversions of old Cessna Citations like Sierra, they start from $1M used or $2M new and provide a killer value compared to any of these, with 3000-4000km range, full size toilet and much bigger/comfier cabins.

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Those jets must be flown by two pilots. This one is designed for a single owner-pilot. That's a huge difference.

The Phenom 100 is single owner-pilot too.

Nope. All of the modern light business jets can be technically and legally flown by a single pilot. Any light jet that can't is dead on arrival, no one would buy it.

Other thing is that it is illegal to operate them (maybe not all and/or not on all markets, but most of the time for sure) with a single pilot while carrying paying passengers e.g. charter operations. But if you are an owner-pilot and fly alone or with your family - that's fine!

People who want to 'hack' a plane industry by producing a much cheaper and better light jet should calm down. There is no way to do it. This is not space industry, or car industry, which is dominated by deeply entrenched, century old, corrupt weary monopolies. Existing light jet builders know what they are doing and they work in a real market all the way (this is why Boeing or Airbus doesn't make them - they would have been unable to compete).

Have you ever heard of Charles H. Duell?

He was the Commissioner of US patent office in 1899. Mr. Deull's most famous attributed utterance is that "everything that can be invented has been invented."

By inventing new physics/materials/production processes which will allow to build say, jet engines with much hotter hot sections, resulting in quantum leap in efficiency? Sure, but all of these startups are using stock engines.

By inventing way to build airframes that are immune to both rusting and cracking and will require no X-rays or other (costly and time-consuming) inspections? Sure, people will jump on it! It will be a game changer. But no one seems to be trying.

But not by simply fixing the broken business processes, the way Elon Musk did it with space rockets - building essentially same planes, but 'better'. Because in the world of private jets, things are not broken, that is a real competitive market.

> if you are an owner-pilot and fly alone or with your family - that's fine!

If you are that, please check your ego at the door. One story among many about a man who killed himself, his entire family, and a couple of his neighbors by being unwilling to admit the weather was too bad to be flying.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2017/01/01/div...

The difference doesn't seem huge, not considering the price. Phenom [0] vs Vision [1]

Phenom:

- Price: $4M

- Capacity: 1 pilot, 7 passengers

- Cruise Speed: 750 km/h

- Range 2,182 km (4 x 200lb people)

Vision:

- Price: $2M

- Capacity: 1 pilot, 6 passengers

- Cruise Speed: 556 km/h

- Range 1,111 km (6 x 200lb people)

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_Phenom_100

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Vision_SF50

Half the range cuts you off from many markets. See, range below some 700km is better handled by a helicopter than a jet because of the time it takes to get to and from the airport. There isn't so much market between 700 and 1100 km ranges... And the speed is ridiculously low - typical for turboprops say Pilatus PC-12.

And as others have pointed, it is really an abuse of jet engine. Operating it at this speed and altitude means deeply sub-optimal fuel use. The thing will be costly and scary (one engine) to operate.

I don't think this will get anywhere at all. It is much worse than even the Eclipse, that offered a much better plane at a similar cost (1.5M initially in 2007 dollars ~$2M now), and still bankrupted. And there are many more good light jets on the market now than in 2007.

700km is around 2 hours with a high speed train.

There are railway stations in every city center and it doesn't take an hour trip to get to it, contrary to an airport.

I don't know which land you're from, but in the US (I assume the main market) almost all trains have a max of 177 km/h [0]. There are about 4 lines in western Europe that go faster than 300 km/h [1].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#/media/File:Hi...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#/media/File:Hi...

I am from Europe.

Well, your trains are terrible. Our have a cruise speed > 300 km/h.

So am I.

If you check the second map from my previous comment it's of Europe from 2011 [0].

There were 5 >300 km/h trains, and 4 of those are in France.

But I think the market they're aiming at is more US - it's more sparse than Europe and more normal to travel long distances.

Nevertheless if someone was rich enough to own one and based themselves in Switzerland - with a range of 1000km you can get as far as Madrid, Malmo, any where in Italy and nearly Greece. With 2000km (which it is capable of) you can go anywhere in Europe in one go - no changing trains.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#/media/File:Hi...

The speed isn't ridiculously low compared to the Phenom is the only point I was making, certainly considering that it's half the price.

The range can be extended to 2,200 km if it's just one person flying.

I know very little about this - but casual Googling suggests helicopters aren't necessarily better.

This Quora answer from 2015 [0], suggests $6m for the Augusta 109 [1], that has range of 982 km but has a speed of 285 km/h.

So that is 3x the price for half the speed?

[0]: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-private-helicopter-to...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AgustaWestland_AW109

Turbine engines are horribly inefficient at low altitudes and speeds. This engine is totally mismatched for its real application.

It has a 8500m/26,000ft service ceiling....thats low altitude?

yes it is.

I mean this with sincere curiosity - why do the toilets dictate the 'realness' of a jet?

weak bladder

Definitely. There is no potential for charter operations for a plane with no toilet. Many companies learned it the hard way trying to operate the Eclipse. With no charter market, plane is dead because there are never enough hobby pilots to buy it to pay back sunk costs. For low-range flights <600 miles where operating without toilet is feasible, helicopter works better.

The way I understand it growing up, if you can fly further than a normal human can wait to go to the restroom, you probably need one on board.

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