Mustang Delivery Experience

I picked up my much anticipated Mustang in Wichita, KS on October 5-8, 2009. This was a demo plane that was fully paid for (financially delivered) in March 2009. So for six months, Cessna has had my plane and my money, while paying me a modest monthly fee. Needless to say, I was eager to get back one or the other.

Since I had never taken delivery of a jet before, and was unsure of wear and tear from demo usage, I hired Cyrus Sigari of JetAviva to help with the acceptance. JetAviva is primarily a broker for light jets including Mustang, CJs, and Embraer Phenoms. Cyrus previously worked as and engineer and has a huge amount of experience with all of these light jets, though had never accepted a demo plane prior. We reviewed his very detailed pre-acceptance plan over breakfast that morning and added a few items (0 g maneuver, satphone, etc.)

Most deliveries are performed at the union-free factory in Independence, KS. Cyrus suggested that we take delivery there rather than at the Service Center in Wichita, KS because of higher likelihood of parts availability. Cessna wanted the plane to stay in Wichita where the post-demo refurbishment was done. Given what happened over the next few days, Cessna should have followed Cyrus’s suggestion.

The morning at Cessna started off well enough. Cessna had some kind gifts, including a scale model of the real plane with accurate colors and tail number, leather jacket, etc. This was a very nice gesture but I was ready to get to business with the plane inspection and test flight.

The plane was in immaculate condition. It was so clean, even deep into the wheel wells, that you would never know it had about 300 hours and 400 landings. The appearance was truly factory new.

There were only a few minor squawks, such the torque seals on the gears and tension on the outer door latch. The headliner had a tiny scratch in it and the pilot visor was a little loose. We were ready to go on the test flight.

Cyrus was in the pilot seat. A Cessna test pilot was in the right seat, while I was in back. The test flight proceeded smoothly and again only minor items were found, such as the standby attitude indicator was 3 degrees off pitch compared to the PFDs. Cyrus purposefully does a few 60 degree bank 360 degree turns to load up 2g of force, as his experience has shown that this will shake loose some marginal items. For the same reason, the zero g push over was interesting. In the cabin, we kept everything strapped down while the two tray tables started to levitate.

After the flight, Cyrus and I examined the plane literally from bottom to top, using a creeper to check for any sign of leaks or deformation.

When we returned, we asked for two additional inspections from Cessna. We wanted a full FADEC download history. The FADEC download showed that one engine had had an ITT exceedance soon after manufacture prior to entry in demo service, but was still within tolerance (less than 5 seconds between 830 and 865 dC – it was only for 1 second). Also, since Cessna themselves had not followed P&WC conservative compressor wash schedule during the demo period, I wanted to borescope both engines to check for corrosion.

The borescope turned out to be a huge problem in terms of logistics. Even with all of the Cessna Wichita resources, they could not find a decent borescope as the lone good one was in repair. P&WC’s local representative had a good borescope but insisted that I sign an onerous agreement disavowing them of any responsibility whatsoever. Since this agreement was only between me and P&WC and did not involve any responsibility on Cessna’s part, I refused to sign as Cessna had operational control during the demo period.

The borescope easily cost us ½ day of wasted effort. By the time extensive discussions and meetings occurred, the good Cessna borescope was repaired and we no longer had to wait for P&WC. Fortunately the borescope showed no detectable corrosion but that’s not to say there isn’t any lurking.

Neil Singer, my mentor pilot arrived from Boston and joined us in the waiting game. Neil and I took our Mustang initial training together at Flight Safety Orlando a few months ago.

With the borescope out of the way, we planned for an afternoon departure to Los Angeles to fly Cyrus back home. Taking into account potential fatigue, we set a 4pm wheels up cut off time. Cessna went off to do a final engine run up and check.

The final run up failed. The FADEC has three redundant inputs to determine whether the plane is on the ground or not. One of the three did not agree. After various continuity checks and board swapping, Cessna determined, with P&WC disagreement, that the FADEC was bad. FADECs are highly reliable pieces of equipment and fail very rarely. Consequently, they are not a stock item, even in a large Service Center like Wichita. Had we been in Independence, another would have been easily available at least to swap in and try. So now a FADEC had to be ordered from Michigan and would not arrive until 1pm the following day (Wednesday). This problem caused us to lose yet another day.

Cyrus had to return to Los Angeles, so he flew back commercially on Wednesday. Neil and I waited until the FADEC arrived Wednesday afternoon. Of course when it was swapped out, the problem did not go away. So Cessna spent the evening swapping out boards until a combination of new fuel controllers resolved the issue. Around 11pm Wednesday night we received notification that all the issues were resolved and we would be good to go the next day.

As a precaution, the subsequent overnight shift also re-tested the plane and did additional run ups. They gave their blessing as well.

We planned for a departure Thursday morning. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate as there were low ceilings, thunderstorms, and icing up to the top of the clouds around 25,000’.

We started up and did as many ground checks as we could do, while waiting for a final lightning cell to pass over the airport. The engine run up was fine. The FADECs worked well. Everything in plane seemed perfect. With the Mustang RADAR scanning into the clouds, the passage looked clear, so we took off.

Climbing steadily through 15,000’ I shook Neil’s hand and congratulated ourselves on our successful departure out of Wichita, a day and a half late. Unfortunately our satisfaction was short lived.

Climbing through 18,000’, a CABIN DOOR message appeared on the Crew Alerting System. This was just like the training in the simulators at Flight Safety - low ceilings, a new CAS message, and shooting approaches. The checklist action is “Land as soon as possible” so we diverted back to Wichita and our favorite Service Center.

Soon afterwards, another CAS message appeared that both PFDs were on Air Data Computer 2. Though the checklist suggested simply switching back, we did not want to risk losing both ADCs in the clouds.

Air Traffic Control asked we wanted to declare an emergency but this was not necessary, especially as we descended quickly and pressurization was holding well.

The Service Center got right on the problem. When they adjusted the stiff door on Monday, they had put the door out of specification, so the CAS message was valid. It had only manifested at high altitude not during any of the ground checks. The ADC problem was a known G1000 transient issue.

After another set of ground checks, we departed once again. This time, the plane worked flawlessly and a 140 kt tail wind carried us home non-stop in 3:15.

Since then, the plane has been a flawless joy and wonder. It’s been an amazing machine during subsequent trips to Montreal, Teterboro, Las Vegas, and Orlando. I’ve flown it over 30 hours in just this first month.


Thanks to Bill and Charlotte, the Cessna customer service reps who gave their personal best and tried whatever they could to resolve these issues as quickly as possible.

Prouty Ultimate Double Century

Since I didn't run the Boston Marathon this year due to personal commitments, my charity / fitness event this year is the Prouty Ultimate, a double century (200 mi bike ride) July 10-11 in hilly New Hampshire.

Day 1 looks particularly challenging, with several steep climbs, especially near the end. Am I ready? Not quite, but with another tough weekend of training ahead, I hope to be.

How Not to Create a Video Photo Story

As dad, I have to prepare a 10-12 minute video photo story for my daughter's upcoming Bat Mitzvah. There must be a web site to do this, right? Upload a bunch of photos, select some music, click "Mix", and it's done. Well, I thought I found the perfect solution in Animoto, but it ended costing more grief and time lost.

Animoto has a slick UI and algorithm to make your photo story compelling. There is a large amount of royalty free music to use. 30 second videos are free. Anything longer is very reasonably priced at $3, including remixes. No subscription charges apply.

I did a couple of test videos and it looked easy enough. The results were certainly much more dynamic than Microsoft Photo Story V3.

However, when I started doing something more substantial I kept hitting issues and frustrations. So don't be lured into animoto's path - it'll just end up costing you more time and frustration.

There is insufficient control on the results. You can only add a spotlight to a specific picture. Other than you are completely reliant on Animoto's algorithm so there's no way to customize the transition or focus of a specific picture. You can't fiddle with timings to make one picture appear during a specific part of a song.

The $3 video is pretty poor quality - it's really just a draft, not even good enough for a web video in my opinion. You can get better resolution - 800x400 approximately, but you have pay $5 for this, every time you re-render. If a regular video is $3 with unlimited remixes, why charge $5 per hi-res render?

The hi-res results are MPEG-4, which can't be edited or imported by Windows Movie Maker (XP). Why not have an option to export to AVI or other format? I upgraded to QuickTime Pro for some simple editing, but that software is pretty useless. I did use the generally helpful Media-Convert site to convert .MP4 to .WMV, but Windows Movie Maker could not use the results.

Bottom line: if you're using XP, use Microsoft's free 5 year old Photo Story 3 and edit it with Windows Movie Maker. The price is right, and the results are easy to customize. Animoto is either a nice algorithm that should never be an attempt at a business, or a business that is lacking a more complete set of tools to get reasonably good results, even for a private short video.

Up Close and Personal with the Cirrus Jet

I was in Duluth, MN earlier this week picking up my 4 year old Cirrus SR22 from two months in factory rejuvenation. While waiting for the very competent service and paint guys to address squawks, I had the chance to get an Up Close tour of the new Cirrus Personal Jet (Vision, SF-50 or whatever the code name of the week is).

Here is are my impressions.

New Massachusetts Bike Law

All bikers and motorists in MA should be aware of the new Bike Law that was passed finally after many attempts. Spread the word!

Some highlights:

* Motorists can be fined for "dooring" cyclists.
* Motorists can't cut off cyclists after passing.
* Cyclists have full use of the lane and cannot be squeezed to the side by a motorist.
* A motorist is liable if they hit a cyclist riding on the shoulder.

This is all good news, as far as I am concerned.

Single Engine Jets - And the winner is...Cirrus

After talking with all the Single Engine Jet (SEJ) manufacturers at NBAA, it's pretty clear that Cirrus will be the dominant player in this space.

Product design is a series of trade offs and compromises. Cirrus has the best balanced single engine jet. I'm certain they will achieve their goals of not being the fastest or furthest or carrying the most load. They will provide the best value. Cirrus has already taken $100,000 unsecured, fully refundable, deposits on over 500 planes, far more than any other SEJ. They are selling to their installed base, which is the largest demographic likely to upgrade to SEJs. Most Cirrus owners, including me, are generally happy with the company and the products.

The Diamond DJet is still suffering through a major engine change, just months before certification. The cabin still feels too small.

The Piper Jet looks interesting. The cabin is heavily copied from the Meridian/Mirage line. They've added vectored thrust to counterbalance nose drop when power is applied. My biggest concern is Piper's financial depth to bring this product through certification and then support it effectively. While it is nice to have the choice to climb above virtually all weather at 35,000', prudent pilots should stay in the mid-20's in case of depressurization. I don't believe there will be an option for a whole airframe parachute.

The Eclipse 400, like the rest of the company, is a joke. The experimental prototype had better not be indicative of the final design since it is so small and cramped. It was hard to get real data on what the 400 will be.

I gave Epic a cursory glance. They have a diverse and exciting product line on paper. The planes look great on the ramp. How well they succeed in certification and in company strength is an open question at this time.

It's pretty clear to me that Cirrus will sell at least 1,000 or more SJ50s over the next few years. With numbers like that, will Cessna again miss this opportunity and again be forced to acquire a small player like Columbia in order to play catch up? How long will Cessna and Embraer stand on the sidelines?

Cirrus continues to be an innovative, exciting company to watch. They will be company who best fills the $1.5-2M market gap between top end single engine pistons under $1M and twin jets like the Mustang which cost over $3M.

NBAA 2008

Just returned from a busy 30 hours at NBAA in Orlando. While the economy is affecting so many sectors, especially commercial aviation, Business/Private/General aviation is generally doing well and will likely do so for several years to come, at least according to Honeywell.

For example, I stopped by the static displays at ORL where you can actually play with the planes. At the Gulfstream display, I checked out the mockup of the new G650. It goes for a cool $60M, and was only introduced in May. I asked the friendly Sales Engineer what the order backlog was. While Gulfstream does not make this public, it is "higher than any major league batting average, and sold out through 2018." Translation: something like 350-400 units. With a non-refundable deposit of $3M (the cost of a Mustang), the deposits alone are worth $1B.