The Kalmbach portfolio is highly synergistic with Firecrown. 

Firecrown proudly stands as one of the leading transportation media providers, serving the aviation, boating, and logistics industries with renowned brands such as FLYING, Boating, Yachting, Salt Water Sportsman and FreightWaves. 

The acquisition includes Trains, Model Railroader, Classic Toy Trains, Classic Trains, Garden Railways, and Trains.com, the space enthusiast brand Astronomy, as well as FineScale Modeler, Kalmbach Books, and its digital e-commerce stores. 

The rail titles fit perfectly in the Firecrown portfolio and the breadth of experience of our staff. 

Trains.com is the world’s most trafficked railroad news and entertainment website, and the print magazines in its portfolio are the most read in the category. In recent years, Trains.com has built an extensive video portfolio, tailoring content around the love of trains and model railroading. 

Kalmbach has deep ties in the railroad community, having published magazines and books about railroads and model trains for over 90 years. There isn’t a deeper connection in the rail enthusiast community than the one that Kalmbach built. The Firecrown staff will work diligently to continue and build on that connection moving forward.

Additionally, the rail and aviation communities have a great deal in common. Besides the obvious—both being transportation modes and having similarities in business models—the enthusiast audience is vast in both categories. We believe that “railfans” and “avgeeks” are kindred spirits. 

With the acquisition, Firecrown plans to invest significantly in Trains’ business editorial coverage, increasing the cadence and depth of coverage of the rail industry. FreightWaves, one of Firecrown’s brands, provides a playbook to help achieve this. 

There will be a substantial increase in daily update videos, news content and analysis, virtual events, and business analysis for the rail industry, modeled after the FreightWaves media brand’s success covering the logistics industry. 

Firecrown also becomes the new owner of Astronomy, the largest magazine serving the space community. Published for over 50 years, Astronomy has become the go-to source for amateur and professional astronomers. 

Firecrown plans to retain all of the editorial and content resources of the former Kalmbach Media brands and open a new office in Wisconsin to accommodate the teams currently working on them. 

“We are excited to have found a new home for these storied and well-respected brands,” said Dan Hickey, CEO of Kalmbach Media. “While these are always difficult decisions, it is great to know that their stewardship moving forward will be under the guidance of a company and leader dedicated and passionate about their continued growth and expansion.” 

An Exciting Time for ‘Astronomy’ 

The emphasis on space exploration has created massive interest in all things space. This is expected to increase as private companies and government agencies accelerate the second “space race.” 

Amateur astronomy is also experiencing a renaissance as new digital telescopes come to market. Telescope and astrophotography manufacturers are introducing smart telescopes that make the hobby more accessible and enjoyable than ever. 

These new technologies have enabled even the most inexperienced astronomers to take photos of deep-space objects such as nebulas, galaxies and clusters—all with a button on an app. 

More impressively, these digital telescopes built for amateurs rival and often exceed the capabilities of professional telescopes, which can cost 100 times more. This is the Instagram generation’s answer to astronomy. 

Astronomy may seem like an outlier to Firecrown’s portfolio, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The aviation and space communities have a substantial overlap. 

Pilots and aviation enthusiasts are often drawn to the cosmos, dreaming of space flight and exploration. Firecrown plans to broaden Astronomy’s coverage of space exploration and anticipates significant collaboration between the FLYING and Astronomy editorial teams. 

Over the past three years, FLYING has rapidly expanded its editorial coverage of space flight and exploration with great success. 

Some of the most trafficked stories on FLYINGMag.com are about space exploration and missions. This is a huge opportunity to make space a core focus of our portfolio. 

E-commerce 

Kalmbach has expanded beyond media to include e-commerce in the past few years. It has two media properties, one focused on railroad hobbyists and the other on the astronomy community. As part of this transaction, Firecrown is acquiring both. 

Firecrown plans to expand the product lineup at Kalmbach’s hobby store (which will be rebranded) to include a greater selection of railroad-fan merchandise. 

Firecrown has even bigger plans for the astronomy e-commerce operation, MyScienceShop.com.

This past February, Firecrown acquired the largest e-commerce store for NASA collectibles, the Space Store. The plan is to merge MyScienceShop into the SpaceStore, creating a “space enthusiast superstore.” 

The product lineup of the two e-commerce stores is very different. 

MyScienceShop has focused on products that enable space enthusiasts to explore and express their curiosity about the science and love of space. In contrast, the Space Store provides high-quality collectibles for the NASA and space mission community. By merging two properties and products into a single entity, the Space Store will have the largest selection of space-focused products anywhere in the universe. 

To Me, This Whole Transaction Is Personal 

I love all things transportation—trucks, airplanes, boats, and trains. 

I’ve always been fascinated by how people and products move. This is really in my blood. While I grew up around trucks, I also had a deep love for trains. I’ve built my share of model railroad layouts and even had the chance to work around the rail industry—first in intermodal operations at U.S. Xpress and then through my work at FreightWaves.  

But that isn’t even the most exciting part of this whole deal. 

This transaction takes me back to when I was a young kid. My love of transportation is only matched by my passion for astronomy. The first two magazines I ever subscribed to were FLYING and Astronomy. 

Each of the Firecrown brands reflects not only my passions but the passions of each employee. We will work to give our audiences the best reporting, information and merchandise available.

The post Firecrown Media Grows Again with Addition of ‘Trains,’ ‘Astronomy’ appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

PlanePrice uses pricing assessments from a combination of private and public sources using thousands of recent and historical aircraft transactions. The platform utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) that considers each aircraft’s unique features to provide a current market estimate for it. PlanePrice is available only on Aircraft For Sale, FLYING’s aircraft marketplace. 

“PlanePrice marks a revolutionary milestone for both buyers and sellers in the aviation industry,” said Ian Hoyt, FLYING’s director of marketplaces. “PlanePrice harnesses state-of-the-art AI techniques and a vast historical aviation data catalog to develop the fair market price for any aircraft.  Every aircraft is different, so PlanePrice utilizes deep contextual information to determine a fair price for each individual aircraft, taking into account its unique characteristics and history.” 

The platform, using a combination of current market trends and pricing curves, provides transparency to prospective buyers, giving them the valuation range of any specific aircraft listed on Aircraft For Sale. Recent transactions with similar characteristics and current aircraft market activity are heavily weighted in PlanePrice’s model, providing unparalleled transparency.  

“For years, consumers have had access to free car and housing price estimate tools on listing marketplaces,” said Hoyt. “Until now, no aircraft marketplace has provided this information for free in the shopping process, creating anxiety for buyers and sellers alike. Much like Zillow’s Zestimate has become the go-to resource for understanding the current market value of homes, or how CarGurus’ auto listing marketplace has empowered buyers to know if a price is fair or not, PlanePrice aspires to do the same thing in the aircraft market.”  

FLYING continues to invest significantly in Aircraft For Sale, creating the most transparent and comprehensive aircraft buying resource in the world. In addition to adding PlanePrice to the marketplace for aircraft valuation transparency, FLYING plans to combine content from the extensive archives across FLYING Media Group’s (FMG) platform.

“FLYING has the largest archive of content, editorial reviews, reports, and intelligence on aircraft of any platform in general aviation, dating all the way back to 1927,” said Craig Fuller, CEO of FMG. “If a consumer is looking at any aircraft in the market, chances are that FLYING or one of our other 20 aviation media brands, including Plane & Pilot, AVweb.com, KITPLANES, Aviation Consumer, or Aviation Safety has profiled that specific make and model. By linking this content to Aircraft For Sale, consumers will have additional information, helping them make informed decisions about their prospective purchase, comparing all the available aircraft in the market.”  

Aircraft For Sale reaches more prospective aircraft buyers than any print or online classified resource in the world. In addition to having one of the largest online aircraft listings, Aircraft For Sale offers a print edition that is mailed to the homes and offices of every single FLYING subscriber and is also available at thousands of FBOs. 

The post <i>FLYING</i> Introduces PlanePrice appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Once the SPAC merger is completed, Volato is expected to have an enterprise value of $261 million and will trade under the symbol of NYSE: SOAR. Matt Liotta, CEO and co-founder of Volato will continue to lead the company as a public entity. Volato’s executive management team is also expected to stay in their current positions post-merger. 

Volato primarily operates HondaJets.

• READ MORE: Volato Closes Deal for 25 HondaJets

Including one-time aircraft sales and annual recurring revenue (ARR), Volato finished 2022 with $96 million in gross revenues. 

Volato generates revenue through three primary sources: initial aircraft sales for $7.7 million per aircraft, which generate a 16 percent margin; an annual management fee of $1 million per aircraft per year, which the company considers a break-even; and flight operations, which generate $4 million per aircraft per year at a 31 percent margin. 

The best way to think about the unit economics of the business is that the annual management fee and flight operations revenue generate approximately $5 million in ARR for each HondaJet under management, with a 25 percent margin. 

• READ MORE: Volato Launches Aircraft Management Program

Volato finished 2022 with 12 aircraft under management, but it currently has 18 HondaJets under management, with another 23 HondaJets under firm order. With a total fleet expected to be at 41, the current proforma ARR run-rate would expand from $90 million to $205 million by December 2025. 

In addition to the SPAC merger, Volato also announced that it raised $48.4 million in a Series A venture capital round that will be converted into common equity once the merger is completed. The company had raised $38 million in convertible notes that will also be converted to common equity at the same time. 

The company expects the SPAC merger to be completed in 2023. 

The post Volato Plans to Go Public on the New York Stock Exchange via SPAC Merger appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

“Belvoir Media Group’s aviation portfolio complements our content-rich brands and will expand what we offer to readers, subscribers, and advertisers. Last quarter, we acquired Plane & Pilot Magazine and the LSA-focused website, ByDanJohnson.com, all with the goal of creating the deepest resource of general aviation content and information.” Craig Fuller, CEO of FLYING Media Group stated.

The Belvoir Media Group brands include:

AVweb.com is the largest independent aviation news site in the world, providing breaking news and information. AVweb.com has a remarkable ability to break stories. The editorial team of AVweb have their pulse on the industry and is unmatched in covering aviation news. 

Aviation Consumer is built to be the Consumer Reports of general aviation, providing editorialized product reviews for general aviation, ranging from aircraft, accessories, avionics, maintenance, and safety products. There is also a very robust used aircraft guide, which provides reviews of aircraft ranging from vintage to modern, all with an effort to empower buyers with unbiased information before their next purchase. Aviation Consumer comes in monthly print, as well as a database of decades worth of reviews. Next time you are thinking of buying an aviation product, ask “What Does Aviation Consumer Say?”

Aviation Safety is the premier safety-only aviation monthly magazine, with up-to-date reporting from accident investigators and safety counselors on real-life scenarios from pilots. With 40 years of archives and new reports every month, focusing on best practices and accident reconstruction, there is a massive library of content covering nearly every potential scenario that a pilot may encounter and many more they hope to never have. So much of being a successful pilot is centered around safety and decision-making, making Aviation Safety a must-read. 

KITPLANES is the Homebuilt Aircraft Authority, covering topics relevant to anyone who has ever dreamed of building or owning an experimental aircraft. The depth and detail of its coverage is unmatched in the aviation industry.

FLYING Media Group plans to preserve the heritage and unique voice of each of these publications, along with significantly increasing investments in content, reader experience, and digital sites. The plan will be to continue to offer the print versions of the publications and hope to introduce a bundled solution, where readers of all the FLYING Media Group properties can take advantage of the great library of content, across brands. 

FLYING Media Group plans to retain Belvoir’s aviation brands’ editorial staff and contributors.

FLYING Media Group (FMG) is the leading media portfolio in aviation. FMG brands include FLYING Magazine, Plane and Pilot, ByDanJohnson, Aircraft for Sale, Business Air, AVweb.com, Aviation Consumer, Aviation Safety, IFR Magazine, and KITPLANES.

The post FLYING Acquires 5 Major Aviation Media Brands appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Hopefully, by now all of the owners have had the chance to meet. We received a list of the individual owners from Jet It, along with contact information. If you’re an owner, you should organize a call with your specific owner group ASAP. You are all on the same team, now is the time to get a game plan together.

Appoint one to two people on the team to keep the process moving forward, regardless of direction. Ideally, someone with experience in aviation, as they will need to understand all of the moving parts.  

Even though Jet It CEO Glenn Gonzales suggested “patience” on owner calls last on May 24—but that isn’t great advice.

• READ MORE: Jet It Tells Owners To Find New Home for Aircraft

You own a very expensive asset that needs to be dealt with. Every day that you own it, the more expenses it will rack up. Hangar fees, maintenance, insurance, etc., all cost money. Nothing like having an expensive toy that you can’t use. 

You need to track down the aircraft. Every owner group I’ve spoken with has figured out where their aircraft is. 

Most importantly, find out what your owner group wants to do with the aircraft. You have a few options: you can sell the aircraft; you can put the aircraft up into a dry-lease with another operator; a single (or group of owners) can buy the airplane.

While Gonzales suggested that owners could contract directly with former Jet It pilots, this strikes me as challenging for larger owner groups that are geographically distributed, not to mention questions about legality of such a process. If you do decide to go this route, I would engage with an aviation attorney to make sure you are protected here.

The worst thing to do here is to let the aircraft sit long without a plan. We are all responsible for the bills on our aircraft from here on out (along with unpaid bills that Jet It racked up) and those bills aren’t going to cheap. 

If you decide to sell the aircraft, find a Honda broker or dealer that can help with this. Brokers will be glad to take you on as a client, but I would recommend doing diligence on the broker. Have they sold HondaJets in the past? Do they have experience with the aircraft? Can they help you navigate all of the maintenance issues you need to contend with?

Honda Aircraft Company has a list of dealers on its website, and you can find a dealer to assist here. I would recommend going with this group over a non-Honda dealer because of their familiarity with the jet and mutual interest in seeing a positive outcome for the Honda ecosystem. 

Keep in mind that the aircraft is not going to be flown much over the next few weeks, so find someone that has experience with the airplane and will agree to keep it in compliance with the maintenance up to date.

• READ MORE: Why Jet It Failed 

I live in Tennessee and our Honda Aircraft dealer is Banyan. They provided us with a turnkey proposal, including hangar access to help us manage the aircraft while we figured out what we wanted to do with it. 

Selling the aircraft is only one option. With nine owners, we felt that selling the aircraft was the best path for our ownership group. That way we could move forward making decisions as to our future missions individually. 

Another option is to put the aircraft into a short-term lease with another operator. 

Volato—Jet It’s biggest competitor among Honda Jet operators—has offered a 90-day lease for ownership groups. It is billed as a dry-lease arrangement, where all expenses are taken care of (except for maintenance labor). At $650 per hour, it’s an interesting proposal to get the airplane in the air and generate some revenue to offset most of the fixed expenses, including insurance, hangar fees, and operational fees. 

Matt Liotta, CEO of Volato told FLYING: 

“We feel for the customers who are facing this difficult situation. The entire team at Volato is here to help as much as we can, and we are prepared to take on any number of planes and customers. We do recommend that anyone consult with a lawyer before deciding on how to move forward.”

As noted earlier, getting a good aviation attorney is critical. This will be a long and drawn-out process, with lots of nuances. Getting someone with experience navigating all of the issues (aviation, corporate, and tax law) is critical.

There is some good news out of all of this. 

Unlike a jet card or membership program, Jet It’s fractional program offered direct ownership of an actual aircraft. This means that fractional owners will recoup a large percentage of their investment in the airplane after some initial headaches. 

If it were a membership program, where the asset is prepurchased time on an airplane from a charter operator, like in Wheels Up’s case (NYSE: UP), the only thing that program members would be guaranteed is a position of being a junior creditor in a bankruptcy. 

The post What’s Next for Jet It Fractional Owners appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

At the time of the grounding, Jet It claimed that it was taking the action out of an abundance of caution in light of an incident with a HondaJet. The airplane ran off the end of a runway in South Carolina. Jet It CEO Glenn Gonzales told owners that he was concerned about the safety of the aircraft and wanted to understand the reason that HondaJets were more susceptible to runway excursions than similar aircraft. 

Coming from the largest operator of HondaJets in the U.S., it was a shocking statement. The problem was that Jet It also grounded its other aircraft in the fleet, not just the HondaJets, leaving many owners questioning whether this was a “negotiating tactic” to allow the company to exercise the force majeure clauses in fractional contracts, enabling the company to cancel the programs and agreements altogether. 

After all, if Jet It could stand behind the story that the HondaJet was an unsafe aircraft, it would shield the company from liability stemming from potential owner lawsuits and damages caused by an abrupt shutdown and service disruption. 

The problem is that the safety issue doesn’t appear to be the cause of Jet It’s sudden service disruption—but cash does. 

On Friday, May 26, Jet It informed employees in a letter that their jobs were permanently terminated, and the company was closing down. There was not a mention of a bankruptcy, but that is likely not far behind. 

Sources tell FLYING that at least two employees—aircraft sales executives for the company—are both owed more than $200,000. 

• READ MORE: Jet It Tells Owners To Find New Home for Aircraft

Meanwhile, Jet It aircraft have been grounded all over the country. They sit at FBOs and maintenance shops, where the owners will have to cover all unpaid expenses that have accumulated on their aircraft tail. This includes any unpaid fuel, maintenance, and storage bills that the aircraft may have accrued.

Over half of the fleet is in maintenance, with tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars owed by Jet It that will have to be paid by the fractional aircraft owners of the various tail numbers.

Owners are scrambling to find new homes for their aircraft, but they are on the hook for any expenses that have been incurred before they can be moved. 

The primary hangar for Jet It, where all of the aircraft logbooks were kept, is in Greensboro, North Carolina. The entity at KGSO hasn’t been paid in recent months, so the hangar owners permanently locked Jet It out of the hangar.  

• READ MORE: What’s Next for Jet It Fractional Owners

For vendors that have worked with the company for a few years, this was not a surprise. 

Many of the companies that Jet It has done business with have struggled to get paid in a timely manner, if at all. 

Jet It would string vendors along for months—especially maintenance providers. 

Of the 21 HondaJets that Jet It managed, at least 10 are currently in a maintenance shop. Three of the airplanes in the fleet currently have maintenance liens for unpaid bills.  

A representative for one maintenance shop said it has had one of the jets in the shop for months and wouldn’t release it because Jet It would not pay its $24,000 bill. 

Jet It gained a reputation among HondaJet service centers for being slow or delinquent on payment, so the shops often requested payment up-front. This would often delay the time it took for the HondaJets to be serviced and severely impacted the company’s operations. 

Honda Aircraft Company, Jet It’s most important vendor, also wasn’t paid on time. Sources told FLYING that Jet It owes Honda Aircraft more than $1.6 million in its service contracts under a program known as “Flight Ready” and the engine maintenance program “EMC2.” 

Honda Aircraft intends to work with fractional owners, helping them navigate the mess that Jet It has left behind.

Too Good To Be True 

According to sources familiar with the company’s business model, Jet It’s ability to scale was largely a result of how attractive the Jet It program was to prospective customers. In fact, the program may have been too attractive, driving robust growth and feeding a business model with core flaws. 

Jet It generated revenue through several major sources: fractional-owner hourly fees; monthly maintenance fees; up-front selling of aircraft fractional positions; and off-network charter flights. 

Jet It priced its hourly charter rates for clients at incredibly attractive rates. At just $1,600 per hour, the Jet It program was a dream for prospective jet owners. By comparison, Volato, Jet It’s biggest competitor in the HondaJet market, charges $3,450 per hour, plus fuel pass-through.

Initially, Jet It’s per-hour rate included the cost of fuel, but in the wake of the Ukraine conflict, Jet It implemented a fuel surcharge program at $250 per-hour.

Jet It’s contracts also did not require the fractional owner to pay for deadhead to reposition the jet. The owners only paid for the time they were in the aircraft.

A source familiar with Jet It’s revenue model suggested that the operating cost per hour for owners, including deadhead time, was likely around $2,700 per hour. This means that although most flights were a screaming deal for fractional owners on an hourly basis, they incurred a loss for the company.  

The original proforma for Jet It assumed that fractional owners would have access to their airplanes for 250 days per year, with the balance available for Jet It to sell for network charter operations at a substantial premium over the owner rate. 

This may have worked, but Jet It’s aircraft were often unavailable because they were out of service for maintenance. Earlier this year, Jet It told fractional owners that nearly 75 percent of the fleet was out of commission because they were in the shop for maintenance. Some of the aircraft were in the shop for routine maintenance, others were being held for lack of payment. 

The Major Flaw in Jet It’s Model 

Jet It prided itself on offering exceptional customer service and contractually guaranteeing fractional owners aircraft availability, as long as the aircraft was booked 72 hours in advance. If an in-network aircraft was not available, Jet It was required to go into the charter market and purchase aircraft time at the charter market’s clearing rate—often at rates that were five times the rate that the fractional owner was paying Jet It for the same service.

In a letter sent to fractional jet owners in November 2022, Gonzales stated that Jet It had to “absorb in excess of $20 million in off-fleet expenses,” just to fulfill fractional owner flight demand. In the same letter, Gonzales blamed Honda for its service woes. 

The monthly maintenance expense provided some level of recurring revenue for the company, but not enough to cover the cost of the company’s extensive back-office and operational systems. 

The company always made money selling fractional aircraft positions, and this was a key driver of cash flow for the company, yielding more than $500,000 per aircraft the company was able to place into its owner network. In the early days of COVID, as interest around personal aviation exploded, so did cash flow opportunities for Jet It. In fact, it is likely that the company relied too heavily on this source of cash to fund its operations. 

But like many businesses in 2021 to 2022, supply chain issues began to impact Honda Aircraft Company, and Jet It could not source as many airplanes to sell to members. This led to the cash flow coming from new fractional sales drying up. That was a major blow to the company’s business model. 

In 2022, the company raised $16 million in structured finance from Loeb.nyc, the private equity firm of former Time Warner executive Michael Loeb and Blue Equity, LLC, another private equity firm. This provided a lifeline to the company as it dealt with supply chain challenges. 

Then the demand for fractional ownership slowed, as the COVID crisis died down. This also coincided with the easing of some of Honda Aircraft’s supply chain issues. 

On October 6, 2022, Jet It was allocated three HondaJets for its network. With the imminent delivery of new aircraft and an operating deficit that had built over the past couple of years, Jet It found an opportunity.   

Gonzales was a former Honda Aircraft salesman who understood the cash flow opportunity in flipping an aircraft. He did it very well. With the waiting time for a new HondaJet measured in years, buyers were willing to pay a vast premium over the wholesale price that Jet It had negotiated. 

Under Jet It’s contract with Honda Aircraft, it was allocated aircraft only for charter or fractional ownership. It was not permitted to sell new HondaJets to owners, unless it was for their own network use. However, Jet It sold at least one airplane to a buyer for exclusive use, a clear violation of the agreement with HondaJet. Therefore, Honda Aircraft Company sued Jet It. 

The lawsuit was later settled, but not until after Gonzales had gone public about his frustrations with Honda Aircraft, calling into question the service, safety, and maintenance record of the HondaJet. He suggested that the reason that he sold the airplane was that he had decided to move away from HondaJets and into Embraer Phenoms as the aircraft of choice for Jet It. 

Meanwhile, because of the purchase of the HondaJet and its subsequent sale to a sole owner, Gonzales received a quick cash lifeline for the company, which enabled him to fight another day. 

Erratic Customer Service During a Cash Crunch

But Jet It’s cash flow woes continued. The operating model was starting to break down, and customers noticed a deterioration in service. Flights that had been booked weeks or months before were suddenly canceled owing to the lack of aircraft availability. Jet It stopped offering off-network charter flights, which was in violation of its fractional customer agreements (even for maintenance issues). 

In an effort to deflect blame for service, operational, and financial issues, Jet It has tried to push the blame for these issues onto its primary business partner, Honda Aircraft Company. 

The poor service reputation that Gonzales attempted to pin on Honda Aircraft was likely a result of Jet It’s inability to pay its vendors, and not the HondaJet’s lack of quality. This was explained to FLYING by one vendor in the HondaJet service ecosystem.

Jet It’s poor service reputation also exacerbated the company’s problems. 

With aircraft stuck in maintenance and bills continuing to pile up, Jet It had fewer aircraft for its fractional network and almost no lift available for the much more lucrative charter network. Over time, more aircraft went into maintenance, taking more of Jet It’s network down. 

On May 24, 2023, it all ended.

Gonzales called fractional owners and told them that their aircraft would need to be moved out of the Jet It network and that those airplanes would “not fly with Jet It” any longer. 

The fractional owners that thought they were getting a great deal on a HondaJet learned that it was a deal too good to be true. 

Do you have a news tip to share? Send me a message @freightalley on Twitter. Your name will not be used without your permission.

The post Why Jet It Failed appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

At least that is the impression Jet It founder and CEO Glenn Gonzales gave fractional aircraft owners on a series of virtual calls on Wednesday, five days after he ordered a ground stop on the fleet of HondaJets the company manages. 

Gonzales told HondaJet owners in the Jet It program their aircraft “will not be flying under Jet It” any longer. 

(Disclosure: I am a Jet It fractional owner and attended the fractional owner calls.)

Gonzales suggested fractional owners should consider an array of options that include transferring the aircraft to another operator, selling the aircraft, or contracting directly with former Jet It pilots on furlough. 

• READ MORE: Jet It Moves into Furloughs as Pause in Operations Continues

Fractional aircraft owners typically own a percentage of the aircraft, rather than the entire airplane. Jet It offered a range of ownership options, with the smallest being one-tenth ownership. 

In a fractional relationship, a group of owners is pooled together to purchase an aircraft. The aircraft is then contracted out to an operator that flies the aircraft, oversees pilots, maintenance, flight operations, scheduling, and all of the day-to-day tasks of operating it. Owners typically pay a monthly maintenance contract, in addition to a per-hour operating fee when they fly on the aircraft. 

Fractional ownership programs are attractive for consumers because the pool they belong to makes it less expensive to gain ownership of an aircraft, rather than buying it outright. Operating costs are also shared between the group of owners. 

Gonzales Blames HondaJet 

As a Jet It fractional owner myself, I attended one of the calls with the other owners of our aircraft. It was the first time I had met any of the other owners, and we were processing the news. 

During our call with Gonzales, he put the blame for the failure of Jet It entirely on the Honda Aircraft Company, claiming that HondaJet aircraft suffered from a series of runway overruns. He cited a total of 20 incidents since the HondaJet was first introduced in December 2015. He compared that to the Embraer Phenom 100, which has seen 21 runway incidents since its first delivery in 2009. 

Gonzales said the catalyst for grounding the HondaJet was an incident in Summerville, South Carolina. A Honda HA-420—not owned by Jet It—skidded off the runway and ended up in the grass. 

• READ MORE: Honda Aircraft Says It Settled Its Lawsuit Against Jet-It

“This one was different in the sense that it caught fire,” Gonzales said. 

Gonzales said Jet It has requested due diligence information from HondaJet on the safety of the aircraft, documentation on the events surrounding the runway incidents, and why this has happened with the Honda aircraft. 

Gonzales did not give a timeline of when Jet It expected to resume operations but made it very clear to owners that the company program they had participated in was terminating, and the owners would need to figure out what to do with their aircraft. 

Skepticism of CEO Claims 

One owner on the call said the story “didn’t feel right to him,” challenging Gonzales with a question of why Jet It is the only company to ground HondaJets and that neither any transportation authority nor Honda had required or even suggested it. The owner also said, “This feels like a negotiating tactic with Honda or your (fractional) owners.” 

Another owner suggested it “wasn’t an airplane issue but rather a company issue.” 

That owner pointed out that Jet It had also grounded its Phenom 100s, suggesting they should be flying if the company made the decision about the HondaJet entirely based on safety factors. 

The same owner also questioned Gonzales about the financial condition of Jet It, saying “it sounds like you are bankrupt to me.” 

The sentiment resonated with many of the other owners on our call. 

In response, Gonzales claimed he did not intend to file for bankruptcy but referenced the financial challenges of running a company with its entire fleet of aircraft grounded. He also asked for patience but didn’t suggest why it was merited. 

With the entire Jet It fleet currently grounded, nearly all of the company’s staff have been terminated, including the pilots. This includes pilots flying both the HondaJets and Phenoms. 

Jet It boasted a fleet of 20 HondaJets and a couple of Phenom 300s and Gulfstream G150s. Prior to this action, Jet It was the largest operator of HondaJets in the U.S. 

Fractional Owners Consider Options 

In a situation where the operator—in this case Jet It—is shutting down its fractional contracts, the owners must come together to decide what they want to do with the aircraft. This can be challenging because it requires the owners to reach a consensus on what they want to do. As is the case with many of the Jet It owners, often they previously have had no relationships or contacts with the other owners and are frequently unaware who the other partial owners are. 

Now, they must come together, develop a plan, and decide on a course of action. Because Jet It has laid off nearly all of its workforce, the fractional owners have to do the work themselves, with little help from the company. It is a mess. 

Do you have a news tip to share? Send me a message @freightalley on Twitter. Your name will not be used without your permission.

The post Jet It Tells Owners To Find New Home for Aircraft appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

This tradition is symbolic of the day when the student is cut loose from the instructor’s grip. Often these shirttails are framed and hung on a wall, to be displayed for other students and pilots to see. 

Aeroswag, an aviation e-commerce website, wants to create a new tradition where student pilots can commemorate their first solo with a printed version of the sectional from their home airport duplicated onto a number of gift items, including cell phone cases, coffee mugs, stickers, notepads, water bottles, and socks. The idea is that the student pilot can show off their aviation accomplishment in a meaningful way. 

While the student’s first solo flight is one of the primary use cases of Aeroswag’s custom sectional items, pilots also order products from their home base or other favorite airports. 

The process of ordering a custom printed item with the selected airport is simple. The website immediately recognizes where the user is located using Google’s mapping function, then displays the area airports on the sectional in the area. If they wish to select an airport outside the area, they can easily move the sectional map to another location. 

The user selects their home or favorite airport, clicks it, and sees the sample images of items with the sectional embedded onto the product catalog. The user chooses the items they want, and they are mailed to them a few days later. 

I decided to test out the process, ordering socks, stickers, notepads, and phone cases for a few of my favorite airports. I found the process simple and now have outfitted my cellphone with a phone case that has the Chattanooga (KCHA) sectional and a pair of socks that feature the Solberg Airport (N51), the airport I fly out of when spending time in New Jersey during the summer. 

Aeroswag also has a large catalog of aviation related images and gifts and hopes to offer custom “long-tail” gifts for pilots and the aviation community. 

The post Aeroswag Turns Sectionals into Aviation Mementos appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

When I started on the FLYING journey, I could not imagine how rewarding it would be. In the past year, we have made significant improvements across FLYING. 

Focus on the Highest Quality 

Earlier this year, we upgraded the print edition of FLYING with high-end paper, a new design, and award-winning photography. We also required all advertisements to run full-page ads in order to ensure that the magazine delivered a positive experience for the reader. 

Our focus continues to center around publishing the highest quality print aviation magazine in the market. 

Print Returning to Monthly 

Initially, we rolled out the new FLYING as a quarterly publication, but in response to the overwhelmingly positive feedback we received from our readers—and enormous support from our advertisers—we have decided to take FLYING back to a monthly frequency. 

FLYING subscribers will receive the 2022 Buyers Guide in October, followed by the Q4 2022 issue of FLYING in November, and finally a special December issue. Beginning in January, subscribers will receive 12 issues in 2023, and we will maintain the same high quality of our recent redesign. 

Significant Investment in the Digital Experience Across Web and Mobile

In addition to our investments in the magazine, we have also made significant upgrades to the FLYING website. I hope you have noticed how much more content is there, with special attention paid to pilot-oriented topics such as Destinations, Maintenance, Aircraft Ownership, Careers, and Student Guides. We have also expanded our coverage of aviation history, military, and aerospace topics. We plan on doubling the number of contributors in 2023, and they will provide a wide array of aviation content. 

As part of the website upgrades, we’ve made the reader experience more intuitive. We eliminated the programmatic ads that were on the site and replaced them with aviation-relevant, direct-sale ads that don’t interfere with your reading experience. 

Response From the Market? Overwhelmingly Positive 

We have invested nearly $10 million in the new FLYING, and the market has responded very positively to the changes and upgrades. Revenues are up 88 percent year-over-year and we are starting to see real momentum in the business. As a growth-oriented CEO, I plan on investing the increased revenue right back into FLYING. We have big plans in 2023 and beyond to expand FLYING with more high-quality content, experiences, and applications. 

Back at the FBO—and Back on the Newsstand

As a supply chain executive, I was appalled by how challenging the print supply chain was for FLYING when I first arrived. Over the past year, we have overhauled the supply chain and created a streamlined process over which we have direct control. This process is complete and we are expanding our distribution to fixed-base operators (FBOs) and retail newsstands. 

Beginning in October, FLYING will be available at FBOs nationwide. We believe that being in FBOs is important—they are the central meeting and “refueling” place for all pilots. If you haven’t seen the new print version of FLYING, it’s likely to be at your local FBO starting next month. I hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to check it out and if you like it, please subscribe. We will continue to invest in new content creation—and we are also working on a subscriber rewards program. We want to develop a community with our readers, one in which we have relationships based on a love of flying—and FLYING. 

In November, FLYING is also returning to select retail newsstands. The print version of FLYING will be available at Barnes & Noble and more than 970 Hudson News stores. We believe this gives FLYING the opportunity to reach prospective pilots and aviation lovers in airports and bookstores nationwide. 

We are committed to bringing FLYING back to greatness and are preparing the magazine for the next generation of aviation. In addition, we are working on a number of new initiatives and products that will make FLYING an even greater part of the aviation community. 

Subscribe today to never miss an issue. 

The post FLYING’s Significant Improvements and Smashing Success appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Enter the VL-3

One such aircraft that I have been dying to fly is the VL-3 with retractable gear built by JMB Aircraft. When I was looking for a cross-country airplane to complement my ICON A5 amphib, I looked at the JMB lineup as an option. I was not intimately familiar with the brand, so I went with the Tecnam Astore instead.

JMB is based in the Czech Republic and is run by two Belgium brothers that got their start by being the exclusive reseller of Aveko in France and Belgium. In 2018, as JMB they purchased Aveko and went through a massive redesign and performance upgrade to the original VL-3 aircraft, then marketed as the Sprint.

JMB focuses now on speed and high-end design, drawing inspiration from Formula 1 race machines and exotic sports cars. The website and video content that JMB produces is all about making the airplane sexy and slick—two things that make the aircraft appealing to a wide range of pilots, but especially younger ones. I had seen some of the content that JMB has produced on the web prior to seeing the VL-3 in person, so I was excited to get my chance to fly.

Master of Schemes

I got my chance to fly the VL-3 on my last day at Oshkosh. The airplane was kept for demo purposes during the show not at the Wittman Regional Airport (KOSH), but instead at the Fond Du Lac County Airport (KZFD), approximately 20 miles to the south. My host on the day of my flight was the company’s design and quality manager, François Stelandre, a former race car driver who is—like me—passionate about aircraft liveries, from airliners to GA airplanes. He told me that years ago a racing accident ended his car racing career, but he has since taken that energy and put it towards designing airplanes that trigger an exotic-car sentiment.

After all, the VL-3 would fit right in the pages of the latest edition of duPont Registry, squeezed between the Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Porsches with gorgeous paint schemes, stunning colors—and speed to match.

For the 20-minute car ride between KOSH and KFZD, François talked about various schemes JMB had brought to life. He was very passionate about custom aircraft paint designs and the challenges they presented. Almost every design he referred to contained paint colors derived from his background in high-end cars. He described various paint jobs that included Ferrari red, Porsche yellow, and Maserati blue, but also talked about special paint jobs based on logos or unique designs. 

Test Flight: Fond du Lac

On the day of our flight, JMB was running demo flights nearly nonstop. They had chosen a yellow and silver checkered flag livery, which I was told was Porsche yellow by François.

The VL-3 that we flew has a Rotax 915S turbocharged powerplant up front, which has more horsepower than the 914 Turbo that I fly in the Astore (115 hp). JMB advertises the top speed as 370 km/h or 200 knots, but that is at FL180. The engine is fuel-injected and has 142 horsepower. 

The airplane is a monster when it comes to speed. With a climb rate of 2,000 fpm, the VL-3 roared off the runway and quickly ascended to 10,000 feet msl, with little effort, even on the hottest day of my Oshkosh experience. When we leveled out, we topped out speedwise at 170 knots.  

Into the Panel

As far as the avionics suite goes, the VL-3 that we flew had the Garmin G3X Touch electronic flight information display (EFIS), with one 10-inch screen. I’ve become accustomed to a dual G3X setup (with two displays) in my Astore, which I would have opted for if I were buying the aircraft. The G3X is integrated with a Garmin autopilot and it worked seamlessly, with no issues that I found. The radio stack can come with either the Trig TY91 or TY96 comms, or the Garmin GTR 225, with remote-mount options available.

Layers of Safety

Aside from being tested beyond the airplane’s stated never-exceed speed to ensure a smooth envelope free of flutter, the VL-3 also includes a ballistic parachute that adds a layer of safety and peace of mind. 

The airframe is crafted out of carbon and Kevlar, which makes the airframe exceptionally light, but also incredibly sound and rugged. You can also equip the airplane with a standby Garmin G5 EFIS and angle of attack (AOA) indicator.

Interior Questions

With all of the great features of the VL-3, what are the drawbacks? From my perspective, the interior of the aircraft was the biggest disappointment, at least for our test flight. The seat stitching of our demo craft was a bit basic and underwhelming, and I found the seats to be pretty uncomfortable and stiff. 

The cabin felt a bit cramped, at least compared to the Astore, and the luggage compartment was also smaller than I was accustomed to. 

It is also possible that my cramped feeling was because we flew with two full-size adults in the cabin, and I normally fly with just one of my kids. It left me with the impression the cabin was more cramped than I was used to feeling in the Tecnam. 

The demo pilot told me that the interior configuration that we flew was at the lower end of the range they offered, and they had far more comfortable seating options available. You can check those out in the “Build Your VL-3” page on the company’s site. I was also told that the stitching could be upgraded, along with other interior design features that would make the cabin feel far more luxurious than the demonstrator that I test flew. 

What’s Our Take?

The bottom line is that the VL-3 offers more speed per dollar than almost any other new light airplane in its class. And with more than 400 units sold, there’s evidence that customers are responding. With a fully-loaded price tag of around $375,000, the VL-3 is a remarkably capable and fast two-seater. 

But like an exotic car, what you gain in speed, you lose in comfort. For me—since my wife is the only person I really have to convince, and for her, interior comfort wins out over speed—I will hold out until I experience the upgraded interior features before putting in my order for a VL-3.  

Specifications

The post We Fly: The JMB Aircraft VL-3 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.