Very light jet management company JetAviva is offering potential Eclipse 500 VLJ buyers a chance to gain flight experience in the aircraft in advance of buying an aircraft or taking their type rating course from Eclipse.
"This is more for the guy who's three months out from getting his type rating," says Cyrus Sigari, president of Southern California-based JetAviva. "It's like the Princeton Review [a for-profit service that prepares US students to take standardised achievement tests]- he can get a leg-up on his classmates."
Sigari launched JetAviva in October, offering Eclipse 500 pre-delivery and acceptance inspections, aircraft trade-in services, maintenance management, professional pilot staffing and other services, all focused on the Eclipse 500. The company has performed more than 30 pre-buy inspections for customers to date, and currently has six full-time flight instructors on staff.
The company's jet familiarisation training packages come in 10.5h, 25h and 45h packages for "current, future and prospective VLJ pilots". The goal of the programme, says Sigari, is to give the pilots experience in an Eclipse 500 in an environment that's "not as stressful" as a type-rating environment. Ten clients are going through the training.
Courses are taught primarily at the company's Van Nuys headquarters and cover topics ranging from general aircraft familiarisation and glass cockpit basic instrument flying to high-altitude normal and emergency procedures, line-oriented flight training and maximum-range trips.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
