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OWN THE JET dives deep into the world of private jet ownership, operations, and the private aviation lifestyle. Whether you're purchasing your first jet, managing a growing fleet, or simply passionate about aviation, this podcast gives you insider access to the conversations happening behind the scenes.
We feature real owners, operators, and aviation leaders sharing their experiences, strategies, and lessons learned — from the flight deck to the boardroom.
OWN THE JET - the official podcast of Aspen Aero Group.
Website: https://www.aspenaerogroup.com
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So day two of BACE starts off
with what they call a static.
And a static is what like a static
display of all of the airplanes and all
the jets and all the things.
Yeah, that's right. So as we will see
some of the footage, but yeah, we're just
out here at Henderson
Airport in Las Vegas.
And so all the manufacturers are going to
have their airplanes here to look at and
walk on and touch and
feel and all that good stuff.
Welcome to Own the Jet by Aspen Aero
Group, where we share perspectives from
some of the leading voices in private jet
ownership and business aviation.
I'm your host, Derik Savage, along with
my co-host, Jason Spoor,
president of Aspen Aero Group.
Join us as we dive deep into the
mechanics, mindset and moments that
define jet ownership.
And together we'll learn
what it takes to own the jet.
It's going to be cool seeing the actual
jets because everybody's
always talking about the jets.
But seeing the jets is a
totally different thing.
So what are what are some of the things
we can expect to see here at the static
that they have for base?
Yeah. So a lot of what you're going to
see here is a lot of flight departments.
You're going to see aircraft owners
coming out just to see the airplanes
without having to go through a whole
formal process to do that.
So they're going to be able to go on like
behind us, the Honda jet and go see what
it feels like, sit in it and talk to the
sales guys without having to,
yeah, again, go through a whole formal.
No, no, no...
none of the Rigamarole.
Yeah. OK. No rigmarole.
So here you've got every, you know, every
manufacturer, every corporate
jet showing off what they have.
OK. Show me your wares.
Let's go. Let's go see.
Let's go check out some wares here at the
static at MBAA's BACE conference here in
beautiful, sunny Las Vegas, Nevada.
All right. Let's check them out.
Exciting opportunity here. We get to talk
to Mark from Bombardier.
And Mark, can you tell me a little bit
about what you do and what
your role is here at Bombardier?
So I'm in charge of communications for
Bombardier, internal external.
So at shows like MBAA BACE, it's my
absolute pleasure to talk about
everything that Bombardier does,
including the wonderful jets behind us.
Awesome. And can you tell me about the
wonderful jets behind us?
This is a global 6500, right?
Global 6500. It is an absolute workhorse.
So if you look at the interior, it's
really designed for comfort.
It's designed to bring you to your
destination refreshed and offers the
industry's smoothest ride.
So we design our
wings to be very flexible.
We can actually go bend
one if you'd like afterwards.
Yeah, we do. We definitely want to.
But it really abates turbulence and
provides the smoothest ride.
So what can you tell me about the
exciting things that Bombardier is
bringing to the BACE conference this year
and what you guys are like
really excited to talk about?
So I think first and foremost, those are
really big unveiling here.
So in June, we secured an order for 50
aircraft with 70 more options.
And that was revealed as
a new customer named Bond.
So they're offering an innovative
fractional service to the market.
And that was part of our biggest
unveiling here at the show.
We've also announced that the global
8000, which was already set to be the
fastest jet in the industry,
just got its speed a little bit ticked up
from Mach 94 to Mach 95.
But what that does is it actually will
give customers 800 nautical miles more at
very high speed cruise
or what we call ultra high speed cruise.
So you're in the Mach 92
range of of your of a mission.
So really just pushing the boundaries of
what speed is in business aviation and
just our whole portfolio here on display.
We're proud of like the Challenger 3500,
which is also behind the 6500 here,
just continues to be the best selling
super mid-sized platform and lineups for
it with a lot of interest.
So for the layperson like me, I see all
the Bombardier models and I see there are
a lot of Challenger models
and a lot of global models. Can you tell
me the difference between those two?
Well, it's really about what you want to
do with your aircraft.
So if you're starting with a Challenger
3500, that's operators who
are flying in North America.
It's a coast to coast. You load it with
eight passengers, full fuel, and it'll
just cover North America for you.
If you're looking at transatlantic,
that's where you step
up to a Challenger 650.
You have a wide cabin.
This is something that's becoming a, you
know, in the 4000 plus nautical mile
range aircraft category.
And then the Globals, that's really it's
in the name. It's global.
So starting with the 5500 to the 6500,
those are refreshed aircraft with brand
new Rolls-Royce engines.
So a lot more efficient
than previous generations.
But that's where you really start getting
that trans oceanic range.
And then if you want to cover the world
completely, that's where
the Globals 8000 comes in.
So the Globals 8000, it's a no compromise
for cabin space aircraft.
It can land with steep approach at low
speeds with flaps and slats.
It can go the fastest. It has the Globals
7500 actually has 150 speed records.
So it's the record of records. No
aircraft platform has
singly captured more.
And the 8000 is just going to be the
basic pinnacle of business aviation.
So that's like flying
a hotel room around.
So you say the 8000 is going to be and
it's not yet available for
purchase. Is that correct?
It's available for purchase. The first is
delivering this year.
Gotcha. So they're just now rolling off
of the factory floor and
to their first customers.
So the first production
flight flew this year.
It's now in completions and we're looking
forward to deliver it to the first
customer by the end of the year.
So in terms of range, if we're talking
about like the 6500, for instance, right?
If I'm based on the West Coast and this
is global, what are my options
as far as where I can travel to?
Well, a good a good example of what we
did recently with the 7500, for instance,
was a speed record from San Luis Obispo,
California to London in about nine hours.
So if you look at like the Global 6500,
you're looking at, you know, 10, 12 hours
of range, 7500, even longer.
So this is these are just aircraft that
at some point, you know,
traveling in one way to go farther,
you'd have to go basically the other way.
It didn't go shorter because you can
cover a lot of distance.
But from London, for instance, on the
Global 7500 and Global 8000, there's not
many major cities you can't get to.
You mentioned the and I'm gesturing here,
it's off to the side, the partnership
that you now have that you guys are
excited to talk about.
Can you tell me a
little bit more about that?
Yeah, so Bond is our newest customer.
They've signed for 50 aircraft and
they've also signed a first
of a kind service agreement.
So what we have is a full
turnkey offering for them.
You get the aircraft, you get
maintenance, you get parts all in one
contract that really makes it easier
and more accessible for their customers.
And we're proud to be able to offer that
kind of full suite of services.
So it's going to be innovative, first of
its kind in the industry.
And we're going to develop our service
network to prepare for their
entry into service in 2027.
How important is the service part of the
business for Bombardier?
It's everything.
So we want to make sure that, you know,
aircraft are dispatch available, that we
have parts everywhere we need to,
that we're quickly doing turns in our
service centers with really
high skilled OEM technicians
so that people can get their availability
of aircraft absolutely optimized.
And to do that, we've announced a really
large expansion in the US.
We finished a big wave of
expansions around the world.
So we've quadrupled our
facility in Singapore.
We've opened one in Melbourne.
We've really gone big in Hill London.
We're building a paint shop there, but
now we're focusing on the US.
So the first announcement
came right before the show.
We are setting up a new service facility
in Fort Wayne, Indiana to really put
ourselves right in the
heart of the Midwest.
So we cover that region.
It's going to work very well with our
main parts depot in Chicago, but then
looking at more
facilities to expand across the US.
So it sounds like Fort Wayne is going to
be a pretty big hub for
things happening with Bombardier.
Absolutely.
And we're really going into the community
now, starting to recruit technicians,
create a pipeline to
create high skilled jobs.
But that's kind of how we operate in all
of the communities around the US.
We try to have local relationships with
schools to train technicians, keep the
pipeline going because
brick and mortar is great.
But if there's no one to turn a wrench,
we're not helping our customers more.
So it's about convenience and care, and
that starts with having the
right people in our facilities.
Awesome.
And you said we can
bend the wing on the 6500.
Is that something we can
go ahead and take a look at?
Let's do it.
All right.
So flexible wings starts with the
fundamental design of how Bombardier puts
flexible mindsets into
all wings for the global.
That starts with having slats and flaps.
I love that it's flexible mindsets, too.
It's like we want to stay
flexible in our approach to things.
Why is it flexible?
What's the reasoning for this?
It has to be flexible so
you have the smoothest ride.
So if the wing absorbs turbulence, the
turbulence doesn't translate into the
cabin for the passengers.
So all the way to just holding your
drinks in a more comfortable way, to
helping passengers, animals, just have a
smoother ride throughout
the entirety of the flight.
It's something that's fundamental.
And if you miss it at the design level of
the plane, you can't make up for it.
So if you don't have this, it's just a
rougher ride and it
just kind of sucks, right?
Exactly.
And it's impossible to have without slats
because you have to have an optimized
wing, which is small and
slender for high-speed crews.
But then for low-speed performance, you
really need to make that wing as possible
to land, especially in steep approach
airports like Lugano or when you're
trying to get into London City.
So that's where the slats
and flaps really come in.
The next level of it is on the Global
7500, where because of the size of the
aircraft, the wing is much bigger.
So what we've done on the 7500 is
actually split the outboard aileron.
So when it's at high speed, only a part
of it will move so that the
wing could continue to flex.
So that's just how we think about
passenger comfort, but it goes all the
way into wing design.
Nice. So we can see that flex just
standing here, right?
So I can flex it a little
bit with just one finger.
Yeah.
So you really just get that little push
on it and you see the wing starts to go.
But if you really want
to have at it, go for it.
All right.
Watching that flex.
Pretty good.
Pretty good.
And all of that reduces turbulence for
the passengers inside.
Because inside, if you look down the
wing, there's not much movement, right?
It's all out here.
Exactly.
So that's the whole idea.
Can I do this?
Can I like?
Please.
Okay.
So if I'm messing with it, like I'm the
air, I'm the cloud, right?
I'm the turbulence.
They aren't feeling it in there.
Exactly.
Correct.
Nice.
Cool.
So yeah, wing flex.
It's something that will give you a
better ride and a smoother ride.
So that's something, if
you're going to own the jet,
might be something you want to consider
as you're looking at jets to own, right?
Definitely want to
check, do I have slats?
Do I have slats?
Slats.
Just like a smooth--
Only bombardier has them.
Yeah.
Just like having a smooth bed, you want
to smooth slats with that too.
Okay.
Nice.
Cool.
Mark, thanks again, man.
Thanks for stopping by.
I'm here with Aaron White from Aspen Aero
Group, and Aaron works with people to buy
and sell and work on the transaction of
the jet itself and the
purchasing of the jet.
Aaron, what are you excited to see here
at the static today?
Well, I'd love to see the new
manufacturers, what they're releasing,
whether it's actually out right now or if
they've just unveiled it.
So, yeah, excited to see some of the
bigger manufacturers of Gulf Streams,
Bombardier aircraft,
obviously Falcon's got a nice bird,
but also just enjoy kind of seeing some
of the more unique aircrafts.
We've got the Husker over here.
Falcon's got a nice bird.
Yes, sir.
I love it.
They like to fly.
But yeah, no, it's good to get out here,
good to get exposure, good
to get on these aircrafts.
It's easier to advise clients once you've
sat in it, you understand, hey,
you might need a little bit taller, or
you kind of learn the specs of it,
you kind of get the feel of it.
So it helps with, you know, showing the
client where to go and what their mission
is and what makes sense.
All right, great.
So we were able to track
down Trevor here with Epic,
and Trevor's going to talk to us about
what Epic has going on at base.
Behind me, we have one of their, what
model of plane is this?
This is the E1000AX.
So it's our latest version of
the E1000 line of airplanes.
It's the fastest single engine certified
airplane you can buy.
Also the highest flying.
Fully carbon fiber
construction, which is kind of unique.
Right.
So when you say highest flying, how high?
34,000.
34,000.
With a speed of?
We're typically cruising about 320 knots
at 34,000 at a high speed cruise.
What kind of range are
you getting out of it?
Figure at a high speed, we're going to be
about 1200 nautical miles.
That'll leave you an hour reserve.
And you can do that with six
people on board, which is...
So putting that into hours, that's what?
Three and a half?
Three-four-five?
Yeah, figure about four hours of range
with an hour of reserve.
Good.
Connectivity?
Yeah, we have Starlink Wi-Fi on board.
So, yep, I think we're the first ones to
certify an external
installation of that system.
So it's a big advantage.
Passenger profiles.
So what, how many are
you getting in here?
And...
Yeah, it's sixth place.
And that pic was really designed to be
comfortable for bigger people.
So we get six people in it.
Can we take their bags too?
Yeah, you can.
They can each have one.
And that, I guess, would be what you
would call a limitation
of a smaller aircraft is
you don't have an airliner-sized baggage
compartment in there.
But it very nicely fits.
I don't know if you can see the little
stack of bags back there,
but six rollerboards all
fit back behind the seat.
This is a utility category airplane at
its 8,000 pound gross
weight, which is very rare.
So, immensely strong.
So depending on your mission, this might
be the perfect fifth for
somebody that might think
they need something with more range or
bigger or what have you.
Yeah. But this might be a
great way to get into it.
Well, it's a great
entry-level airplane, right?
I mean, what you have here.
So first-time buyers just
kind of starting out slow.
This would be a great machine for them.
Or pilots that have other businesses and
flying isn't their main career.
I would say that--
They could have one.
Probably about half of our owners are
moving up out of piston
aircraft and advancing their
flying and their capabilities.
Probably a quarter of our owners are
moving down out of bigger aircraft.
So say coming out of a Phenom or out of a
Premier jet or a Citation jet,
because maybe they're
moving into retirement.
They don't have the same
travel needs they had before.
They don't have as many
people to carry around.
This is easy to fly.
They can be insured to fly it at a much
older age because it is
a turboprop versus a jet.
So a lot of advantage is there, but
they're not giving up
what they were used to and capability
from those bigger aircraft.
And then I'd say the other quarter are
what people are making lateral moves.
Maybe coming out of some of our direct
competitors into the
Epic now that they're
ready to trade in or retire their current
version of a single engine turboprop.
So what about Return to Land?
Do you have Return to Land?
Under its many names, we just call it
what Garmin calls it,
which is out of land.
So yeah, Emergency out of Land is
included in that five
great 1 million dollar price.
I have no idea what you
guys are talking about.
Our Return to Land, it sounds like the
plane's going to land.
As bad as you push it.
Yeah, basically.
Yeah, yeah.
So essentially, we've
upgraded this to have auto throttle.
So Garmin's auto throttle manages the
power on the engine.
And there's some additional components
they put in for an auto braking module,
some relays that control gear and flaps
and those sorts of things.
And then all of that together enables
their emergency auto land system, which
if the pilot were to become incapacitated
or unable to continue
flying a passenger can push a
button that the airplane
is the take me home button.
Yep, exactly.
I love it.
And the airplane actually makes decisions
and makes emergency calls.
It goes and picks an airport, voids
weather and lands the aircraft safely.
So sounds like a fun time.
Yeah, absolutely.
Real quick, manufactured where?
Manufactured in the
US and bend to Oregon.
American made.
Nice.
Love it, Trevor.
Thank you so much for
talking to us on On the Jet.
And I hope you have a good
time with the rest of base.
Absolutely, sir.
Thank you for your time.
All right, awesome.
All right, I got Dante here from Aspen.
And Dante is an aircraft broker.
Dante, what are you
excited to see at base this year?
Everything.
Like this is just an incredible event
getting to get hands on
with a lot of the different
jets that are out on the market and learn
about what sets different
manufacturers apart from
everybody else and identifying key
features that will be
important for my clients.
Nice.
So I noticed there's a lot of parties, a
lot of events, a lot of things for people
to get to know each other.
How important is that
aspect of the business?
Oh, hugely important.
Relationships is a big part of this.
Being able to know and trust the
individuals that you're
working with is a key thing.
So being able to meet up and have more
intimate conversations
because being on an exhibit floor,
you're kind of limited
on the time that you have.
But being able to go out to those social
events and being able
to really dig in and
get to know them for who they are and
more than just their elevator
pitch on their products is a
big deal.
So if I'm looking to own a jet, it sounds
like I want to work
with somebody that has
these kind of relationships.
And if they're not at base, maybe they
don't have those kind of relationships.
So I'm thinking out loud here as somebody
that might want to own a jet,
I probably want to work with somebody
that's at these types of
events that knows the right
people in order to make sure that my
transaction goes smooth
and that I'm taken care of.
Absolutely.
As in anything, whether it's sales or
personal life,
relationships speak volumes to people.
So if you can say that you know and trust
an individual and you
speak from a place of
integrity, then that'll carry you far.
Nice.
As far as the different displays and jets
and things that are out
here at the static here at
base, is there anything that you're just
chomping at the bit to see?
Is there anything that you're just like,
man, it's pretty cool to
know that this is here?
Yeah.
I mean, there's a lot of things here,
like anything from Bombardier.
Like I'm a huge fan of their stuff.
Pilatus.
Honda Jet is a great company too.
But we're constantly working with people
who are looking more in that mid-market.
That's why Bombardier is one that I'm
really excited to be
able to get inside of and be
able to talk with them and learn more
about what they've got coming.
Nice.
So hopefully we'll
get a chance to do that.
Dante, thank you so much for talking to
me and look forward to
seeing you more at base.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me on.
We're about halfway through day two here.
The static was a lot of fun, but we have
come back to the trade show.
There's a lot of people at the trade show
on the trade show floor
that we still need to talk to.
So we are going to go see
what else base has to offer.
So NBAA is all about aviation.
Apparently somebody brought a spaceship.
So we're here talking to Adam from
OTTO Aerospace about the-
is it the Phantom 3500?
Phantom 3500, yes.
Dude, you have to tell me about this
because this thing looks insane.
It doesn't have any-- there's no like
visible doors, windows panels.
It's like Flight of the
Navigator or something, right?
So yeah, tell me about it.
Yeah.
So we're with OTTO Aerospace,
and this is our Phantom 3500.
It's our launch product.
It's our first aircraft
that we'll come out with.
And while not a
spaceship, we do fly a lot higher.
So we fly at about 51,000 feet.
So you know, you go westbound, you're
going over the jet stream.
But our total mission here at
OTTO Aerospace is using
what's called laminar flow,
which is the orderly flow
of a fluid over a surface.
Right?
In this case, it's air.
And what that allows us to do is we take
the energy required for
flight out by about 50%.
So when you do that, what you get is
instead of what-- sometimes
you hear of a vicious cycle.
We have what's called a virtuous cycle.
So everything starts to get lighter.
So if you see our engines on there,
they're Williams FJ44-4 engines.
They've got about 13, 14 million hours of
operational space out there.
They look really small
on an aircraft this size.
And that's intentional, right?
We don't need the propulsion that you
would normally need for
an aircraft of this size,
because we cut that weight down in half.
So it's a super-mid aircraft.
It's a max range 3500
nautical mile aircraft.
But instead of being about 40,000 to
42,000 pounds max takeoff weight,
we're at 19,000
pounds max takeoff weight.
So when you look at that
overall weight of the aircraft,
we're roughly half of what others in this
space, in this Supermid category, are.
I can imagine it takes a lot less fuel.
And that's a big
expense with flying private.
You have to pay for a lot of fuel.
Absolutely.
So compared to competitors in that space,
in the Supermid space,
we're about 60% more fuel efficient.
So you have massive reduction in fuel.
You also have about
overall operating costs,
the direct operating
costs on an hourly basis,
of about 40% less, including fuel,
maintenance, et cetera.
The other benefit of it is, from a
sustainability perspective,
you're cutting out a
huge amount of fuel, right?
We also fly higher.
So we fly at 51,000 feet.
When you start to get up
towards 51,000, 53,000 feet,
contrails start to go away.
And when you start to limit at contrails,
you're not only limiting emissions from
the propulsion system,
but you're also affecting the overall
global warming effect from the aircraft.
When you start to lose those contrails,
if we fly 100% SAF in the engine, which
the engine is rated for,
and you fly at that altitude,
you can eliminate the global warming
effect by about 97% on that flight.
So it's truly astounding.
And you can do it where
it's still cost effective.
Without the contrails, how are you
supposed to continue to
control people's minds?
It's very difficult.
We haven't released that secret yet.
Okay, okay.
We're going to get to that.
That's next.
Okay, okay.
So who's this for?
Who's the market for this jet?
Yeah, so our first
product, the Phantom 3500,
we've just gone
announced with our great partner
and our launch customer, FlexJet,
who is a fractional service.
And this is a business jet market.
And that is where we're starting, under
our Part 23 certification.
And then we'll expand from there.
So that traditional super mid and below
business jet market,
because it's a super mid capability,
but you're operating at much lower costs.
So we can really go after that overall
business jet market.
And then we'll expand from there with
what we'll call our
future larger aircraft.
But we haven't come out with that yet.
That's next, and we'll go bigger, right?
So we'll go look at Intercontinental.
We can look at other spaces with it.
But we're starting where we think is the
pragmatic place to
start within the market.
And a great path to a
certification path under Part 23.
Working with great partners, great
customers in FlexJet.
And we'll go from there.
So when can I fly on one of these things?
When can I book a
flight on a Phantom 3500?
So our entry in the service,
our EIS, is planned for 2030.
So what you see behind you
here with the Phantom 3500,
we're in the process of putting that
together now with our partners.
And we will fly.
We've flown prototypes and demonstrators
in the past at auto.
But this next one, flight
test vehicle one of four,
will be flown in Jacksonville, Florida,
where we're moving
the company to in 2027.
And then after that, you'll have flight
test vehicles two through four,
which will be our certification articles.
They'll be conforming aircraft and we'll
go keep them through the
rest of the certification
process with a planned timeline of 2030
entry in the service.
That's awesome.
We will get you in there in 2030.
Honestly, this is one of the coolest
things I've seen on the trade show floor.
So yeah, OTTO aerospace Phantom 3500.
Thank you so much for talking to me about
this and showing it off.
Yeah, cool.
Thanks a lot.
So thank you for joining us on our
journey to MBAA's base
2025 here in Las Vegas,
where we got to learn a little bit about
what it takes to own the jet.
Thank you for watching Own the Jet.
If you want to see more Own the Jet, make
sure to subscribe to
our channel on YouTube
and leave a comment telling us what
aspect of jet ownership
you'd like to know more about.
Own the Jet is brought to
you by Aspen Aero Group,
your trusted partner in private and
corporate jet ownership.
Learn more at Aspen Aero Group dot com.
This has been a Savage Media production.