Honda Jet

I got my first 1.0 hrs of dual in the Honda Jet!  Wow, what an airplane.  It's super high tech and totally automated.  I also spent an hour on the ground getting up to speed on the G3000 system which came pretty naturally because, well it's just Garmin.  Think of a G1000 mated up to a GTN 750.  Totally intuitive if you've got Garmin time.

Our flight was only an hour, Reno and back.  The really thrilling thing was the acceleration off the block.  Engines come up with feet on the brakes, the throttles go to the TO position which is full throttle, brakes come off and you launch forward with roller coaster like acceleration.  You're pressed to the back of your seat and before you know it you're through V1 about 109 kts and climbing at 4,000 fpm.  It's also by far, the quietest airplane I've ever been in.  You can barely hear the engines when you power them on.  Headsets are not even close to being necessary for passengers.  At cruise it's just as quiet as can be.

I thought it rode the bumps fairly well.  We had weather up to 13k ft and bouncing along for maybe 2 or 3 minutes before we were on top in smooth air humming along at 380 kts at 24,000 ft.  Up high it goes faster and burns even less fuel, but this was such a short hop we didn't bother to go any higher.  Amazingly, we burned within 20 pounds of what the C90 used to burn for the same trip.  Good fun. The plan is to get 75 to 100 hrs in the thing before going for the type rating and combining that with my ATP ride.