Flying the Improved HondaJet Elite – BJT

we're here in Greensboro North Carolina where honda jets are made and I'm here to fly the HondaJet elite we're going to show you what makes the HondaJet elite different from the original HondaJet and also some of the features that set the HondaJet apart in the light jet market honda gently' and fly 1437 nautical miles with IFR reserves and it can carry up to eight occupants one of the interesting features of the HondaJet is the over the wing mounted engines this is a rarely used configuration in aviation and has never been used before with the business jet the advantage of the over the wing mounted engines is that it opens up a lot of space in the rear of the fuselage that's allowing room to include a full lavatory a couple of the key changes are on the outside of the aircraft one of the new features on the elite this is a perforated inlet where we drilled a large number of small holes in the barrel there and they act as an acoustical device to cancel out some of the dominant frequencies of the engine making for significantly quieter cabin we ended up extending the horizontal tail the goal with that was to reduce our takeoff distance which is now about 500 feet shorter than a baseline model a side benefit as well is that that allows to make the take-off characteristics a bit more predictable bit smoother in the rotation with lighter forces and it also allowed us to get rid of the vortex generators and T strips we had on the tail reducing the drag of the airplane and giving us a bit more range the changes on the external airframe are subtle and inside the flight deck it's only when you start flying the elite that you notice the new features these include faster micro processors and higher resolution in the Garmin G 3000 displays in the cabin the elite offers a new galley option with the coffee maker ice bins and lots of storage space we're carrying 1980 pounds of fuel today about 1,000 pounds fewer than the maximum load for today's flight we are Honda test 12 it took only five minutes to go from switching power on to finishing all the preflight checks including the systems tests which finished with the stick shaker the new elite feature is graphical weight and balance calculations in the avionics the legacy HondaJet could only do load calculations but not the balance it plugged in the weight for the crew and one passenger plus a small amount of luggage after sinking the fuel showed by the gauges the MFD showed our weight and balanced envelope and the changes due to our projected fuel burn flight planning is easy especially for pilots who have learned to fly with Garmin avionics another new elite feature is takeoff and landing data in the avionics making performance calculations much simpler once I selected our takeoff configuration for example whether we needed icing equipment switched on the system showed us our reference or V speeds these are about 5 knots slower than the legacy HondaJet thanks to the aerodynamic and weight improvements this translates into less runway required for takeoff and landing and also better safety margins this also calculates second segment climb wind components an initial level off altitude if applicable once I accepted these numbers then the V speeds automatically post on the PFDs airspeed tape starting the 2050 pound thrust GE honda hf 120 turbofans is simple push the start button until the green circle lights up then release the latch on the throttle and pull it up to idle then just watch the gauges the takeoff landing data checks to make sure the flap setting matches what we selected during flight deck setup in flight planning if they don't match when advancing the throttles we'd get a takeoff warning because of the miss configuration this is a helpful feature for a single pilot in something that is common on much larger airplanes the new avionics hardware has faster processors so when you zoom or pan the map it's instantaneous on the test a one to runway two three right line up and wait on test one two three thirty our fly runway heading runway two three right cleared for takeoff you're cleared for takeoff and they advance the throttles to maximum power and the hf 120 engines pushes for it's settled but the nose feels a little lighter on rotation thanks to the larger horizontal stabilizer and once in the year the pitch control feels a little crisper with a DSP in as part of the standard equipment we can easily see other traffic on the MFD switching to the traffic page makes it even easier to see other traffic and their trajectories climbing through 17,000 feet to flight level to 3-0 I finally put the autopilot on the HondaJet handles so well am reluctant to use the autopilot NEXRAD data is now animated so you can get a better idea of how storms are developing during the climb we detected some ice accumulation so the anti-icing for the wings and tail inlets switched on automatically we're cleared to climb to flight level 3 1-0 where we'll do a performance check Stephan showed me how easy it is to pull up the environmental controls in set flight deck and cabin temperature after turning off the engine Inlet anti ice climb rate increased to about 2,000 feet per minute from 1200 the fuel system synoptic shows the new fuel capacity of the elite the center tank is regulated to keep it not quite full supplied first by the fuselage fuel tank we're burning just over 500 pounds per hour per engine during the climb we pulled up the dedicated weather page to see the additional weather information we could have on the MFD map there are only certain weather overlays that we can view another new feature is the progress page in Leh Stephan says that this is handy when flying outside the US where there are more mandatory position reporting points this is a lot like an MMS progress page and it's something new for Garmin avionics a new feature for the electronic stability and protection or ESP is the pitch ladder on the PFD which shows you the pitch attitude that would result in stick shaker this makes it easy to tell and speed is getting too low and pilots can use this for wind shear avoidance to extract maximum performance while flying right at stick shaker speed if you slow down too far though the ESP will nudge the controls to remind the pilot to push forward and speed up it's is a +7 degrees at flight level 3 1 0 and we're cruising at 414 knots at maximum continuous thrust and burning 500 pounds per hour per engine if we were at the maximum altitude of flight level 4 3 0 we'd burn nearly 600 pounds per hour for both engines at high speed cruise of 550 pounds per hour for both engines at long-range cruise the Handy cruise speed control adjusts n1 speed to maintain a set airspeed a convenient feature for a jet without auto throttles the cruise speed control is helpful in the terminal area for example where we could slow to say 170 knots then set the speed control to hold them moving the thrust levers turns the speed control off I turned off the autopilot and flew some banks to feel the handling at altitude the controls feel a little heavier at high-speed cruise which is to be expected after receiving the ADIS for Greensboro we preset the altimeter setting so it's ready to switch when we descend below flight level 180 zero we're cleared to 11,000 feet at tracks intersection so we set a V nav to there when we captured the vertical path I just had to pull the power back to keep from over speeding on descent we calculated the landing speeds we had already plugged in the arrival to runway 2 3 right then we loaded the SiriusXM weather and it gave us the V ref landing distance etc I set up the visual approach 2 to 3 right it's just another procedure at the bottom of the list after the regular approaches we set it up with vectors it's a 3-degree glide path but it doesn't consider if there is terrain the air traffic controller gave us a block from 8,500 to 10,500 feet for some air work with the autopilot on I descended to 9,500 feet and pulled the power to idle to demonstrate low-speed protection this is like the classic situation where a distracted pilot forgets to add power after leveling off first we got visual and aural alerts and ESP lower the nose to avoid stalling to recover advance power to max continuous thrust ESP will roll the wings level 2 if we were in a turn with the power at idle I can see the stick shaker speed on the speed date and the angle of attack climbing the oil warning said air speed and then the nose pushed down at just a few knots above stick shaker speed we were descending at about 1,200 feet per minute after adding power to max continuous then the airplane automatically goes back to the selected altitude because the autopilot is still on I disconnected the autopilot for some steep turns at 200 knots turning to the left first I could feel the ESP nudge at 45 degrees of Bank I could easily fly through the nudge you can disable ESP if you want but it defaults back on when starting up then I pull back to feel the stick shaker and the under speed protection mode on the PFD I could see the pitch attitude coincide with his stick shaker feathers before a warning called out airspeed airspeed and the shakers show then I could feel the ESP nudge weeds ended a rudder bias demo Stephane cut power on one engine and its really a non-event the rudder bias looks at the calculated thrust difference between two engines and your airspeed and applies force based on a predefined schedule it's not really apparent during this demo that the engines are mounted on the wings instead of the aft fuselage returning to Greensboro we activated vectors to final for the visual approach which paints an extended centerline for the selected runway even though this isn't an IFR approach I could fly it like an R nav approach and even use the autopilot an approach mode the HondaJet can fly steeper approaches up to 6.6 5 degrees I flew just above a V rep speed of 108 knots to 1 way to 3 right the landing data showed we needed only 3162 feet of the 9,000 foot runway for actual landing distance our landing weight was about eight thousand nine hundred pounds the HondaJet felt comfortable in the controls harmonious at the slow speed just a small amount of nose up as we neared the runway was enough to set us up for a smooth touchdown and I applied the improved brakes which are very smooth to turn off at the next intersection [Music]

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Views: 547,438

Rating: 4.8691058 out of 5

Keywords: hondajet, hondajet elite, aviation, aircraft, flying, luxury travel, private jet, business jet, bizav, pilot, cockpit, avionics, technology, honda

Id: bMePuwIKQo8

Length: 13min 26sec (806 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 17 2020