Presidential 69, cleared to land

January 26, 2019 7:25 AM

Shaun & Jon are pilots who fly a Gulfstream IV for corporate customers. Join them in the cockpit for a complete flight from Las Vegas to LAX, or a shorter hop from Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach.

If you fancy heading further afield, fly with them from Teterboro to Le Bourget in Paris (including an explanation of transatlantic routing around the 4min30 mark) and then from Le Bourget to RAF Northolt in London (flying part starts around 4min50) where they land using a Surveillance Radar Approach used by military ATC.

posted by jontyjago (9 comments total)

Wow, these are awesome! Thanks for sharing.
posted by dozo at 7:54 AM on January 26, 2019

Shaun (who runs the channel) switched jobs a few months ago, so he no longer flies with Jon. He has posted a few videos from the new gig, though. For a while all the old videos were gone at the request of the former employer, but it's good to see them back.

I'm a nervous flier but also find flying very interesting, so I've been watching this channel for a while. Acts as therapy of a sort.
posted by MillMan at 8:02 AM on January 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

Love watching these kinds of videos. Thanks for posting!
posted by sundrop at 8:23 AM on January 26, 2019

Disclaimer: I can't really FPP this, as I know the pilot who produced it: here's a montage of G550 cockpit footage you might enjoy, Sundrop.
posted by Alterscape at 9:29 AM on January 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

Flying a private jet from Ft. Lauderdale to Palm Beach, which is about 50 miles, seems like grotesque decadence. Is there some good reason to do this?
posted by vogon_poet at 11:15 AM on January 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

Probably not. Mostly it’s a status thing.
posted by pharm at 11:28 AM on January 26, 2019

Is there some good reason to do this

I think they're based at Ft Lauderdale so presumably it's a repositioning flight as they had customers to pick at Palm Beach.
posted by jontyjago at 11:55 AM on January 26, 2019 [6 favorites]

I once had to plan investor trips for the communications director and CEO of a regional bank--basically a roadshow where they'd go flog the stock to analysts and investors. The trips were done in a business jet leased by the company.

Anyway, I was trying to figure out how to fit to desired stops in Cleveland (I think) which were on opposite ends of the city; I couldn't see how they could get from the airport to both stops and back to the airport in time to get to the next meeting in a different city. The CEO's admin solved it by suggesting that the plane land on the east end of the city at the main airport, and pick them up on the west side of the city at a regional airport.

Solved the problem, and utterly disgusted me.
posted by Ickster at 1:01 PM on January 26, 2019 [3 favorites]

I watched the video of the short hop and it reinforces my belief that this kind of flying isn't for me. My brain is too stiff for all the readbacks and monitoring of the radio to kind of keep in the back of your mind if the controller made a mistake. Listening to the woman controller who was swamped made me feel a little panicky! The kind of flying I want is VFR in the summer in little used airspace and occasionally upside down. Kudos to the young brains who don't transpose digits or letters.
posted by Pembquist at 9:46 AM on January 28, 2019