Ferrari Lear Jet P-180 Avanti Aircraft

It's been out for a long time, I love the way it looks....but don't get me started on composite airplanes.

 

Get used to it,more and more are coming (including commercial planes)
Btw,Piaggio is a really nice plane,with performance closer to jets then any other turboprop,very quiet and good range.
www.avantair.com is using them in their fractional program exclusively.

 

The Piaggio P188 was in development at the very start of the 1980s. I had some meetings with the head engineer developing the project and was able to learn what their conceptual targets were and rationale. Keep in mind that at this time oil was at a high number and the world saw it as continuing to remain at that level or higher in the future so effeciency was viewed as a prime attribute.

What we now know as the Avanti is not a composite airframe. At the time when this was being conceived Beech had announced their Starship which was a composite. Piaggio saw this as an additional technical hurdle beyond the 3 lifting surfaces and pusher engines that did not warant the risk. [based upon the results of the Starship that was proved to be a sound analysis]

The product attribute highlights were:
Cost to operate like a King Air
Block times for 1,000 or 1,500nm like a Citation
Cabin size of a Falcon 20

Piaggio made an arrangement with Learjet as a partner in the early '80s. That didn't work as Learjet had their own problems.

Piaggio tried going it alone again but eventually they went in to a reorganization. The reorganization led to a cash infusion and some new partners. The notable/figure head partner is Piero Ferrari. For the annual corporate aircraft convention (National Business Aircraft Association) he always shows up and they display one or two Ferraris in the booth along with the Avanti. This last show they had a 612 and a 430 from the Atlanta dealership.

At one time in the last few years there was a press announcement on pf doing the redesign of the interior look.

Jeff

 

The P188 is an awsome airplane, a great combination of interior room, speed and low fuel consumption.

On some of the other aviation boards that I frequent, there has been some chat of poor reliability in secondary systems (cabin pressurization and wiring) that tend to make them "hangar queens", but if you are willing to put up with the reliability issues they are a very capable aircraft.

 

I guess this is neither a Lear nor a Jet.
Bombardier, who build Lear Jets might get a tad upset at the thread title.
I'm certain that Piaggio Aero (an affiliate company of the VESPA motorcycle maker) would be just as upset having their plane called a Lear Jet.

FWIW. the Agnelli family are shareholders in both Piaggio and Fiat S.p,a, Ferrari's parent company, and Piero Ferrari holds an executive position at Piaggio Aero. All very much in the family.

 

I would expect both companies might have issues. Piaggo more so since their "partnership" turned out that the only thing it gave the project besides Learjet cabin windows was a massive delay when the partner did not perform.

Jeff

 

Hey, sheepskin seat covers are a strike.

I started to laugh because the shield seems to be popping up everywhere, and every additional application seems to be more ridiculous than the last, but then I read 410SA's post. Makes sense.

 

The sheepskin seat covers are fine. It's the old 1980's EFIS that gets me! They should move into the 1990s, at least.

 

Only if that particular plane is/was used to transport members of the factory racing team in their official capacities. (Which the white one, at least, indeed might be.)

 

Both are "company planes", transport Ferrari corporate staff folks, from both road cars and race team staffs.

Should your Enzo have happaned to have broken down in the middle of nowhere in the days after original delivery with an airport but no dealership near by, one of those planes might have flown in some factory techs to have gotten you back on your way again.

 

An aircraft with the scuderia symbol on it should not have props!

 

Why? The plane that the symbol originally came off of did! You want authentic history? There you go!
Forza!

 

This may be a dumb question, but why?

 

Not only bizjets, but most airliners today use sheepskin seat covers because they're non-slip and far and away the most comfortable surface to sit on for six or eight hours at a stretch!

Piaggio Aero has had no connection with the Piaggio Vespa company since the patriarch split the Rinaldo Piaggio company into two parts about thirty years ago. Neither Fiat, nor the Agnelli family have any ownership interest today in Piaggio Aero.

Aircraft with propellers should not be allowed to carry the Ferrari logo on the tail?? Why not - the P-180 is the fastest propeller driven civil aircraft in the world, faster than most smaller jets (400 Knots+ in cruise).

P.S.: Just look at the patch on the sleeve of Kimi Raikonnen standing on the podium at Brazil - the Piaggio Aero logo is clearly identifiable on his sleeve as Piaggio Aero sponsored both Ferrari drivers last season!

IMHO Piaggio has earned the Cavallino Rampante on its tail!

 

As DennisForza mentioned, the prancing horse originally came from an WWI fighter aircraft... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/FBaracca_1.jpg

 

One of these planes is supposed to be coming to the jet port event as part of the Ferrari and Exotics at St. Armands, Sarasota, Florida in 2 weeks. Here are the details:

http://www.focfloridaregion.com/

aehaas

 

badass

 

That's great. I'm all for history, but prancing horses should be on the fastest vehicles.
It doesn't make a difference anyway, ferrari now has an officially licensed segway which is an absolute abomination. So much for fast.

 

So as a cars performance no longer measures up, does it need to turn in its prancing horses?

No Ferrari production car has been able to hold on to the title "fastest in the world" long, so your logic makes little sense to me.

This is the company and team's transportation, should the Scuderia take the Prancing Horses off of the Iveco Trucks?.

As long as the intention of the Ferrari Segway is to serve as a pit vehicle, I have no problems with it. All of the licensing means that the team can be profitable on its own, and funding can be independent of the production car sales, which might be needed in the next couple years of world wide economic instability.

 

Ferraris have been among the fastest street and track cars since the company has been building them. Obviously not always number one (that would be impossible), but always very close.

As for the segway, it is just another product of many which have been officially licensed by Ferrari to generate more money. A few other products would be Ferrari perfume, Scuderia Ferrari Barbie, Ferrari espresso cups and saucers, Ferrari Digital Camera, Ferrari cell phone, Ferrari laptop computer, Ferrari compact home entertainment system, etc. etc. This is only a recent phenomenom and I personally would be happy if they kept it auto related, but the lure of easy money is impossible to resist. The "Ferrari Lear Jet...." title of this thread actually piqued my interest because it's a better branding fit than some others, but evidently it's not a reality. While it's great that the F1 team can be self-sustaining with the help of mass-licensing, at the end of the day the image of the company as a whole is affected. When I see Ferrari cologne on the shelf at the store, I don't think exclusivity, I laugh and think sell-out. Enzo built and sold cars to finance the race team. Today the company helps sell home goods, toys, electronics, and fragrances. I suppose it's just a sign of the times.

Of course, it is what it is, so as long as the road cars remain the best (and fastest) in the world and the F1 team wins championships, it's all good.

 

This plane is amazing, I have flown in a couple of times in an Avanti II, it is very very quiet, you can fly at 41,000ft at 400kts all day, stand up cabin, spectacular almos jet like performance for a turboprops operating cost.

 

It's an old photo. The second generation has decent avionics, modern. This is the plane that I'd buy, if I could dig up the 7M to buy it.

Art