Jessie Naor: Good morning and welcome back to the VIP seat. Today we are covering the Falcon 10X ⁓ and drama continues. Sit back, buckle up and let's take off. Alright Preston, so this isn't like new news, but it is in the flesh. We now have a Falcon 10X that is going to be test flying soon.

Preston Holland: Yeah, it has long been rumored. mean, I think that everybody was kind of wondering if the 10X was ever actually going to make it. You know, it was was rumored to be incredible. There were mockups, you know, announcement in 2021, five years later. And finally, we see it in person. There's actually a leak in December. Somebody pointed out to me when I posted about, oh, it's our first in-person look. they're like, well, technically, somebody saw it on the ramp in green. ⁓ beforehand, sometime in December, I was like, okay, well the first official look, Dassault Rolled Out the Falcon 10X.

Jessie Naor: Bye. Yeah. And I don't know if you saw the video of the launch. It was actually a pretty cool unveiling, but they had the, I don't know if it was engineers or technicians, someone with little wands walking beside the plane. They taught them choreography, but they looked really uncomfortable the whole time. I just thought that was a little funny.

Preston Holland: I know. Did you watch, I don't know if you watched the Winter Olympic Games with like the opening ceremonies, it was really artsy and kind of weird. It kind of, reminded me of that. I think the PSA here to Private Jet OEMs is like, we don't need the artsy things, especially like we had the Cirque du Soleil at NBAA, which was kind of awkward. I don't know if we need all of this kind of like.

Jessie Naor: Yeah. Yeah. It was weird.

Preston Holland: weird dancing pomp and circumstance.

Jessie Naor: No, we're fine with just the airplanes. Like that's enough for us. and more swag, you know, actually don't spend the money on the performance. Just like show us the airplane and give us like, I mean, I was at Airbus and they were handing out these like Airbus plushy airplanes and it was like, like wildfire, like rabble. They were flying off the table before anyone could get near them. It was a chaos. So maybe invest in us.

Preston Holland: Yeah, Embraer did fuzzy socks that my wife wears like once a week. you know, pick really good swag. I will say too, everybody the same Nike hat. Like I have five manufacturers of the same Nike hat. Like try something different. I try and do really good swag and it's like, cause you know, people want to keep it. Let's not do the same exact dry fit Nike hat, but let's jump into the 10X. Like some of these stats like... ⁓ It's on par with the G800 in some ways. It beats it in some ways. It really is going to be ⁓ pretty unique in this class. It's not going to be a complete one-for-one replacement for his contemporaries.

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's not the fastest, but it's pretty dang close. I mean, we're talking about, you know, the fastest being 0.94 Mach and this one is like 0.9 and 0.925 maximum. So pretty dang good. But for the ladies out there, it is two inches taller and eight inches wider.

Preston Holland: Yeah, they say that size doesn't matter, but sometimes it does.

Jessie Naor: Everybody always, this is like just the constant battle with these airplanes. It's like, it's gotta be the biggest one. buying these, they just have to have the latest and the greatest and the biggest.

Preston Holland: Yep, exactly. And the French came through and they delivered. I think the other thing that's really cool is the interior is unlike any other. has very unique interiors. Now, do I like them? I I'm more of like a traditional kind of Gulfstream, know, Bombardier, Embraer, leather, all that kind of stuff. But Dassault is coming out with some, ⁓ like, like allergy resistant. fabric and stuff like that, which is pretty interesting what they've kind of done with the interior design. A little futuristic looking for me, but it's unique.

Jessie Naor: Yeah, the interesting thing for here too is the cabin altitude pressure at 41,000 feet. I think it's around like 3000 or something like that is what they're projecting.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I mean, that's super low. And it's really important for Transcon trips. The thing that I think about the Falcon 10X is they really have designed around the 10-hour trip, right, the 10-hour flight, having the really long legs. Because if you look at some of the other interior design choices that they made with some of the bedroom and you kind of have like a bedroom-office combo, it's really trying to be a little bit more focused towards the Transcon. Now the G700 and 800 and the

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: Global 7500, they have that too. I mean, it's not unique, but you really see some of the little bitty tweaks that make it more focused on those long range trips.

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think too, from the press release, they said this is the first airplane with fully composite wings, which I'm interested to see, you know, how that works out. That's also like, heard some talk about composite wings being like a negative because if you get a bird strike or something like that's a lot more expensive to repair. But I don't know if leading edges are planning on composite or if that's literally the entire wing.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I don't know. I think that composite is a, maybe it's a risky choice because if you look at over the lifetime of these aircraft, I mean, there's still Falcon 50s and Falcon What is it, 20s, right? That are flying and Falcon 10s, like they're still flying. I guess the question is gonna be is, ⁓ you gonna have to re-wing the aircraft after 20 years? Like, hopefully not. I'm sure that they've done a lot of testing on this, but that would be my concern is kind of the durability of the new composite wing.

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm. Yeah, but from a weight perspective, obviously, that gets them a little more in terms of size and scale.

Preston Holland: Yeah, exactly. One thing I want to point out is that they started taking orders in 2021. My guess is that Taylor Swift probably has one on order because she is a Falcon girl. I would imagine Grant Cardone has at least spoken to them because he wouldn't even have to rebrand his jet. It already comes with 10X on the front. So, you know, custom paint job already built in. But they do have backlog. So.

Jessie Naor: There you go.

Preston Holland: The thing about Dassault is they don't report model level backlogs, right? So they kind of say, here's our full backlog. So they have a 73, for current production Falcons, there's a 73 jet backlog against 37 deliveries in 2025, which means that like they're at a two to one. And 73 is not that many compared to some of their competitors. mean, Dassault is going to make exactly as many as they want to make and not a single one more, but they're blaming it on supply chain. yet you look at the Rafale fighter and it has not had supply chain issues. It has beat expectations or met it over the last couple of years. And like the order book of Falcons is four and a half to five billion euros and the Rafale fighter is 46 billion euros. like their business jet, this is just really, really small.

Jessie Naor: Yeah. Yeah, and that's just, I feel like the case with so many different companies, you know, I'm the helicopter girl here, but we've seen the same thing happen to Sikorsky. Like everything is being put into defense. Like that's really their focus. And commercial is just not getting the attention that it used to. And so you do have to wonder like, okay, you know, like you said, they were supposed to deliver 37 in 2025, but they only delivered 31. So you know, missing that and they missed that their delivery guidance for the third year in a row this year. So you have to go, hmm, you tell me this is supply chain from COVID, but at the end of the day, you're still able to deliver all those fighter jets. So maybe it's just a matter of priorities, but it makes you wonder as a customer, like, okay, should I go with someone who cares more about the defense side of the business or someone that doesn't have a defense side at all?

Preston Holland: Right, I mean the C check on the Falcon is taking six months right now. I mean, they definitely have supply chain issues, obviously. I that that becomes kind of ⁓ lifetime ownership is how much support network do you have? How much is this gonna cost me? How much downtime do I have? Because we all know that a down airplane costs a lot of money and if you can't use it, it still costs the same amount of money. I mean, you still have to pay your hangar like you have to pay your hangar rent while you're in maintenance. Like people, I think...

Jessie Naor: And your pilots and everybody else.

Preston Holland: Sometimes people think like, oh yeah, don't have to pay a hangar when my airplane's not there. No, you have the space reserve. So yeah, I think the missing delivery targets is the key thread here, is that if you think about prioritization of businesses, it doesn't seem as though Dassault is necessarily prioritizing the business jet. We talked about this a couple months ago, but I have heard that basically everybody's cross-trained across both aircraft and aircraft types. So you have military,

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: and you have commercial. Whereas like a Textron, it's like two totally separate companies. I you have different CEOs, you have different everything. Whereas at Dassault it's very tightly integrated. So if you want to pick up these people from the Falcon line and put them over on the fighter line, no problem. Everybody's cross-trained, super easy. And so I guess, know, prioritizing different business lines and business units. I know Israel placed a huge order for the Rafale fighter jets. A lot of other countries have kind of moving away from the Lockheed and then...

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: know, US dependence. But you know, the Falcon is still a great airplane. I the 10X is still, it's gonna have a niche, but I think that Falcon is gonna continue to be kind of a niche airplane. There's no large operators that operate Falcon aircraft. there's no, you know, you don't see them at Flexjet, you don't see them at NetJets. You see them a little bit at EJM in kind of the management side, but not in the, you know, big fleet. And I don't think that they care.

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, this is a piece of their business model, but it's certainly not the biggest. But a lot of, especially European customers that really like the Dassault, really like the lineage of a fighter jet, business jet thing. But even in this case, it's not the fastest. So I know. But if I could afford one, I'd buy one for sure. ⁓

Preston Holland: Oh, for sure. Well, I think too, one comment that I've heard from a lot of people is that the front of the 10X does not look like a Falcon. So you think about the 7X, 6X, 8X, the kind of aggressive looking front of the aircraft that looks kind of mean and a little bit pointy. Somebody said it basically looks like the cross of a Praetor and a CRJ-200.

Jessie Naor: Hmm.

Preston Holland: And that bout got me, because it kind of does. The front droops over a little bit. It just really, the 10X is a totally new iteration. And you wouldn't be able to say, oh, Falcon, that is definitely a Falcon. It looks like the 900 kind of or a cousin, two engines instead of three. So there's a lot of deviations from the typical design. But I think that that's something definitely a design choice.

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: It's beautiful, but I would not say that if you put it up next to the rest of the Falcon lineup that you could kind of pick it out of a crowd. It looks like a cousin.

Jessie Naor: Well, speaking of things that you subtly pick up on when you're watching airplanes and looking at airplanes, I think it's a good time to switch into mile high madness and mine this week. I'm just going to start playing this and I want you to tell me what's wrong with this video. All right, we've got a lady who is saying that she's buying a new jet, let's check it out.

Preston Holland: Wow. see this way.

Jessie Naor: Honestly, this is an investment and I also bought it for another project that I'm working on and I'm so excited y'all. is something that has been on my bucket list. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with that? So you might be thinking, what do you mean by the jet? Don't worry about it. I will reveal all the details soon. All right. So she goes through this video like she's made this investment in a jet and she's so excited about it. But as you can see, there's no wings on it.

Preston Holland: ⁓ There's a few things missing. or engines. mean it's just basically like yeah and I mean it looks and it looks old. mean old old.

Jessie Naor: We're in testing. It's the shelf. So I think my theory is here, she's probably like gonna open a bar with it or something funny, but it's hilarious because she's like, I'm buying my private jet, you I'm ready to go.

Preston Holland: It's a good point. We need to call KJ McCarter at Aviation Task Consultants and ask him what bonus depreciation looks like if you don't have wings or engines. Because like, what is it that, like it's not, it's not an aircraft. it, but it has wheels.

Jessie Naor: You can't put it into service, I don't think. think that would be the key problem.

Preston Holland: Right, if you use it for your, but if you're using it for your business, what if you turn it into a car? Like, it's gotta weigh over, what, 7,000 pounds or whatever the limit is?

Jessie Naor: I think if it moves, yes, but if it's just like, it's not bonus. If you go into a bar, like no, if it's just sitting there, like I don't think you can qualify as for bonus, but it's amazing.

Preston Holland: The wheels are there. ⁓ Try to write off or maybe you could take like 60 % bonus, right? You can't take the full 100 % so you're missing the wings and the engines and probably a lot of the avionics. But you can take 60 % of the write off, right? So, ha ha, text jokes.

Jessie Naor: Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm excited to see what she's doing with it. It'll be interesting.

Preston Holland: Yeah, we'll see. Well, mine is a little bit of maybe things you shouldn't do is commenting on public share prices for wheels up. So Bizav memes, they kind of ⁓ went on big rant about publicly traded companies. ⁓ Bizav memes, if you're aviation, you should follow this account. It's usually funny, sometimes a little racy, a little edgy.

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: But kind of talking about all the different publicly traded And on here commented about shares outstanding compared to that of companies of similar size. So they start getting into an argument about why not flex at ⁓ all, all of stuff. I'm pretty sure that this person is an employee ⁓ of Wheels Up. And ⁓ you know, Look, not legal advice, but if you work for a publicly traded company, you should usually think twice before you start commenting on things are public. ⁓ That's PSA.

Jessie Naor: That goes for anybody. mean, in any space, even when we talk about publicly traded companies, you know, anything can be misconstrued as financial advice as a big hot no-no. So yeah, be careful.

Preston Holland: Yeah, disclose that you are either shareholder or something like that. So anyways, good things to avoid. We do have one bonus My High Madness segment. We got a shout out from Jared Weiss. Jared Weiss works at EJM. So I'm going to share this post. Jared said, if you're looking for a great business aviation podcast, check out the VIPSeat hosted by Jessie and Preston. They bring a fair and educated review on various topics at BizAv. Give it a listen. Look at that. 38 likes, four comments. Jared. You got a shout out on the podcast because you gave us a shout out on LinkedIn. Jared is the pilot hiring director at Executive Jet Management. So any pilots that are listening should reach out to Jared and apply for a job.

Jessie Naor: Thanks. Yeah, good company to work for.

Preston Holland: Yeah, exactly. So thanks, Jared, for giving us a shout out on LinkedIn.

Jessie Naor: All right, well, let's talk about ⁓ more drama from AOPA. ⁓ It continues. Preston, you did like a deep dive of the timeline here, so I'll let you share your research.

Preston Holland: I did, yeah. So for those that don't really follow General Aviation World, now I know that this is primarily a business aviation show, and we typically talk about business aviation things. AOPA is Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, okay? It is supposed to be all-encompassing, but it has typically leaned more GA, turboprop, know, owner flown has kind of been its primary resource, but they still do a lot of advocating. them and GAMA and NBAA will kind of all team up on Capitol Hill and do some advocating and things like that. So AOPA appointed a new president. We've talked about this in the past. They appointed a new president So he was gone pretty much as soon as he was there. He lasted for about a year. So let me walk you through the timeline. September 24th, 2024, Darren Pleasance, is announced as the sixth president and CEO of AOPA, effective January 1st, 2025. 8,000 hours, 50 plus aircraft types. He's part owner in a P-51 Mustang. He was a partner at McKinsey, global customer acquisition at Google, led Cisco's Acceleration Center. So you would think that this guy, huge pilot, owner flown guy, big background in big tech and consulting, like he's kind of the perfect candidate. He lives in Bend, Oregon. and he made it very clear during the hiring process that he was not moving to Frederick, Maryland full time. Now he had a condo and a hangar there and he was commuting back and forth. He did get a little bit of flack for making a comment that he said that he flew United instead of his Meridian. To the people giving him grief on that, that's a long trip in a Meridian without a bathroom. So I can't fault him for taking United from Bend, but yeah, no chance. So.

Jessie Naor: in no freaking way.

Preston Holland: Here was the problem, this is what he was walking into, AOPA over about years has been losing members. They're down to 75 % off the peak. So they've lost 25 % of members in the last 20 years. And ⁓ of 15,000 members in 2024 alone. If you think about that, ⁓ and are small ⁓ individual yes, the GA pilot pool ⁓ is and yes, there's a lot of grievances to be had about that. ⁓ if you're shrinking a lot faster, then something is wrong. The staff loved this guy. And worth noting is that Mark Baker, the previous president of AOPA, allegedly only spent between one and three days in the office. And Darren was there a lot more. He decided to get on the ground and go start shaking people's hands and meeting people. So he did that through all 2025, big events, small events, doesn't matter. Gets to the end of 2025. There's a couple of new board members. a couple of months ago, Darren Pleasence writes a letter and he publishes it publicly. You can go find this on the internet. We'll link it in the newsletter. And he basically that he doesn't know many of the board members personally. and that he encourages them to be more engaged in AOPA. Now, if you read the letter, which I have, and Jessie, I don't know if you've read this, there's a lot of YouTube commentary out there on this.

Jessie Naor: I didn't even know that exists. I didn't know the letter was out there. That's a little, that's a little bold.

Preston Holland: Yeah, so he wrote, well, I think it came out, I think it got released after the fact, somebody got their hands on it, and it's out there, you can read the whole letter. not bad. I mean, if sensitive and you get your feelings hurt easily, yeah, I could see you probably taking it the wrong way, because he's totally like, he's subtweeting, he's putting a lot of subtext in there. ⁓ But.

Jessie Naor: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: He basically says, hey, we want to see you guys be more engaged because obviously we have a problem. We're hemorrhaging members. mind you, AOPA on an operating basis is losing money every year, but they're making up for it in the dividends from their great investments that they've made. The board is littered with money managers, so they've done a lot of really good investments. They divested of the insurance portfolio, sold that to assured partners. They have a finance arm. They have pilot services. They have legal. And then they have all these other investments that are spitting off cash. So the investments are covering the operational loss. They basically said, we want a plan for how you're going to turn this thing around. And he said, look, we're going to turn this thing around by growing our membership. And it was working. mean, he reduced membership churn like pretty significant.

Jessie Naor: Well, I mean, that's interesting. don't know. It's it's very hard to, ⁓ had the same situations happen. I've been on boards and you have people that aren't engaged at all or people that don't really know the industry or whatever it is. It's very hard to wrangle a board, but that's kind of the executive's job too. So I think to put something out there like that and not be able to handle it internally, it doesn't look great.

Preston Holland: It didn't, so my understanding is that he didn't post it publicly, it just kind of leaked after all of this was happening. I could be wrong there, but my understanding is basically that, you know, basically...

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm. Even so, can't that in person. That's at least for me. I don't know.

Preston Holland: I don't know if he could get them in person is the problem. They hadn't been in Fredericksburg in a couple of them in a long time. It probably didn't have enough taste, but basically what happened is the board got pissed and they said, yeah, you're not gonna talk to us

Jessie Naor: and So yeah. Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: the know.

Jessie Naor: So I think this is a good ⁓ boards out there and for any of you, ⁓ of these situations, this has now become a PR crisis for them. This wasn't just an internal dispute. This is now spilled over into multiple podcasts, multiple stories. Everyone's focused on this. ⁓ now all the members are focused on the trustees and how the board gets elected and other things. So they're going to have to do a whole bunch of changes, I think, to reestablish trust with their membership. over what could have been honestly like a legitimate firing, but like if you don't handle it well, this is how things can go.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I mean, my understanding is there's more to this story. I am sure that there is. mean, there's no way. And I think the other part of the problem is, that Darren is now able as an individual to go on podcasts and just talk. And AOPA is not a person, it's an organization. And so you have to be a little bit more pointed, right? You're not gonna have the board of trustees going out on podcasts and talking about the other side of the story, right? So you have...

Jessie Naor: I'm sure. I'm sure. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: One side of the narrative is getting out there. And then you have the other side who hires a PR firm. People were really mad about how much they paid for the PR firm. Honestly, I don't have an issue. mean, they allegedly paid like 250 grand. they said, no, that's not the case. It's not how much you paid them. So anyways, so here we go. We keep going. This story is not over yet.

Jessie Naor: Well, they have a problem. Yeah

Preston Holland: He's fired. Then he posts on social media, he's very thankful for everybody. AOPA on February 12th says that it was the letter that was the catalyst. Dude, these GA pilots, like, in the comment sections on some of these blogs are crazy. Like, they are very, very into this.

Jessie Naor: Well, we get our fair share of comments as well, probably from the same group, I would imagine.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I would imagine our one-star reviews are probably from the same, similar people. So mid-March, two, possibly three long-term trustees are gonna retire ahead of the May 12th annual meeting. Former Chair Bill Trimble and Larry Buhl, 32 years and 22 years respectively. Possible current Chair Jim Halstein, but that hasn't been confirmed yet, so that's just rumor.

Jessie Naor: Group of people. Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: Apparently, 2,000 members canceled and 6,000 withdrew proxy votes, which proxy votes allows the board to basically make the decision. Now, it's only like 3 % of the membership that have withdrawn, but in an organization that I'm not sure that there's ever been a proxy removed, that's pretty significant. So yeah, so then ⁓ the official news comes out. There's a new board chair, Luke Whippler. Now, Luke Whippler,

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: Cessna 182, amphibious floats, works at US Bank as an EVP. He's supposed to be the next generation. He's going on a little bit of a mop-up trip, and he's gonna be at Sun & Fun in person and things like that. look, the thing is is that this is messy. I mean, it's really messy, and a lot of these pilots have nothing better to do than to speculate and then talk and then hang or talk and then... send each other text messages and send each other stuff. And it's like, if you're AOPA, you gotta get out in front of this.

Jessie Naor: Yeah, that's complicated and crazy and dramatic, but ⁓ I we wish them luck. see where they end up.

Preston Holland: Yeah, no kidding. if actually relevant comes out of this, then we will share it with the audience. But I think it's important to understand what's going on in the advocacy groups. Because I think ⁓ this a good point to talk about. Every advocacy group is going through changes. And it's It's healthy to do that. yeah, so anyways.

Jessie Naor: Yep. No, and that's a good, it's a good segue to the next story because the Aerospace Repair Station Association, ARSA, which most people have never heard of or get engaged with or anything, they've been working very, very hard on some maintenance regulations that I did a deep dive on this week.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I am, so I have even read your notes about this and I still don't really understand what's going on. So I'm excited for you to share with us what's happening in MRO.

Jessie Naor: Yeah, I had to do a deep dive on this because look, neither of us are mechanics on this show But essentially what's happened, and this has been going on since like 2019, this trade organization has been lobbying to have some things removed from the regulations, part 145 regulations, which oversee MROs for those who don't know. But section 109, part... D is the piece that we have now heard, and this is not confirmed by the association yet. This was posted by someone who was actually at their symposium last week. understanding is that the FAA is on this path of removing ⁓ 109D. What is ⁓ It's the requirement to have current copies of manuals from the manufacturer at every single repair shop that's involved in repairing something, even down to things like oxygen cylinders. also some situations in which ⁓ have an older version of a part or component and the FAA is requiring them to have the newest version that doesn't even have the schematics for the old version of that part. ⁓ it's been kind of like this huge problem in maintenance for a long time and a place where the OEMs are charging. And this is like a small business issue, know, small businesses that are bringing in $2 million in revenue. they can't really afford to spend $700,000 on OEM manuals. So that's why ARSA has been kind of pushing for this to get rid of it. And also it hasn't really improved safety because there are things in the new manuals that aren't necessarily relevant to keeping it safe. All in all to say, when Kenn Ricci came on was saying, hey, we need more PMA parts and we need to be able to use third parties and smaller business and more competition, this is all gonna help that.

Preston Holland: Yeah, that's super interesting. Okay, so here's a question, and I couldn't really figure this out. So if I am working on Gulfstream aircraft, do I have to have every part, like every manual for every Gulfstream aircraft, like G4SP, G4, like G3, like the whole, or is it only aircraft that I'm working on? Like how does that

Jessie Naor: So it's only aircraft you're working on, but there is a lot of contractual things that pop up. Like if you're going to be a Gulfstream service center, for example, you may be required to own every single manual that they publish, not just the ones that you're working on. And this is really down to the OEM to do that. And all this comes back to, I don't know if you remember, but a couple of years ago, there was a debate with farmers and John Deere tractors.

Preston Holland: Mmm.

Jessie Naor: they were losing the ability to actually repair their own equipment. And that's kind of what's happened in aviation is that the OEM sells you an airplane. But then they also say, you also have to buy all this technical publication and support from us to repair said airplane and have our approvals for every single part that goes into that airplane. So there's this debate between MROs and OEMs deciding, okay, A, this isn't really safety stuff. This is all contractual. You know, this is like the OEM is forcing us to do some of these things. so the FAA requires access to maintenance data through what's called the Instructions for Continued Airworthiness. And you remember when Kenn Ricci was on the show, he was talking about how OEMs haven't been providing that data to the shops to actually do the repairs. There's now a working group that's trying to undo all of this. So the FAA bill in 2024 that reauthorized them included a provision saying there has to be a rulemaking committee on this. So what I'm saying is that The rulemaking committee is active and they're working. And I think 109D is just the beginning, but there may be more repealing of this kind of held information on the OEM side and allowing more third party suppliers and manufacturers and makers to start producing more non-OEM parts that are just as safe as the OEM part in a nutshell.

Preston Holland: Interesting. Yeah, no, that totally makes sense. It's a regulatory capture thing where the OEMs are the only ones who can provide this, so therefore they can charge whatever they want to. I mean, the problem is the FAA actually came out, from what I read, that the FAA came out and said, hey, we're not gonna regulate prices. We're gonna let this be a market thing. The problem is that's monopolistic behavior. And trust-busting is kind of a...

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: I don't know, it's like a core foundational piece of American democracy. so allowing for this to go on for a long time seems kind of crazy. So good for the association. mean, associations can do some really good stuff. And this is net very positive for the entire industry. It's going to trickle. There's going to a lot of trickle down effects, which is good. Should hopefully lower maintenance costs, let's hope.

Jessie Naor: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hopefully so more choices, more options, more pressure on OEMs because frankly, the industry is just too fragmented to do it themselves. You we don't have the power that the major airlines do over, you know, OEMs and their decision making. And the FAA is never going to do anything. I had the same debate with DERs. You know, there's an issue with DERs and DARs and everybody else charging basically whatever they want to, whenever they want to. And the FAA has explicitly said, we don't call it control pricing, all we do is provide the training. So it leaves this hole where it's like, okay, well, who's gonna be responsible for this and the FAA is not gonna do it.

Preston Holland: Yeah, no, that's super interesting. speaking of regulation, we another regulation change. ⁓ The and avoid has officially made some significant progress. So FAA has canceled mixed traffic, which is exciting. And know this is a topic Jessie's very passionate about because it's both safety and helicopter related.

Jessie Naor: Yeah. And it's like two sides of the coin. think unfortunately FAA and everybody who's, you know, seen regulations come around, there is a knee jerk reaction. You know, we have the accident at DCA, obviously horrible crash, obviously changes needed. But what this has resulted in is the FAA just saying, okay, you know what? We're not going to allow helicopters to just go willy-nilly and see you to avoid traffic anymore. They have to be under active control like everybody else, which ⁓ get it. ⁓ I absolutely get it. But also someone who's flown in helicopters, like helicopters don't fly in the same way as airplanes do. So there's going to be a ramp up period where, you know, air traffic controllers have to treat them like airplanes, but they're not airplanes. They can like just hover and stop where they are if you don't want them to run into something. So it's going to change how aircraft operated airspace. I mean, I'm worried about like EMS helicopters being able to get out quickly. You know, if they have to wait now, I guess it's all for safety. mean, ultimately, think controllers have not really taken helicopters seriously. I myself was in DCA's tower at some point, many, many, many years ago. ⁓ someone ⁓ about helicopter traffic and they're like, ⁓ we just ignore those. And at the moment in the pit of my stomach, was like, ⁓ that doesn't feel right. So something needed to change, but maybe this is too far, especially for certain fields. I don't know.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I don't know. mean, I think you have to make some sort of progress. think it also, I mean, the reality is that the ATC system is just really stressed. I mean, we saw another example of that this week. don't know if you've listened to the recording. mean, it's, ⁓ is hard. It's hard. Everything about it is just incredibly heartbreaking. My is, that you had one controller handling multiple different in the tower. And we're not talking to two in the morning, right? We're talking about

Jessie Naor: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: you know, like 1130 ish at night, 1120 or something like that. And cleared a fire truck to cross the runway. And was not the time to clear yelled stop, couldn't didn't stop. And then, you know, unfortunately he had loss of life, a lot of injuries and just an absolutely tragic accident at LaGuardia.

Jessie Naor: Yeah, from the reports we're hearing now, the two fatalities were the crew members. Others are hospitalized, but hopefully at this point ⁓ on their way to recovery. But yeah, you know, it's just things happen so fast, especially in a location like LaGuardia, Atlanta, all these airports where there is just like an unbelievable amount of traffic. There's almost no room for error. And obviously we have to wait for the report to come out, but I think it's kind of clear just based on recordings that everyone can access that, you know, he made a mistake. And it's just, it's such a shame that weren't able to stop it.

Preston Holland: Yeah, now it's, our thoughts and prayers go out to the families ⁓ of those crew members and of everybody involved and to the controller. mean, that's gotta be, I mean, I don't know how you, we gotta get that guy help for sure.

Jessie Naor: Yeah, no, it's going to be tough. again, too, like I know, you know, Sean Duffy has already come out and said, we need more funding and we need it now. Like we already passed a bunch of funding for ATC, know, last year. But honestly, ⁓ task is just so monumental because there's so many just these little systems that just haven't been upgraded in so long. ⁓ know, people like to blame the human that's involved, whether it's the pilot or the controller, whoever it is that was involved in the situation. But a lot of times it's the systems that we've put around them. And we clearly have not done a good enough job with runway incursions because we continue to see them over and over and over again in our safety reports. And these tragedies happen. Ultimately, if the systems aren't there to keep it from happening, it's going to happen inevitably. Humans make mistakes.

Preston Holland: Yeah, no

Jessie Naor: All right, last day of the week, not business aviation, but it's space and it's kind of interesting and cool. And I just had to bring it up because it's fascinating to me. But astronomers are freaking out because Elon Musk just got approved to put his next generation satellites in the air, which is another 15,000 of those things orbiting our beautiful world.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I mean, they're mad because some point you're not gonna be able to see past the satellites. It's I'm trying to look at space here and your satellite keeps running in front of my telescope. So ⁓ I get it, ⁓ frustrating. I also like, the other problem is that we leave, I ⁓ learned this recently and was like, that's crazy. You just leave satellites up there. Like you don't pull them back down. So it's like.

Jessie Naor: Right. Bye

Preston Holland: When are we gonna get full? mean, I guess my finite brain, my tiny brain, cannot imagine how large and vast space is, but I can imagine a world in which we run out of space for satellites.

Jessie Naor: Some of the things they were talking about in this article, I didn't even really think about, but it's like these new generation things that Elon wants to put up there have mirrors on them and they reflect a lot of sunlight and a lot of moonlight. And they think that the sky is going to be brightened like two to three times. higher in brightness than it used to be, which meant all the equipment that they've spent billions of dollars on can no longer see into the sky because of the brightness of the sky. like, I don't know between that and how do we get them out of space? They're developing these bots that can throw them into the atmosphere to burn. what a crazy world we're going to have to deal with in 10 years here.

Preston Holland: Yeah, we're gonna have data centers in space. It's just gonna be crazy. I love space. Space is cool, but also like, I don't know. Things are great how they are now. I like to look at stars, so don't make it too bright.

Jessie Naor: Yeah. It's like though, you know, balancing the public good, right? Okay, we've brightened the sky way more than we should have. But at the same time, now, know, protesters in Iran can post things on the internet of what's going on, like the global connection, you know, for safety and security. There's so many aspects of this, and I don't know who's right. I know we're just going to have to like figure it out piece by piece. But at some point, astronomers are probably not going to be able to really look from the ground into the sky anymore. We're going to need satellites outside of the satellite.

Preston Holland: Yeah, pretty crazy. Well, this has been another awesome episode of the VIP seat. I am here in Cleveland, Ohio at Schedulers and Dispatchers where it is freezing cold. But ⁓ if you're around the show, let me know. I would love to meet up with listeners. The best way you can help us grow this show and support it is by sharing. You can do things like Jared Weiss and you can post the show on LinkedIn for all of your friends and family to go listen. Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter at the VIP seat. Thanks to ABJets for sponsoring this week's episode of the VIP seat and we will see you all next week.