LD: Have you ever heard the expression "quit while you're ahead?" You may have never been ahead, but you can still quit, you know.
It is comfortable and it is efficient. Burns the same fuel as a Falcon 50EX and is far FAR larger. Low DOCs, ease of MX, and a good MEL.
If the Falcon 50 has "low DOCs," then so does the Legacy. If it doesn't, then neither does the Legacy. C&D has them within $50/hour of each other.
You say that the Legacy doesn't break, etc. If that's so, why do you harp on the fact that it has a good MEL? BTW -- in the last seven years, I think that I've had to MEL something once. The number of times that I couldn't MEL something? Once as well. It was due to a failed starter/generator, and delayed us all of two hours.
Cabin size, affordability, redundancy, safety, reliability, baggage area, etc.. The people I know who actually write the checks say there's no comparision on operational expense: EMB wins hands down.
Cabin size -- For comparison, let's stick to the large cabin Falcons. The cabins of the 900EX, 7X, and Legacy are all within 150 cubic feet of each other.
Affordability -- Mid 2000's Legacy's are going for the very low $10m range, or below. So as far as acquisition cost, yes, the Legacy wins. That said, the DOC's of each aircraft are within $150 of each other, so I'd have to say that as far as operating the aircraft, it's a draw.
Redundancy, I cannot say much about, as I am not familiar enough with the redundancy offered by the Legacy. They're all Part 25 aircraft, so to a certain extent, the redundancy has to be similar.
Reliability -- You talk like corporate jets break all the time. The reality is, they don't. In my career, I've had one aircraft break that resulted in an extra night stay. Fact of the matter is, just this week I saw a Legacy be AOG with a flap problem. The airplane that used to be based in the hangar next door was broken at least three times that I know of. Using those stats, and the dispatch reliability numbers published, the Legacy is less reliable than other corporate jets, not more.
Which makes it overbuilt for the Corporate world where people are used to dealing with broken tinkertoy airplanes.
Again, corporate aircraft don't break the way that you claim that they do. Regional aircraft, airline aircraft, etc. that's a different story. I think I've rode the airlines about ten times in the last five years. Of those times, I've had two delays that I can recall due to a mechanical issue. In that same period, I've had zero delays while on corporate aircraft. These stats don't support your statements indicating that corporate jets are unreliable.
If going 4000NM out of a 4000' runway is your game then spend the extra $20 MILLION and buy a Falcon. Or just save that money and land on a longer piece of pavement.
People don't buy jets to land at an airport far away from where they want to go. They buy them in part to save time, and one of the ways that's done is by landing at the closest airport possible. When the closest airport to where the passengers are going isn't usable by the airplane, that partially defeats one of the reasons that airplanes are owned by individuals and companies in the first place.
LD, the reality is, you have a limited amount of corporate experience, and most of it being in very mediocre to below average jobs (opinion based on how you've described them; I have no personal knowledge of any companies that you've worked for). You have formulated opinions based on your limited, mediocre jobs that simply are not in line with reality. To me, your love for the Legacy is bizarre. The only thing that I can think of is that you simply don't know better...
