Flying the Piaggio P180 Avanti! (World’s Fastest Turboprop!) 

There are so many very good pilots in the GA. But just speaking for germany, once you got your GA - Cowboy stamp on your forehead, it will be hard to get back to an airline😏 I’m flying corporate for 15 yrs now. Currently the Phenom 300 , but also King Airs and all the CJs. So I know what im speaking of:) Owen does a very good easy looking job here 👌

Damn one sexy plane

sure you are buddy

Thank you!

*your

Not all heroes wear capes lol

dang bro get off your knees lol

Sounds like he might not be a SINGLE pilot much longer!

I’ve always thought it a great aircraft….

"...demanding beast " really, huh...?

One of them flew over my home north of Rome every day, heading for Pratica di Mare airport, where I had worked for a few months a long time ago and where I had the opportunity to visit it. However, from the ground it was very noisy, a very high-pitched hum. I wonder if the engine is also loud in the cabin. p.s. I also had a Piaggio Vespa, but I guess this doesn't count, does it? 🙂

​@@paghecaactually it's a pretty quiet plane from inside the cabin at cruise speed. That is due to a state of art sound insulation, placement and configuration of the props.

@pierovittori1076, he flew the Starfighter? The sexiest jet fighter ever? That's a bunch of super cool points right there. Those are the stories I'd be after.

​@@KyleCowdenyess Sir. He was an airforce fighter pilot for quite a while, and as you might know Italy had the 104 as the backbone of our air defense strategic command. The 104 was employed as interceptor, reconaissance and fighter. No wonder my uncle flew a lot on that marvel. When Tornado came into production and actually arrived on the airfields my uncle was already retired. He suffered a major injury during flight, a sudden pressure loss in the cabin left him with a sort of perennial smile at one side of his mouth. He was then ruled not able anymore according to military standards and so moved on from the air Force to Piaggio. He left with the grade of major. His brother (and other uncle of mine) was also a fighter jet pilot but his career went very early on the fast lane. He became the youngest colonel of the entyre airforce and had very succesful career as instructor of fighter jet pilots. God bless em both, they were both exceptional human beings.

@@pierovittori1076 What a fantastic legacy. Thanks for entertaining my question.

What do you expect from an aircraft designed by Ferrari, it must look amazing 😍

@@zakidiab5535 But it also comes with Ferrari reliability which I do not want in an aircraft.

Not to take anything away from away from him or what you said, you are absolutely right but there are youtubers who fly big jets single and do the same thing.

Thought the same. I am flying myself, but wouldn't dare to record clips beside flying and covering ATC There are too many risks in violating restricted areas where I live.

Oh, for heavens sake! An excellent pilot, I'm sure, let's look at what he actually did...he took off, he landed and the plane, flight computer preprogrammed, piloted the vast majority of the flight... IN NO WAY am I questioning or criticizing his skills as a pilot. The facts are as the equipment becomes ever more sophisticated and all encompassing pilot load is increasing lightened. Hell, I'm sure he didn't even have to land the plane (manually), the aircraft, probably, could have landed without additional input from the pilot if so programmed. All of that notwithstanding, nice vid! I look forward to learning more about the aircraft.

the plane flies itself

@@ackack612 No offense, but I can only assume that you’re not a pilot yourself.

Is it expensive to operate? I mean, compared to another plens in the category

@@adenauertavarez8753 Sounds to me like it's making jets seem needlessly expensive to run when you can have this one and slightly longer flight times.

That’s awesome!

Would be awesome to hear more about that!

You covered about the whole alphabet except lgbtq++

Yes indeed, his climb out of San Jose was very impressive. I had to watch that part of the video twice.

I was wondering how quiet they are inside. Had one fly over about 2 weeks ago and I could hear it for a long minute before it got there. I wasn't too far from the Kansas City downtown airport so he wasn't higher than 3K probably. But it was noticeably louder than anything else that flies over that's civilian anyway LOL but it did look cool as hell scooting across the sky....

There's one at my local airport and my house is under one of the arrivals. Planes normally pass about 1,000' - 2,000' above when coming in. I can hear the Piaggio when I'm in the basement before you can even see it. @@FlyingAl2006

Awesome!

Yes indeed!

It wasn’t a big seller because of its price compared to admittedly much slower prop planes that are much easier to fly. I also don’t know Piaggio could produce enough for it to be a truly popular choice. It’s too far out of my budget. I have a Tomahawk and 182S. The 182S has Lycoming IO-580 tuned to 330hp, full IFR. Great fun to fly and at the limit of my current budget. My dream is an SR22, but it seems unlikely. The insurance costs on them alone are run 10-155k/yr Canadian.

Piaggio is one of my favourite scooters 😅

and loud :p

Iv worked as a refinery process operator on panels with at least as much instrumentation and iv done quite a few hours of flight simulators. Iv also flew with and observed a turbo prop bush pilot from behind him in South America. After a while you know ur equipment and its behavoir and what to look for. Eg iv learned miles and miles of piping , valving , subsystems , pumps and their power sources etc on giant equipment on multiple process plants in the field also. Much of it becomes second nature and also u learn to flow in periods of intense concentration when things become heightned. Obviously performance varies between different persons and this guy know his stuff.

@@whiteknight7wayne493 Thanks, this is an informative and motivating comment, as I aspire to become a pilot myself one day :)

@@GinnyGlider Youre welcomme Ginny, thats what were here for.

I get to see them almost everyday since here at KTUL and KRVS we have a maintenance shop for this type of airplane. I have some shorts in my channel about them

KTUL /KRVS I can remember a few years back when I went to KRVS to reflect back 40 years getting my private there , and on the ramp sat 2 star ships . It was quite the sight for such a small airport .

Well said

@@AirplaneMode-pi9oc I get to see them sometimes, too, as there's a small airline that operates them out of my local airfield EDFZ. Gonna check out your videos as well, thanks!

GOAT is the late Captain Eric “Winkle” Brown. There will never be another to match his experience

Thank you!

Or maybe bob hoover??

Thanks so much!

Oh wow!

Thanks for watching!

Right!? Thanks for watching!

Imagine the Beechcraft Starship didn't flop, the P180 would then have a decent competitor and could have sold better. I have a kink for pusher prop designs and the p180 feels like it it was designed by a bored Lamborghini engineer, avant-garde and quirky.

I thought the P180 is still being built to this day.

@@TrainSounds It is, just not as abundantly built like they would have if something like the Beechcraft Starship was a viable competitor.

@@PrinceAlhorianI seriously admired the Starships! So gorgeous. I was so disappointed when it became clear that the market (and luxury tax) situations were going to kill the plane.

Thanks!

I flew 2 of these beautiful machines and loved when we would ask for altitudes above FL300 and we’d get asked if we can make it to FL300… I would shock them when we said we could go all the way up to FL410.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for watching! They’re great

Thanks a lot!

Indeed, that's the sound I have learnt well in my home (close to runway where Avanti serving as fastest medical transport is frequent visitor) - anywhere in the world i hear that I shout "Piaggio Avanti!" And look around for it :) probably the most distinct sound aside Avro Lancaster...

Just the same as the different models of cars you can drive .. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

@@mumenguvuze2093 not the same

Yes it does. The shape is actually a lifting body.

Thank you very much!

Was on the shore of Lake Tahoe, when a P-180 with its fast moving, unique sound flew over, quite high. Even jaded beachgoers looked up, because they sound so cool.

Yep. Don't even have to see them. The sound is unique.

You are a very, very lucky person to have flown one of those birds.

Can you say something about the avionics and systems? Was it capable of ILS, VNAV descent, RNAV, all that? What was it missing compared to today’s planes?

@@marionetteworksIt had avionics "of the era". There are specs online. I was in one, but not flying. There was one locally, back in the day. It came to market heavy and slow and expensive.

That was one of my favorite airframes! Very unique sound since the exhaust is chopped by the props just as in the Avanti. The aircraft was IFR certified however the avionics of the time were color CRT'S WHICH ADD A LOT OF WEIGHT! This aircraft was designed by Bert Rutan of Scaled Composites and had one of the most sturdiest airframes of the time. From what I have read in the past one "belly landing" with very little damage to the aircraft. Beech-Raytheon were burned by the company that had exclusive rights to maintainence, basically it was free to the customer however they charged Beech ridiculously high fees which in the end made the aircraft too costly to maintain. It cost Beech Raytheon much more than it was worth to destroy these airframes since they were composites. There were several that were bought outright and the owners refused the buyback. They did however negotiate to purchase airframes without the airworthiness certificates to keep for spares. Another individual did manage to purchase two non airworthy airframes and managed to get one registered as experimental with the second kept for spares.

@@Subgunmanthere's a hotly-anticipated rendition of this aircraft coming for MSFS 2020, I can't wait to pretend-fly it.