Embraer achieved two milestones on April 29, the first flight of the Phenom 300 light jet and the first time any airplane has made a first flight from Embraer’s private Unidade Gavião Peixoto Airport in Brazil. The Phenom 300 first flight was about three months ahead of schedule, according to Henrique Langenegger, vice president of programs, executive jets. At the controls were Capt. John Sevalho Corção and chief pilot Eduardo Alves Menini, assisted by flight-test engineer Jens Peter Theodor Geiger Wentz. The first flight lasted for one hour, 22 minutes.
About 15 minutes before takeoff, the approximately 1,000 employees at Embraer’s Gavião Peixoto facility joined president and CEO Frederico Curado, executive vice president Executive Jets Luís Carlos Affonso and Langenegger for the first flight. The pilots lifted off at 3:03 p.m. from Gavião Peixoto Airport’s Runway 2, into a slight crosswind caused by 13-knot winds at 350 degrees. Local temperature was warm, at ISA+19 (86 degrees F), but a cold front was about to sweep over the area. The first flight was fairly turbulent, Langenegger said, and included a climb to 19,000 feet and maximum speed of 220 knots. The pilots conducted tests of the Phenom 300’s roll spoilers, movable horizontal stabilizer, flight controls and systems and performed banking maneuvers, sideslips, single-engine simulations and speed reductions. The minimum speed flown on the first flight was about 20 percent above stall speed.
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