Chris Weber and his two daughters on the boarding stairs of his 2010 Embraer Phenom 100 leaving Oshkosh
The life of Chris Weber would look remarkably different without aviation. A passion for flight has been ingrained in the entrepreneur since he was a child when he would fly around the Midwest in his Grandpa’s Piper Saratoga. He has fond memories of flying to Meigs Field and Oshkosh, where readers may have seen his current aircraft on display – a 2010 Embraer Phenom dubbed the Millennium Phenom.
As the second owner of the visually striking jet, Weber says he plans on keeping its legacy alive. For those unfamiliar, the aircraft’s previous owner, Mark Holt, painted the plane in an homage to the famed starship. Holt had flown the aircraft in support of the non-profit combat-injured veteran transport organization Veterans Airlift Command. While charity flying will be a component of Weber’s mission, he predominately flies the aircraft to support his business endeavors – most commonly for his yacht brokerage, Weber Yachts.
“Our team helps people buy and sell boats (specializing in motor yachts, sport fishing boats, center consoles, flybridge yachts, and express cruisers) around the Great Lakes and South Florida. When I started the company, I quickly realized that I had to travel to places that were not necessarily long distances as the crow flies, but would still take a long time,” Weber began, adding that the geography of Lake Michigan is challenging. A specific listing underscored the inefficiency of driving to meet with clients.
“I was selling a boat in Mackinaw City, Michigan, about an eight-hour drive each way. I thought there had to be a better way of doing this than driving. I was busy and didn’t want to waste all of that time. So, I went to the local airport and said I wanted to take a flight lesson to Mackinaw City. Luckily, I ran into a flight instructor who was flexible and understood not only what I wanted to do that day but also that I could ‘kill two birds’ while I learn to fly.”
For about a year after the first flight, Weber would incorporate flight training whenever he needed to visit a boat for a survey, showing, delivery, or other need. He explained that aviation has had an extremely positive impact on his life.
“I think our business has scaled significantly due to aviation, not just the time savings, but the contacts you meet. It’s a brotherhood of pilots, and we all want to support each other. I’ve seen that to be true in so many ways. Just last week, I had a very good friend who flies a CJ2 call me up and say he wanted an 80-foot boat in The Bahamas within two weeks for an important and meaningful trip with friends. That’s a pretty tall feat!”
grandpa’s Piper Saratoga
“But we flew to Fort Lauderdale, sea trialed and closed on a new-to-him boat in less than a week. It’s hard to pull off something like that when coordinating commercial travel with several parties. We put a boat under contract the day of his phone call, and we were in Florida on the water the next day. Aviation made his accelerated timeline possible when it would have otherwise been a significant challenge.”
Before purchasing the Phenom in 2021, Weber Yachts had a far smaller footprint in The Sunshine State. Weber had owned two Cirrus SR22s that worked well around the Midwest but were not a good fit for the frequent trips to Florida.
“As our business grew, so were the sizes of the boats we were selling. I knew that South Florida was becoming my primary mission, and I wanted the highest probability of making that trip non-stop in the shortest amount of time. The Citation Mustang was a consideration, as was the Cirrus Vision Jet. I enjoyed my time in the Cirrus family; they treated me extraordinarily well. The Vision Jet just didn’t have the performance profile for us, and at the time of acquisition, a Vision Jet was a million dollars more. So, that equation just didn’t resonate with me.”
The opportunity to test his two top prospects simultaneously presented itself and helped make a decision easier.
“I’ve got several friends who own Mustangs, and they’re great airplanes. But I remember one trip that convinced me to get a Phenom. We did a guy’s fishing trip to The Bahamas and took a Mustang and a Phenom. I rode down on the Phenom and rode in the Mustang on the way back. On the way home, we took off first, and about five minutes later, the Phenom flew by us in the climb. Between the fantastic cabin, ramp appeal, and better performance, I knew which one I wanted to own. A lot of the things that drew me to the Phenom were what I appreciated about my Cirruses, a high value on (avionics) integration, technology, and ergonomics. The Phenom 100 was the most Cirrus-like next step for me, a proper twin turbine.”
Weber has logged 1,450 hours total, 300 of which are in the Phenom 100. He estimates that roughly 20 to 30 percent of his flights are between Wisconsin and Florida, typically averaging a monthly round trip between the two states.
“A fairly common mission for us is from Kenosha to Fort Myers or Naples. It’s just about a thousand miles, and I typically fly there with a light cabin, either myself and my family (wife and two young daughters) or one or two others. We take full fuel, as it’s right at the edge of the aircraft’s range. But it’s an awesome flight for the Phenom,” Weber said.
“We typically go up to maximum altitude for that flight, FL410. The plane is unbelievably quiet at that altitude, and we’re typically doing somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 to 370 knots, depending on the weight and ISA temp. But 360 [knots] seems to be a pretty good middle ground. At that speed, we’ll burn around 2,000 pounds of fuel and typically have a tailwind on the way down for what ends up being about a two-and-a-half-hour or three-hour flight. If we get more than a 15 or 20-knot headwind, we will have to stop coming back, but we have gotten remarkably lucky and only had to stop probably ten percent of the time or less.”
As a member of both EJOA and Phenom Pilots, Weber is a staunch advocate for Embraer products and could see himself one day moving up in the product family.
“One of the things that the Phenom is criticized for is its braking. The pedal feedback isn’t conventional, but the actual braking performance is fantastic. I haven’t found it to be a huge inconvenience or imposition. But you’re always sort of aware of it and exercising extra caution around landing distances, particularly if you have contaminated runways. Flying up north, there have been a couple of times when we’ve landed on ice-contaminated runways, which can require an eye-watering amount of runway length. But we’ve always had the runway length we needed, so it’s been a non-factor. For others, it can be a big limiting factor and is something that we are all aware of,” Weber explained before advising that his only wish for the Phenom 100 would be more fuel capacity.
“A Phenom 300 would be amazing because we’d never have to worry about fuel planning. We could take some more payload and fly a little faster, too. But I have to remember that I was flying pistons a couple of years ago, so I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. I’m thrilled with the 100. It’s a dream come true.”
Weber and his team have been communicating the value of boats to clients for more than a decade, and he’s decided to apply the same formula for success to aviation. As a business and cabin-class aircraft owner, he is uniquely positioned to advise clients in similar positions.
“Weber Aviation is a sister company to Weber Yachts that focuses primarily on the owner-flown turbine category of aircraft. I think one of the things that is unique about our company is that we are experienced in buying and selling turbine aircraft and understand what it means to be a business operator. So, we have more insight than the average aircraft sales organization regarding what an owner might be looking for, whether from an expense, liability, or performance standpoint. We’ve had to go through all these exercises internally to understand the most efficient way to operate an aircraft within our businesses, what the tax implications are, and so forth,” Weber said.
“I have two partners in this business, Al Waterloo and Rudy Poussot. Al was with Cirrus Aircraft for eight years, their Illinois/Wisconsin sales director for piston aircraft and their West Coast Vision Jet Sales Director. Rudy, like Al and I, is also a turbine pilot. He is typed in the Mustang, Phenom 100, and Citation 525-series and has worked at several large publicly held companies that utilize corporate fleets. We have well-rounded expertise that can bring tremendous value to our clients.”
Weber added a concluding thought, “Many of my closest, lifelong friends are from aviation, and it’s hard to imagine life without it. Aircraft are the biggest and yet easiest expense of the year. Easy to justify with how much they enhance our lives.”