Damon Georgalos has built a life around machines. Whether it’s the businesses that he operates in several diverse industries or the collection of high-performance cars he drives, the 33-year-old aviator is intentional about seeking performance. This intentionality includes the 2008 Eclipse 500 that he purchased in 2020.
With cars being one of his keenest lifelong interests, it’s easy to conclude that one of the highest compliments that Georgalos can give is automotive-related. As he explained, there are a lot of similarities between this very light jet and fine motor vehicles.
“The Eclipse 500 flies like a little sports car and is a great aircraft. I love the side stick aspect of it, and I’m way more comfortable with that than a yoke. When I fly the airplane, it’s a part of me and does everything effortlessly. I can put it into thirty-knot direct crosswinds like it’s nothing. I’m sweating a little over here, but the plane is just knocking it out like it’s not a big deal. The side stick makes it feel like the plane is a part of you.”
He stated that ground-bound wheeled vehicles were the real reason why he decided to become a pilot in the first place.
“I started flying in 2017. I lived in Breckenridge, Colorado, so the closest airport to me was Eagle [County Regional Airport, KEGE]. At the time, I was going down to the dunes in California a lot during the winter. We drove our 45-foot motorhome, pulling a big stacker trailer behind it. The wintertime in the Rocky Mountains is unforgiving, so we constantly drove through blizzards. I decided that after too many crazy instances with the weather, it might be better to fly back and forth and leave our stuff there. I had always wanted to fly anyway, and I originally wanted to fly fighter jets as a teenager.”
Georgalos would not go to the Air Force or the Navy; instead, he focused on several entrepreneurial endeavors while still a teenager. His business successes allowed him to pursue his dream of learning to fly, albeit as a civilian.
“I completed my private pilot license eight or nine weeks after starting flight lessons and got an A36 Bonanza the next day. The insurance company didn’t like that too much. They said jumping from an Archer to a high-performance, complex aircraft was too big of a jump. I did fifty hours of dual instruction in the Bonanza before soloing. I flew with my instructor for a week and then to Florida from Colorado. After getting signed off, I flew to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with my friends the next day. I used that plane for around two and a half years and racked up 450 hours of total time.”
“I then bought a Malibu Matrix, the unpressurized version of the Mirage. I got a sweet deal on it, and the guys selling it were giving it away about a hundred grand less than it was worth. I took that deal as it was a no-brainer. I bought it in cash but decided that I wanted to get my money back out of it. So, I called a finance company and said I wanted to refinance. They said no problem, but after going through the process, they approved financing for two million dollars. I only wanted to refinance for a few hundred grand, but they said they couldn’t. Maybe they misunderstood, ‘But you are approved to buy something else if you want!’ they told me.”
The wheels started turning once Damon learned that he could get significantly more airplane than he was looking for.
“I was like, ‘shoot. Okay!’ My buddy had an Epic, so I considered that as an option. But insurance would prefer something other than an experimental aircraft, coupled with my flight time. I started looking at a Meridian and was about to close on a 2013 model. It was pretty pricey, so I reconsidered.”
Spoiler alert: Georgalos ultimately settled on an Eclipse 500. But several naysayers said the aircraft wasn’t the best fit for his mission. He couldn’t be talked out of the model, though, especially as he began doing tailored research into the plane and its capabilities.
“I had thought about this jet, but people always tried talking me out of it. Things like, ‘It’s not a good airplane’ and ‘the performance sucks,’ Or ‘You will never be able to fly it out of your airport in Heber [City, Utah],’ ‘or be able to fly with passengers and full fuel.’ Just things like that. So I started researching the plane myself, and it didn’t seem nearly as bad as the opinions people were sharing without knowing the plane personally,” he began. “I knew about the company being in bankruptcy for a long time. I talked with some facilities about parts availability. They told me that support isn’t as big of an issue as people try to make it out to be. Parts are pretty easy to come by and whatnot.”
He made his decision and jumped right in. Georgalos acted so quickly that he had a plane lined up for purchase before scheduling type-rating training. Like the challenges with his Bonanza, The Eclipse’s insurance requirements were a point of contention.
“I decided not to sign the contract on the Meridian and found a 400-hour total time Eclipse out of Texas. I only contacted flight schools once I had already purchased the plane. Initially, three flight schools told me there was no way, with so few hours, that I could get my type rating for that plane. They told me that the hardest thing in aviation to do is get a type rating, and with my time, it just wasn’t possible for an Eclipse. The insurance companies didn’t like the idea, but I got one to agree to require fifty hours of dual instruction in the plane like I had in my Bonanza.”
He continued his aircraft transition explanation, noting that he found a solution to his training dilemma shortly after overcoming the insurance hurdles. He discovered a well-known Eclipse flight instructor willing to accept him as a student. In addition to his enthusiastic dedication to learning, one of the things that swung the decision in Georgalos’ favor was that he was only 30 years old at the time. The instructor believed his youth could be a benefit in the daunting task of learning to fly such a complex machine.
“We flew around the whole South-western United States, flying from cheapest fuel to cheapest fuel. We would fly for a few hours in the morning, stop for lunch, then fly for a few more hours and hit a hotel. To wake up and do it all over again the next morning. As this happened, I remember watching the news and learning about this Covid thing starting to spread around in February 2020. I made it out of that with two weeks to spare before quarantine requirements set in, finishing my 50 hours and taking my checkride. I have had the Eclipse for three and a half years, with around 470 hours flying it. I love it. It’s just a great aircraft.”
Overall, the plane meets Georgalos’ standards and is relied upon in its varied missions, including short and long stage-length trips.
“It has a few things that limit it, but for the most part, I can get 95 percent or better of what I want to get done. I have three kids, so I am flying around with five seats constantly filled. My typical missions are around the West Coast, and I often fly to California and Las Vegas. But I have stretched its legs quite a bit, having gone to The Bahamas once and South Florida for business. When I go that far, I typically land in Hammond, Louisiana, with some of the cheapest fuel in the country, then fly right over the Gulf. Coming back to Utah, it’s right on the money that I have to stop perfectly in the middle, and I’m right at the reserve amount I want to land with. I always make it back in one fuel stop, but it’s tight,” Georgalos claims.
“One of the things that I love the most about the plane is that it’s pretty short-field capable, especially for a jet. I fly into many airports that no other jets have ever flown into. I’m constantly flying out of airports with 3,000-foot runways where you typically only see small, single-engine aircraft. People are staring at me during those times, and it’s awesome! My Eclipse is version 2.5, so I have auto throttles and ABS. Those capabilities make the aircraft ultra-useful when flying into small airports with tight patterns.”
Not only does Georgalos proclaim that the Eclipse 500 is a blast to fly, but he also says it’s an economical performer.
“I love the plane because it’s super-efficient and cheap to fly. During longer trips, I fly at FL400 or FL410. At these altitudes, I’m seeing a total fuel burn of about 54 gallons per hour. Lower around FL300, we’ll see fuel burns in the mid-60s [gallons per hour]. So, it is an efficient airplane, especially up high. For maintenance, you will have a year when you spend twenty grand, and you’ll have another year where you’ll spend three or four times that. Averaging that out, call it 50 thousand. If you fly a few hundred hours yearly, it’s not too bad. I think of the Eclipse as around a $700-per-hour plane, which for a jet is insane.”