Modification specialist aims for fast delivery tied in with website that allows customers self-configuration options
Texas-based modification specialist Sierra Industries has launched a personal jet programme offering overhauled and refurbished Cessna Citation 500/501SPs for less than $1 million.
Dubbed the Sierra Value Light Jet (Sierra VLJ), the base package is a Citation 500 with new six-passenger interior, Garmin GPS and terrain awareness warning system, priced at $845,000. The initiative is aimed at fast delivery of “ready-to-go light business jets”, says Sierra.
Additional avionics upgrades are being offered, including reduced vertical separation minimum compliance, electronic flight instrument system and digital autopilot. A variety of warranty, financing, insurance, flight training and buy-back options are also being rolled into the VLJ programme.
“With the very light jet market there’s been some promises made, but there’s not yet a certificated aircraft out there in the customers’ hands,” says sales and marketing vice-president Thomas Canavera. “So we decided to make a ‘cookie cutter’ aircraft ourselves with standard interior, parts and upgraded avionics that you don’t have to wait years for.” Delivery from order to handover could be as short as four months for the baseline model, he says.
Sierra has introduced a website customers can use to configure their aircraft. “You start by selecting an airframe without engines, each with different hours and modifications and a price, and next you go to engines. They are all Pratt & Whitney Canada engines, but there you select either zero-, mid- or high-time engines,” he says. Further menus take the customer through avionics, interior and paint scheme options before the final price is calculated.
Sierra is completing the first VLJ, and has two further airframes “ready on the ramp”, says Canavera, who adds that, although the supply of used airframes is plentiful, “this is a niche market, and we’re not an original equipment manufacturer.”
Source: Flight International
