Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC
Cessna is considering a single-turbine aircraft to fill the gap between its piston-single line and its Citation business jet family. The company is also looking at the potential for applying high-speed technology from the Mach 0.92 Citation X to smaller aircraft in the product line.
Vice-chairman Gary Hay says Cessna sees a couple of niches in the Citation family, between the entry-level CitationJet CJ1 and the mid-size Citation X. He confirms that the company is looking at bringing the latter's high-speed technology further down into the family.
Cessna is not interested in a single-engined jet, says senior vice-president marketing Roger White. He adds that the take-off performance offered by a small turbofan is inadequate. Instead, the company is monitoring work by Pratt & Whitney Canada and Williams International on small turboprop engines.
The US manufacturer is not expected to launch a new aircraft before next year's National Business Aviation Association convention, a year from now. Cessna added four aircraft to the Citation line-up a year ago and is fully occupied with certification work.
Deliveries of the improved CJ1 will begin "in a few months", says White, while certification of the stretched, uprated CJ2 is planned for the second quarter of next year.
Cessna's light jet line is also being revamped. While production of the Citation Bravo continues, the larger Ultra is being replaced by the improved Encore. Certification of the Encore has been delayed to the second quarter of next year by design changes.
Design changes have also delayed certification of the new mid-size Citation Sovereign "by a few months", to mid-2003, says White. Cessna, meanwhile, has selected Honeywell's Epic flat-panel avionics for the aircraft.
Hay says the Citation VII, "bookended" by the Excel and Sovereign, has an "uncertain" future. According to White, production "ticks along" at about one a month, while the Citation X, has proved the sceptics wrong, with three-a-month production sold out for almost a year, says White.
Cessna is about to deliver its 100th Citation X. The 3,000th Citation business jet will be delivered this year. The company is also about to deliver its 2,000th piston single aircraft since it resumed production in 1996.
Source: Flight International
