IFR Briefing: February 2017

With flashing lights, smoke, and fanfare, Cirrus Aircraft rolled out their first Vision Jet for customer delivery, in late December. The FAA in December finalized new aircraft certification rules for general aviation that are expected to help the industry bring new designs and technology to market more quickly and cheaply. A chartered RJ85 crashed in Cerro Gordo, Colombia, while flying a holding pattern near its destination airport, on November 28. It might have made sense to the company, but nonetheless many aviators found it shocking to see Cessna dispose of its unsold Skycatcher stock, crushing the brand-new airplanes complete with their zero-time Continental engines.

Editorial Staff

Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Cirrus Aircraft began customer deliveries of its Vision Jet, a single-engine jet notable for its full-aircraft emergency parachute.
The FAA finalized new Part 23 rules, adopting performance-based standards to streamline general aviation aircraft certification and accelerate safety technology integration.
A chartered RJ85 carrying a Brazilian soccer team crashed in Colombia, with fuel exhaustion suspected as the cause due to violations of fuel reserve regulations.
Cessna destroyed its remaining inventory of unsold Skycatcher Light Sport aircraft, salvaging parts for the existing fleet.

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Cirrus Delivers First Vision Jet

With flashing lights, smoke, and fanfare, Cirrus Aircraft rolled out their first Vision Jet for customer delivery, in late December. “It’s a major milestone to deliver the first airplane,” said Cirrus CEO Dale Klapmeier. “This is a major step in the growth of our company.” About 800 employees and company friends filled the hall at Cirrus’s brand-new 60,000-square-foot finishing facility, in Duluth, Minnesota. The single-engine jet was FAA certified in October. Cirrus says it has about 600 orders in hand for the jet, which sells for about $2 million. It’s the first jet to include a full-aircraft emergency parachute as standard equipment.

FAA Finalizes New Part 23 Rules

The FAA in December finalized new aircraft certification rules for general aviation that are expected to help the industry bring new designs and technology to market more quickly and cheaply. The new Part 23 rules will go into effect in August 2017, changing the FAA’s traditional prescriptive design requirements to performance-based standards. The long-awaited revamp of Part 23 creates certification levels based on size and performance for airplanes with 19 or fewer seats and a maximum takeoff weight of 19,000 pounds. The changes are expected to help reduce the costs of certification while getting safety-related tools such as angle-of-attack indicators into aircraft more quickly.