Search Results for: Citation X

If business jets could qualify as angels, the Cessna Citations participating in the Cessna Citation Special Olympics Airlift would have earned their wings. On July 17, 2010, an armada of Citation business jets carrying some 800 Special Olympics athletes and coaches winged their way from airports all across the country to Lincoln Municipal Airport (KLNK) […]

Transport Canada (TC) in late 2009 issued a Service Difficulty Alert detailing failure of a parked aircrafts control yoke that broke during high-wind conditions. A complete fracture occurred between the yoke pivot area and the elevator attachment point due to severe internal corrosion. A 2001 Cessna service bulletin provides instructions for creating an inspection hole, recommending annual inspection and corrosion treatment.

With everybody enamored of machines that aviate without the interference of humans, “Unmanned Air Vehicles” are currently a hot topic. Like that Airbus with a cabin full of passengers bound for Minneapolis that flew itself so well it just kept going … 150 miles beyond Minneapolis. See, I just can’t buy that story about two […]

Aerodynamicists seldom earn long obits in the New York Times, but Richard Whitcomb, who died last Oct. 13 at 88, did. He left a conspicuous imprint on the design of modern airplanes. He was responsible for the winglet, the supercritical airfoil — which he designed not on a computer, as would be done today, but […]

Despite the lingering recession, in late November, Gulfstream reached yet another 2009 milestone when company test pilots made the successful first flight of the newest Gulfstream business jet, the ultralong-range G650. The flight was unusually short, just 12 minutes, as the pilots, Jake Howard and Tom Horne, along with flight engineer Bill Osborne, returned for […]

I have been to dozens of new airplane rollouts in the last 30-plus years, and I was amazed when the all-new Gulfstream G650 taxied into view at a rollout ceremony in late September under its own power. That just doesn’t happen. Rollout ceremonies are usually a party to show that the airplane is getting close, […]

At about 8:25 A.M. on Sept. 3, 2007, Steve Fossett took off from a friend’s ranch, about 60 miles southeast of Reno, Nevada, in a borrowed 1980 Bellanca Super Decathlon. A few minutes later, about nine miles south of the airstrip, an employee of the ranch who knew the airplane well saw the Decathlon fly […]

Despite efforts by the National Business Aviation Association and some aircraft manufacturers, little success has been achieved in changing the public’s mind about private airplanes, especially jets. When the CEOs of the big three (well, the diminished three) automakers arrived in Washington, D.C., in three separate corporate jets to claim taxpayer bailout money, you didn’t […]

Russell Meyer, Jr., current chairman emeritus and past chairman and CEO of Cessna, which he led from 1975 to 2003, will be inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. Russ Meyer is largely credited with promoting product liability legislation in 1994, which became known as the General Aviation Revitalization Act. Following passage of that […]

Airframe by Cessna. Engines from Pratt & Whitney. Avionics by Collins. In a world where we all wonder what became of the blue chip companies, these three names are still rock-solid leaders in business aviation. So it is only natural that they would team up to make the Citation XLS, the bestselling business jet for […]