Search Results for: Citation X

Any number of experts can help you buy a jet. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. But I did buy a jet — my first — recently, and the experience taught me some lessons. It is entirely possible that you and your company will employ an expert or two to help you find a […]

Safran’s Silvercrest engine certification delays caused Dassault in December to scrap its Safran-based Falcon 5X. Yesterday Textron announced it too had halted work, at least temporarily, on its largest new business jet, the Silvercrest-powered Citation Hemisphere. Textron’s announcement did represent the first time a specific timeframe had been mentioned, between an “18-24-month delay of the […]

Tamarack Aerospace Group has achieved another Supplemental Type Certificate for its ATLAS Active Winglets, this time for the Cessna Citation CJ2 and CJ2+, otherwise known as the C525A series. Tamarack has already achieved STCs for the C525 and C525B series of Citation business jets, covering the CJ, CJ1, CJ1+, M2, CJ3 and CJ3+. “Active Winglets […]

Your favorite phrase as a pilot probably isnt, Go around. You might have been set up on final, aircraft perfectly configured, ready to call it a day, and suddenly youve got to throw all that out and try again. For a controller, the go-around is a last-minute tactic to resolve insufficient clearance or some other unexpected danger. Sure, it fixes an immediate problem, but it instantly creates other risks. Whether ATC initiates it, or you do, its adding complexity for everyone involved.

As a newly minted flight instructor in 2002, I thought I knew it all. I could recite regulations from Part 61 and 91 from memory and anticipate my students’ mistakes before they happened. I felt like my stick-and-rudder skills were at their peak, having just wrapped up the maneuvers training for the commercial pilot certificate […]

An aircraft auxiliary power unit serves as an additional energy source normally used to start one of the main engines on an airliner or business jet. The APU is equipped with an extra electrical generator to create enough power to operate onboard lighting, galley electrics and cockpit avionics, usually while the aircraft is parked at […]

The market for new Part 23 and Part 25 general aviation airplanes has yet to see a return to the brisk sales levels recorded before the 2008 financial crisis, but slow deliveries can be blamed at least in part on the encouraging fact that many buyers say they are merely waiting for certification of new […]

Honda Aircraft has notched its biggest order yet, signing a deal with Wijet, a European air-taxi provider, for 16 HondaJets to upgrade its aging business jet fleet. Honda Aircraft made the announcement at the Singapore Airshow being held at Changi Exhibition Centre, where the HondaJet is making its first-ever appearance. Wijet is a French air-taxi […]

It had to happen one of these times. Today youll fly the approach that makes NetJets pilots wish theyd taken that cargo job over the Great Lakes: the infamous LOC/DME-E into Aspen, CO. Its 3500 feet of localizer stepdowns to a MAP thats still 2.6 miles from the runway. The missed is a climb on dedicated backcourse past hills so dramatic one Citation pilot friend puts it: When we fly into Aspen, I dont look out the window until were about to land. And even then, I dont look up. Many companies require special training to fly paying passengers into Aspen, Eagle, and similar mountain airports.

Every January we get to snicker up our flight jacket sleeves at the antics of easily distracted pilots with wings, rotors or other means of defying gravity-and logic. While this custom of mocking those whove slipped the surly bonds of sanity and touched the face of chagrin goes back many years, we cling to hope that we will learn from our mistakes. Alas…These exploits are gleaned from NTSB reports from 2014, excluding fatal accidents. So, if you rose from the ashes of what should have killed you that year, youre fair game.