Cirrus Vision

The FAA today awarded Cirrus Aircraft the production certificate for the SF50 Vision, the world’s first single-engine “personal” jet aimed at pilots who want to fly themselves at turbine speeds in the flight levels. The approval will allow Cirrus to accelerate aircraft deliveries as Vision jets move down the production line at the company’s headquarters […]

When 2016’s billing numbers were released this week by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, Cirrus Aircraft easily captured the top slot, having delivered 317 aircraft, fully a third more airframes than its nearest rival, Textron Aviation’s Cessna Aircraft Company. Last year’s totals represent the third year in a row the Duluth, Minnesota, aircraft builder topped […]

It was a year filled with big news stories that not only helped to reshape the general aviation landscape but will almost certainly continue to do so for many years to come. The past 12 months have seen aircraft milestones, major changes to FAA regulations and a presidential election unlike any we have witnessed in […]

Cirrus Aircraft handed over the first customer SF50 Vision at an extravagant ceremony on Monday at its production facility in Duluth, Minnesota. The milestone caps a decade-plus-long effort to introduce to the aviation market the first single-engine personal jet. This initial customer Vision Jet, painted in an attractive red-and-white scheme that Cirrus calls Corso Red […]

Cirrus Aircraft’s long journey to certification of the industry’s first single-engine personal jet culminated with FAA type approval of the SF50 Vision Jet nearly 10 years after the program’s launch. The FAA ceremoniously presented the type certificate for the SF50 to senior Cirrus executives at the NBAA Convention in Orlando, Florida, yesterday as the company […]

Williams International’s new FJ33-5A turbofan engine on Monday was awarded its FAA Part 33 type certificate. The company used what it learned in development of the earlier FJ44-3AP and FJ44-4A powerplants to give the new FJ33-5A more than 2,000 pounds of thrust, improved fuel economy and a better than 6-to-1 thrust-to-weight ratio. The FJ33-5A — […]

The first four production Cirrus Jets are nearing completion at the company’s factory in Duluth, Minnesota, as the company prepares for initial customer deliveries later this year, Cirrus Aircraft president Pat Waddick said at a press conference at AERO Friedrichshafen in Germany. The first production SF50 Vision Jet is about to make its maiden flight, […]

The FAA will allow Cirrus Aircraft to forego inflight testing of the SF50 Vision Jet’s whole-airframe ballistic parachute, saying such tests would incur “an unnecessary expense” while posing “inherent danger” to the test pilot. In a notice of proposed conditions issued recently, the FAA noted that unlike the BRS parachutes in the SR20 and SR22 […]

Cirrus co-founder Alan Klapmeier has suspended his efforts to assemble a group of investors to take control of the Cirrus Vision single-engine jet program. In an unrelated matter, Klapmeier’s employment agreement to be Chairman of the Board of Cirrus is set to expire in mid-August. Alan will continue as a member of the board and […]