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Cirrus Jet (combined thread)

Cirrus announced last night that the first customer delivery of the Vision Jet took place yesterday. They have 600 more deliveries to make based on sold order book.

EGKB Biggin Hill London

Are you still trying to sell your Cirrus Jet position(s), Cirrus_Man?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Well, I did ask the question Peter. So actually deliveries have started.

Really curious to read the first proper pilot report about what it can really do.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

IMHO only European Cirrus Jet pilots would come over here. The US ones (the vast majority at least initially) will head straight for COPA

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Really curious to read the first proper pilot report

Will be difficult to find one. The magazines publish only praise about new aircraft because the need to sell advertising space and owners/employed pilots will praise their aircraft even more. At least until they managed to sell it on or get a better job. Only then comes the time to tell the plain truth But that will only happen in 2 or 3 years form now at earliest.

EDDS - Stuttgart

Congratulations to Cirrus, the design challenge of a straightforward, owner flown turbo fan is an impressive achievement. I hope it’s a great success and also enjoys the current safety record of the Cirri – which is very good now the owners actually pull the chute when they are supposed to.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Interesting to play with some figures though.

Looking through the different publications, I get the following:
MTOW = 2722 kg (which makes it a Eurocontrol milk cow unfortunately)
MZFW = 2223 kg
Empty = 1620 kg (will be interesting to see “real” empty weights though.

This leaves an useful load of 1102 kg of which 500 need to be in fuel only.

With Maximum Fuel (333 USG) and deduction of taxi fuel, roughly 200 kg payload can be carried. That is 2 people with baggage.
With Payload at MZFW, 183 USG of fuel can be carried.
With 4 People @ 100 kg (inkl baggage) on board, 258 USG of fuel may be carried.

Performance figures I found are as follows:
Climb to FL280 takes 64 NM and 33 USG.
High Speed Cruise is 300 kts @ FL280 with 69 GPH consumption
Long Range Cruise is 242 kts @ FL280 with 47 GPH consumption.

Taking into account a reserve of 1 hour at respective fuel flow and the climb figure, I get the following range figures:

With Max Fuel a Range of 1068 NM at HSC and 1367 NM at LRC.
With MZFW Payload a Range of 418 NM at HSC and 596 NM at LRC.
With 4 POB (400kg payload) a Range of 742 NM at HSC and 980 NM at LRC.

These figures with purely 1 hour reserve are even above Cirrus estimates in some cases, which claim 1200 NM max range at NBAA reserves.

Translated into legs:

With MZFW Payload which is almost 600 kg, you can fly from Zurich to Rome, Hamburg or Vienna at 300 kts, or to London or Barcelona at 242 kts.
With 400 kg Payload (4 People and bags) you can fly from Zurich to Sofia or Madrid with high speed cruise or to Istambul or Malaga at Long Range Cruise.
With 2 People and Max Cruise, you can fly from Zurich to Heraklion at 300 kts or to Antalya with LRC.

That is still quite respectable in terms of range for an airplane, which is primarily designed to carry 1-4 people. I would think, the option for the third seat row is pretty useless, a range of 400 NM for a jet is not really viable, but with 4 seats and ample baggage (not all pax weigh 100 kgs with bags) the range is still quite useful. With two, even the occasional trip to Oskosh is not totally out of reach.

Clearly, the final figures must be taken into account. And for the price, one can get much more capable airframes at a fraction of the 2.2 Million it now costs and be able to fly further and with more payload, but probably at a higher price per hour. Only the market will decide if it becomes a success or not, but Cirrus has always been very good at marketing.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Translated into legs:…

In real life this will not work out, especially on short(ish) legs. All those figures are based on a quick climb to FL280 and maximum persistence there, i.e. a rapid descent as close to destination as possible. In European and other congested airspaces this does not work. You will get step climbs and early descents on almost every flight, and long transition routes at low level into the larger airports or agglomerations, even if you don’t fly to the large airports themselves. For example flying to Zürich from the north you will be down below FL200 when passing Stuttgart and below FL100 over the Swiss border, with many track miles ahead of you depending on the runway in use. The absolute nightmare for jet operations, especially when on a tight fuel calculation.

Additionally, the average wind speed at FL280 is over 50KT in this part of the world. On over 50% of your flights (crosswind always comes with a headwind component as well) this will reduce your speed. 242KTAS against 50KT of wind result in a ground speed of 192KT. This will totally ruin your day, fuel wise. With a piston plane you can always descend into layers with less wind. With a jet, the associated increase in fuel flow at lower level will make things even worse. For an airliner which cruises at 450+KT a wind speed of 50KT is a small factor, but at 250KT it really hurts.

For me, this is a plane for the vast freedom of the American airspace, especially when staying clear of the larger metropolitan regions. Depart from some regional airfield in Idaho, climb to FL280 rapidly, cruise for two hours and coast down into another regional airfield in Kansas. But from Zürich to Madrid? No way. In the end the typical user will stretch it to the maximum by filling every seat and tanking as much fuel as the tanks will hold (just as many do with their VLJs) and we can listen to stories about the miraculous performance of this plane…

Last Edited by what_next at 21 Dec 10:33
EDDS - Stuttgart

Mooney_Driver wrote:

And for the price, one can get much more capable airframes at a fraction of the 2.2 Million it now costs and be able to fly further and with more payload, but probably at a higher price per hour

For half that you can buy a Proline 21 equipped CJ1 on an engine plan, which is faster, has more load, seats, and range, and rather crucially has two engines. And it has the experience of a company who have built thousands of jets, it’s a sorted product. For the same money you could have a CJ2 and fly 8 people at 400kts.

BUT it wouldn’t be a new one and you are right about the cost per hour.

Last Edited by Neil at 21 Dec 10:37
Darley Moor, Gamston (UK)

I am sure a smart TBM dealer is sharpening his pencil as we speak

He’s going to got an awful lot of free indirect advertising.

But in the end he won’t have a JET and that matters.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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