Page 104 - EAA78.Newsletter.Archives.(February.2017-July.2021)
P. 104
CHAPTER CHATTER, EAA Chapter 78 7
Mustang Farewell: Cessna Delivering Its
Last “Very Light Jet”
Here’s why Cessna is saying goodbye to the littlest
Citation
When Cessna launched the Citation Mustang
back in 2002 at the National Business Aviation
Association there was much buzz about how this
newest Cessna jet would change the aviation
world. After all, the Mustang, a six-seat, an
8,645 lbs. twin-jet with revolutionary new PWC
engines and then-brand new G1000 avionics
suite, would be the most advanced, most
affordable, easiest to fly and most economical
Citation ever. What could stop it from being the
biggest selling model in that series?
A Sarcastic View of Pattern Flying
Courtesy of Textron Aviation
When it launched the program, Cessna was
asking $2.7 million a copy for the Mustang. By
the end, that price had risen to $3.5 million,
which some took as proof that it was still very
expensive to build a twin-jet no matter how
small the engines or the airframe was. Cessna
parent company Textron Aviation didn’t officially
give a reason for pulling the plug on the
Mustang after it had sold 470 copies, but in its
press release announcing the discontinuation of
the jet, it touted its Citation M2, the entry-level
version of the 525 CitationJet, as the natural
successor to the Mustang. And maybe that’s the
real story, that for 25 percent more, customers
Why is it that student pilots are being taught to fly
traffic patterns that would be too large for even a can get a single-pilot jet that roundly
Boeing 777!? AVweb's Paul Bertorelli explores the outperforms the Mustang in every way,
question in this not-so-gentle, but humorous video. including being faster than the smaller jet by
around 60 knots.
