Cessna Citation family

The Cessna Citation is a market brand-name used by American manufacturer Cessna for its line of business jets. Rather than one particular model of aircraft, the name applies to several "families" of turbofan-powered aircraft that have been produced over the years. Within each of the six distinct families, aircraft design improvements, market pressures and re-branding efforts have resulted in a number of variants, so that the Citation lineage has become quite complex. Military variants include the T-47 and UC-35 series aircraft.

More than 6,750 Citations have been delivered, forming the largest business jet fleet. The first Citation was put into service in 1972, more than 31 million flight hours have been logged since.

Citation product lineage overview

Cessna Citation II

The Cessna Citation II was the first of the Model 550 series of Citation jets, which are light corporate jet built by Cessna. A direct development of the Citation I, the Citation II led to the later development of the Citation II/SP, the S550 Citation S/II, and the Citation Bravo. The Citation II was also used by the United States Navy under the designation T-47A for radar system training.

Design and development

Citation II

The Citation II, Model 550, was a direct development from the Citation I. The earlier aircraft's success in the market led Cessna to believe there was demand for a larger aircraft that utilized the same design philosophy. The result was the Citation II, which had a maximum seating capacity of 10. In addition to more seats, the plane had more powerful JT15D-4 engines (2,500 lbf (11 kN) thrust per engine), increase of fuel capacity to approximately 5000 lbs, faster speeds and longer range. First flight was on January 31, 1977, and the aircraft was certified for two-pilot operation in March, 1978. A total of 603 aircraft were built before the Citation II was replaced by the Bravo in the production line.

Cessna Citation I

The Cessna 500 Citation I is a turbofan-powered small-sized business jet that was built by the Cessna Aircraft Company in Wichita, Kansas. The Citation line of business jets encompasses several distinct aircraft families, and the Citation I was the basis for the first of those. The Citation I/SP aircraft is another member of this family.

Design and development

FanJet 500

In October, 1968, Cessna announced plans to build an eight-place business jet that, unlike its competition, would be suitable for operations from shorter airfields, essentially aiming to compete in the light-to-medium twin turboprop market, rather than the existing business jet market. First flight of the prototype aircraft, then called the FanJet 500, took place a little under a year later, on September 15, 1969

Citation I series

After a longer-than-expected development flight test program, during which the name Citation 500 was tried, and a number of changes to the design, the finished aircraft was debuted with the new name Citation (Model 500) and received its FAA certification in September, 1971. The aircraft was powered by two Pratt & Whitney Canada JT15D-1 turbofan engines. With fan engines, rather than turbojet engines such as powered the contemporary Learjet 25, and straight, rather than swept wings, the Citation was over 120 knots (220 km/h) slower than the Lear 25 (max speed of 350 knots (650 km/h) compared with 473 knots (876 km/h) for the LJ25), which led to nicknames such as "Slowtation" and "Nearjet", and raised eyebrows in the aviation media. The Citation I had a maximum take-off weight of 10,850 lb (4,920 kg), and a maximum of 8 people on board.