Photo: Cessna Aircraft
Recently, a top C-level executive at Cessna reportedly remarked to one of the company's Citation X demo pilots that he couldn't understand why anyone would need to fly at speeds approaching 0.92 Mach. "After all, that's even faster than commercial jetliners fly," he might as well have said.
Citation X indeed never has sold in large numbers. Only 300+ aircraft have been produced in 15 years. One was delivered in 2010 and apparently none in 2011. It's always been a limited-production flagship, intended to be a 500+ knot technology demonstrator designed by the same company that created the 340 knot Citation 500 in 1972.
But, the original Citation 500 spawned the Citation I, II and S-II, as well as the Citation V, Ultra, Encore and Bravo. Fitted with a wider Citation III fuselage cross section, the Citation V became the Excel, and eventually the XLS followed by the XLS+. Stretched and fitted with a new wing, the XLS was the basis for the Citation Sovereign.
Sneak into Cessna's R & D facility and you'll find new models that return to the "simple Citation" design philosophy of the four-decade old Citation 500. They are practical designs, ones that will offer great short field performance, easy maintenance, ample cabin comfort and "me-too" sub-0.80 Mach cruise speeds.
So, it appears that the Citation X will not spawn a new generation of high-Mach cruisers from Cessna. When the second-generation Ten makes it debut in 2013, that will be the last hurrah for the 0.92 flagship, marking the end of a special era in the company's history. Cessna's focus then solely will be on developing practical new Citations, all of which will cruise no faster than commercial jetliners, rather than on pushing back the frontiers of aviation technology.
It's a shame that Cessna's top management might wonder why anyone would want to fly as fast as a Gulfstream G650 for one-third the price.
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