Jets in the clouds
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Posted Date: 19/05/2008
Issue: Executive & VIP Aviation International June 2008
Publication: Executive & VIP Aviation International
Find a gap in the private jet market and you can bet your bottom dollar someone will plug it. While aircraft manufacturers compete to fill gaps at the top end of the market, Cirrus Design is busy addressing a gap at the bottom. The space between single-engine aircraft and VLJs is Cirrus Design’s prevailing preoccupation as it develops a new concept for its existing and future customer base.
Termed “the-jet”, Cirrus’s new personal jet will cater for a broad selection of private aviation needs, confirms John Bingham, Managing Director of Cirrus International and Senior Vice President of Cirrus Design. “It will have some private usage for those anxious to move up out of props into jets, but it will also have a great deal of utilisation from a business perspective, especially for personal business use. We see a lot of our customers at present flying their existing aircraft for business,” he comments. “We expect that to carry over when customers start to take delivery of their jets as well.”
The official date for the first release of the aircraft is still under wraps but, says Bingham: “We have a substantial order bank for the aircraft.” He continues: “We showed it for the first time in late June 2007 and, even then, we already held 200 deposited orders. At the moment, we have around 450 deposited orders and each of those orders is backed with a $100,000 deposit.”
In terms of market spread, Bingham insists that this is not going to be a North American aircraft flying in just North America; it is attracting attention worldwide. “We’re very happy about that. This is very encouraging for us,” he says. “The export markets that are showing the most orders for us are Brazil – which is our number one export country anyway – and South Africa. We also have a lot of orders from the EU as a group of countries.”
Bingham says that there is no doubt that “the-jet” will be operated by a lot of Cirrus Design’s existing customers, but those existing customers are using their prop aircraft for business anyway. “the-jet” opens a new market for us, however, in terms of its acceptance as, for example, an air taxi,” he comments. “Our jet aircraft will be able to land at a lot of smaller airfields that a lot of larger jets will not be able to get into. It really does open up a serious number of scenarios; not just for charter but also for air taxi.”
Keeping it real
If “the-jet” is to perform as both a personal jet and a business tool, the aircraft will have to demonstrate a high level of usability. “The reason the airplane has been of immense appeal to our existing customer base is that a lot of their existing aircraft will be instantly recognisable to them when they operate “the-jet”. We envisage that it will be a relatively accomplishable transition to go from a customer’s existing airplane to “the-jet”,” comments Bingham.
In terms of the number of seats,” the-jet” will stack up well alongside the VLJs. “People will be very surprised; they thought we were going to produce a very small four-seat jet. The airplane itself is very roomy and has five seats plus two jump seats. You can fly with up to five adults and two children,” Bingham remarks. “We have a patented and unique seating arrangement for the middle seat. That seat is on a long slide so it provides great flexibility for multiple configurations.”
The-jet will have two entrances; one on each side of the aircraft. “That provides great ease of access for both passengers and pilots – that is a unique feature of the aircraft,” says Bingham. “We will also be the only jet with a safety parachute as standard equipment.”
In fact Cirrus designed its existing prop aircraft to a specification that included a safety parachute as standard equipment as well. This has become an intrinsic component of all Cirrus aircraft. “The reason we have taken this design approach is that, if the pilot gets into difficulties, the parachute can be pulled and the aircraft will drift down and will land on its undercarriage. That way the occupants will be able to walk away from an otherwise hazardous situation,” he remarks.
“There have been numerous instances of pilots in all makes of aircraft flying into adverse conditions who lose control of the plane. With our aircraft, if you encounter that kind of environment, or any other dangerous scenario, any occupant of the plane can pull the parachute and the plane will come down under the parachute and the passengers and pilot will walk away.”
By way of example, Bingham points out that Cirrus Design is about to build its 4,000th aircraft and there have been 13 parachute pulls by its existing customer base. Every one of those people that have pulled the parachute has survived.
“We’ve saved a total of 27 lives as a result of that,” he confirms. The belt and braces attitude to safety derives from the experience of one of the founders of the company. During a mid-air collision the Cirrus Design founder survived but the passengers and pilot in the other aircraft all died. “That is why Cirrus Design set about designing an aircraft with a parachute in it and why Cirrus will always put a parachute in every plane that it builds.”
Plane production
With the extensive interest in “the-jet” exhibited by potential customers worldwide, how does Bingham expect Cirrus Design to meet demand in terms of production? “At the moment, we manufacture a large number of aircraft; in fact we are manufacturing up to 16 aircraft a week. We have capacity to manufacture a lot more than that and we have just purchased another facility on the same airfield in Duluth where we will be manufacturing “the-jet”,” says Bingham.
This may be a new aircraft type for Cirrus Design but this is a manufacturer who has plenty of experience bringing new aircraft to the market, dealing with FAA questions and achieving aircraft certification. “We brought a revolutionary plane to the market already,” he says, referring to aircraft equipped with parachutes for the first time. “The FAA is now very supportive of this added safety element we have brought to general aviation.”
As for “the-jet”, Bingham emphasises that this programme is running to schedule – at just half way through it – and Cirrus Design is very confident about getting the aircraft certified and being able to deliver production aircraft to position holders in the timeframe promised. Financial market turbulence may allow Cirrus Design a little time to play with, but Bingham is emphatic that this is an airframe manufacturer that always sticks to its scheduling promises.
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