Anyone ever have one of these old birds and enjoy it? I have found a decent one with mid time motors and its dirt cheap. I would get a fresh 1-5 inspection before buying it. Short wing, no thrust reversers. Rvsm. Nothing fancy in the panel but nice paint/interior. I glean they are near impossible to sell unless priced really low (under 200k). Most want an SP (easier to fly single pilot but the 500 is fine too sp with some caveats), thrust reversers and the long wing. There is a valid reason this plane is cheap.

Here was my plan. Get my brother and dad type in it too, fly it about 50 hours a year, have some family fun for 3 years or until something 6 figure serious breaks and then sell it/part it out (its a really pretty plane so parting it out would be sad).

Downsides: burns a boatload of gas, 350kts will smoke the baron but slow by jet standards, something catostrophic could break that foces me to part it out early.

I think its easy enough to fly that i will be safe flying it after getting typed with walt bradshaw or similar.

I basically want to check jet off the bucket list and then move on with life if i dont get addicted to it.

Anyone else done something dumb like this?

Mike

I am doing dumb things like this all the time. I will have more first hand information soon, as I take delivery of mine on March 7th.

You want the long wing. It's a big deal.

TRs on the old citations are about worthless. They add weight and it's one more expensive system to maintain. If the one you are looking at has them, fine. If not, no big deal. I wouldn't let this influence my decision one way or the other.

Look for the long wing, freon air, RVSM, at least a Garmin 430W or 530W in the panel and decent paint and interior. These things cost a lot to refurbish, so spend the extra ~$100k up front and buy one that isn't junk.

I don't know jack about these but I wonder if the cheap ones are RVSM? They already burn a ton of gas but if you can't get up high they'll burn a metric shit-ton of gas (saw this new measurement term in another post and liked it!)

Since you are willing to walk away from most or all of your purchase price, why don't you just find something you can dry lease. Maintenance is typically built into the lease cost so it takes away the risk.

The other thing you might consider is going to a jet type (like a mustang) rating school that does it in the airplane. Awhile back, I called one of these schools and IIRC the hourly cost wasn't too bad (somewhere around $2000). If you each plunk down $25K and do it together, I bet you could get a deal. One of two things will probably happen; 1) you'll get your fill of flying jets, or 2) you'll get your taste buds wet and get the bug

Of course you know this, but we all try to make the "Jet Math" work (I certainly do). A few people on here even succeed - Theo W. for instance. But in the end, finding a low cost way to make this work is a bit like trying to build a perpetual motion machine.

Ah, the 500 Citation. A true 500 is a unique plane, it does have the short wing, no tr's and no power brakes. This means faster ref speeds and not a lot of ways to lose the energy. Of course if you bring it in on speed you won't have issues, but sometimes that seems not to be the case with transitioning pilots. If you get it, fly it on speed, stabilized approach.

The longwing conversion done to most 500's and the Citation I have slower ref speeds with the bigger wing, which does make a big difference. You will only miss reversers on contaminated runways, then you will really miss them. They are not mx intensive if they are aligned correct and checked for cracks on each preflight, never had any issues, but they do take up some useful load as mentioned.

Maintenance history is king on these planes. I owned a 50% share Citation II and used it exclusively for training for 5 years. It was one of the higher time airframes around, but was owned by the Canadian government prior and had an excellent past. I can tell you that other than scheduled maintenance I never had any unexpected costs. They are rock solid. I cycled gear and flaps all the time, did stalls, steep turns 3 days a week for years and the plane was great. It had a nose wheel spin up kit on it too! Let me say it again, if you buy a plane with a bad mx history, you will regret it. Good news, everyone works on these planes now.

Freon air with cool sticks are great. Cool sticks put the vents on the yoke base, otherwise it's just floor vents. If it has standard avionics, it will have the flying eye ball flight director (these are classic). Coupled approach and the center of the adi rotates vertically and you fly the crosshairs centered on the eyeball. Yes, crosshairs, no v-bars until the 501 or II model.

RVSM would be nice, but a lot of these planes don't have it. If it is RVSM, make sure the paperwork gets transferred over correctly or you won't be legal to go above 280.

Do the type rating in the plane! If insurance wants simulator training, go to recurrent after you do your initial in the plane. The plane training is invaluable. V1 cuts are a must. The 500 is the most squirrely of all 500 series, but very manageable.

You won't be able to fly it single pilot without the exemption, only the 501 and 551 can be flown single pilot without exemption (this is why they command more $$$). The exemption is a couple items that are probably already done on the plane, but you will have to go to single pilot school every 12 months at one of the bigger companies.

I don't do much Citation training anymore, but if you are looking for any advice when it comes to purchasing or training I'll be glad to offer up my opinions.

PS, make sure to have a good Citation pilot take the airplane up with the current owner before you purchase it. Air cycle machines are 25-30k (not freon), make sure they work. The freon system is great as well, was an option back then, some don't have it. I could go on forever, but....

They are fun to fly, good luck. Oh, yeah, 350kts, not happening, 300-330.

Sounds like fun, how much is a boatload of gas burn per hour?

Let's just average between the I and II's. 120 gph- 250 gph depending on which hour it is.

Steven thank you.

Did i read it right i would need 500 hours turbine to fly it single pilot?

Mike

The insurance, maintenance and fuel cost is what keeps these planes under 200,000 these days. However, if you decide to buy one, make sure you call Aljandro at True Course Insurance, he has a very good program for owner operated Jets. He can save you thousands. He is a BT sponsor last I checked.

You on,y live once. Doing crazy things like this is what makes it exciting.
Go for it!

Remy

I'll have to check when I get to the office next week, but I think it's a 1000TT. I never did the exemption training or I should say I never trained people for the exemption, but did have the exemption myself for a few years.

I plan on getting liability only...forget the hull, its disposable. I just want to be safe and scratch this itch and have some fun.

Already mentioned, but you could just lease one.

If you are thinking of buying a Citation it would be worthwhile to join the CJP (Citation Jet Pilots) group. A nice mix of owner pilots flying all models of Citation (heavy in Mustang and CJ series but also lots of legacy Citation members as well).

www.citationjetpilots.com

There is one insurance 'program' available for Citation Owners which returns up to 10% of your hull premium for attendance at the annual convention and completion of several safety related seminars during the conference. The program was initially put in place by CS&A Insurance out of TN with about 5-6 participating underwriting carriers. The 'program' is NOT broker exclusive - meaning any broker who places a policy with a participating underwriter has access to the insurance credit for their customers.

No other 'program' exists in the insurance world for Citation owners.