I would like to see some type of "safety pilot" program, a right seat person who can navigate, communicate and even land in an emergency. This could obviously be a spouse or family member... or the kid at the airport who is taking lessons and would kill to ride up front in a jet.

This could eliminate the need for an actual co-pilot on the 560... and could even allow pilots who have lost, or like me can't get their medical, to fly.

Anyone think there's a chance of pushing that through?

Jon, it is not what the manuals say but what they don't say or are hidden in the details.

If you just deal with the headline numbers of FL430 or FL450 max altitude and then simply look up cruise performance at those altitudes to plan a flight you may be very disappointed at not being able to do the flight as planned.

I doubt those without flight experience have studied the climb tables in the performance section and taken in what they say and what they don't tell you. I am not sure what data is in the Citation 550 or V manuals. The oldest manual I have is the 525 and an example page is below.

Climb ability to get to max altitude is very sensitive to ISA and weight. The 525 data only gives you ISA -10, ISA, and ISA +10 data. I often see ISA up to +20 in the FLs especially in the northern latitudes. We have had prior discussion here on why that is.

So if you have ISA over +10 you don't have performance data. And not at the bottom of this page the table notes conditions when a step climb is needed to get to max altitude of FL410. And your climb rate may be 100 - 200 fpm for the last 2000 feet of altitude.

The CJ2 could only get to FL450 once you were at least 1000 lbs below MGW at ISA. If you got an efficient climb to FL410 or ISA was high you needed to stop at FL410 and burn off some fuel before continuing.

You really get to appreciate the challenges of getting an underpowered turbojet to its max altitude when you are at MCT, airspeed is declining below Vy, and climb rate is below 100 fpm. An experienced pilot never lets the climb get to that point. In general in a Citation once airspeed gets within 20 kts of Vy and climb rate is falling below 500 fpm it is time to level off for a while.

You only learn what these planes can do by flying them or talking to pilots who do. The books do not have the data for many conditions you will encounter.

The V doesn't have Williams options, no STC for that as of yet. That was an option on the 501SP and the SII.

But point taken, a jet will cost more for engines and more for fuel.

The advantages of the jet for me are the following:

1. Faster. 400 knots changes things enough that a long flight is more doable. This is particularly true in winter headwinds. At FL410+, headwinds often decrease versus what turboprops face in the high 20s.

2. Higher. FL410+ means more ability to top weather.

3. Further. Longer range opens up more non stop flights.

4. Quieter. Passenger cabin is no headsets.

5. Safer. The twin jet is simply safer than any turboprop.

6. Day pilots. Easier to use the jet in my business when I am not flying it.

7. Larger. Carry more people. I've had 6 in my MU2 quite a few times and could have used a seat or two more on occasion.

8. Potty. Most jets have it.

A jet has some negatives.

1. Cost. Definitely costs more than turboprops in maintenance, fuel, hangar, etc.

2. Perception. A turboprop looks frugal to employees and clients, a jet less so.

3. Runway. Jets need longer runways and have trouble with wet, snow, ice. Some airports open to me now will not be so in a jet.

My current candidates are:

1. MU2. Keep what I got, fuel stop to west coast both ways. Clearly the cheapest to operate option.

2. 441 ($1.3M). Non stop both ways, essentially the same speed as MU2, does enable FL350. SIDs.

3. Commander 1000 ($1.5M). Non stop both ways, a touch slower, does enable FL350.

4. Citation 501SP Eagle II (Williams) ($1.5M). Fuel stop westbound, maybe non stop east, FL430.

5. Citation SII ($750K). Wheezy high altitude, might go westbound non stop occasionally, east most of the time, FL430. Need SP exemption.

6. Citation SII/Williams ($2M). Awesome performance and range, rare. Non stop both ways easily. Hawaii range, FL430. Need SP exemption.

7. Citation V ($1.3M). Non stop westbound some times, eastbound most of the time. FL450. Need SP exemption.

Mike C.

What was your ISA and weight in the climb? Those make the difference if you need to step climb or not to get to the high FLs.

Were you ar MGW at takeoff? Did you climb to FL410 or 430 directly or have intermediate level offs?

1) There is no Williams option for the V.
2) Sierra has a 1750 hour TBO extension.
3) you can often buy mid time engines for considerably less
4) you can't fly a TPE331 at FL450
5) the same argument could be made about a TP from a Baron driver.
6) 80-100 knots is 33% faster. Over 3500 hours that's a lot.

What was your ISA and weight in the climb? Those make the difference if you need to step climb or not to get to the high FLs.

Were you ar MGW at takeoff? Did you climb to FL410 or 430 directly or have intermediate level offs?

Nuanced answer is it depends on:

- the specific aircraft
- training location
- your prior experience
- depends on the instructors you get
- initial or recurrent?
- what training or mentoring you will do before and after

Simple answer:

FSI - most expensive, rigid training curriculum, more oriented towards pro pilots, comprehensive ground school, great sims, good instructor quality, you get your monies worth

CAE - seems a bit more flexible towards owner/pilots, ground school is dependent on instructor quality, good sims, good value for the cost

SIMCOM - very flexible to students schedule, quality very instructor dependent, quality of sims vary, lowest cost, gets the boxes checked.

It all depends what you want to get from your training.

Here is the 560 climb table. Sorry, it will be hard to read.



Absolutely.

On warm days, you will not be able to climb unabated to the ceiling.

But there is some good news. Your cruise fuel flows at lower altitudes will be less in ISA plus situations, so your specific range improves a bit at that altitude over what it would be ISA or ISA minus. This helps with the fact you have to step climb, the penalty for stopping at a lower altitude is not as bad as it could be.


From the 560 table, FL410 in 27 minutes, FL430 in 37 minutes. Net 200 FPM for the last 2000 feet. That's crawling. Any sort of sloppiness on speed management and you won't achieve that.

Under those conditions, you are probably better off stopping at FL410, cruise an hour, then go higher.

But, start 900 lbs under gross, and then FL430 in 29 minutes is much more realistic.


Everything you describe is there in the numbers in the book if you know how to read it. I get the feeling that a good number of pilots have trouble seeing what a page full of numbers really mean, hence the belief that anecdotal evidence is superior to the book.

Mike C.

To illustrate the difference in ISA on routes. If departing this evening SDL-DPA you would be climbing into ISA -6 at FL390. DAL - MCO would be ISA +6.

And if Mike C. tried to do EVV - SEA he would find an ISA starting at +4 and then dropping to -8 along the route.

These climbs are very dependent on ISA. ON one day it may work with ISA negative and another day you can't get up there for a long while with a big positive ISA.

What does the book say you can climb to when you have an ISA +18 at FL350?

That describes my wife who flies with me. She is not certified but she has taken 10 hours of lessons in a 172, works the radios, calls out speeds, pulls out checklists, calls lights or runway in sight in approaches, has flown the plane from cruise to landing using the AP, does sim training with me, has taken pinch hitter courses multiple times flying the plane. She does everything a certified SIC does during normal operations.

Assuming MGTOW, it says FL370 taking about 29 minutes. FL390 might be just barely reachable, but it will take close to 40 minutes which is very marginal.

3 data points spanning 20C is enough to extrapolate reasonably 10C outside the bounds.

In the end, it is just physics.

Mike C.

Couple points to add: I'm flying a II and have about 20 hours in the V.
1. If you purchase from a broker, you may not get the occasional purchaser tax exemption in Texas and some other states.
2. In summer when full, I usually filed mid 30s in the II. Yes, you can step climb after an hour or so, but one does better when a bit cooler.
3. Bacon has an engine extension program for the II.
4. I don't know of anyone that 'plans' to overhaul legacy II engines. Buy mid time or get an extension.

I believe some SP waivers used to be specific to the pilot and aircraft. That limited the ability to find contract pilots with a SP wavier to fly a different aircraft. A few years ago the FAA restructured the waivers different organizations had, got rid of most of the differences, and moved to a common authorization across organizations. I think that got rid of the aircraft SN specific limitation.

So you may have better luck finding SP contract pilots for a V today then a few years ago.

I had the V at FL430 last winter, Dallas to Madison, WI. It struggled a bit above FL380 as Mark said. We had five adults and four kids with 3/4 fuel. I would think higher ISA would be more difficult. Got a stall warning with a geneous contract pilot in the climb.