The fuel flow figure was at cruise.

As all turbine pilots know, the fuel flow down low and in the climb is much higher.

33 gallons is not 30 minutes when down low. That is a fuel emergency in a jet trying to fly an approach.

This article says 69 GPH, 300 knots, or 47 GPH, 242 knots:

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ ... ce-numbers

They were going faster than 242 and slower than 300 to make the groundspeed in the FA track, about halfway between those numbers. 60 GPH is probably about right. Jet fuel burn is about 30% more the first hour, then cruise fuel flow the rest. That works out to 270 gallons out of 296 usable.

It would be interesting to know the actual fuel used.

Mike C.

The fuel flow figure was at cruise.

As all turbine pilots know, the fuel flow down low and in the climb is much higher.

33 gallons is not 30 minutes when down low. That is a fuel emergency in a jet trying to fly an approach.

This article says 69 GPH, 300 knots, or 47 GPH, 242 knots:

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ ... ce-numbers

They were going faster than 242 and slower than 300 to make the groundspeed in the FA track, about halfway between those numbers. 60 GPH is probably about right. Jet fuel burn is about 30% more the first hour, then cruise fuel flow the rest. That works out to 270 gallons out of 296 usable.

It would be interesting to know the actual fuel used.

Mike C.

Tim, try to stick with the narrative. The idiot who bought that pretend jet was out of fuel and was just reaching for the parachute handle, when the airplane took over and landed itself against his wishes. Something that could never have happened if it had 2 engines.

Tim

In seriousness, though, for their very young and arguably fragile new jet (fragile for needing to attract high sales and low insurance rates), that does seem a mite reckless.

If I was their pilot, I'd be keeping at least an hours' takeoff fuel in the thing, and being highly selective with my weather and runway choices. It's the wrong time to be generating dumb pilot stories in their shiny new bird.

Cool that this one has made it to market though. I hope they make a few bucks on it, so that someone behind them may try a new design too.

You are making a lot of assumptions based on the available data, which is all estimated.

I met a pilot who had flown it not long long ago and he claimed the performance he saw was better than anything he has seen published or in public flightaware tracks.


Guess we will see when the first independent review comes out.

Another observation on that flight- they had to fly at FL260 for an hour before thy could climb to FL280. I doubt if they were stuck at 260 for traffic for that long and climb rate was down to 350 fpm. Looks like they were out of energy to climb higher. Don't know what the ISA was but a +ISA could cause that problem.

That flight had the advantage of an unrestricted climb and descent.

Takeoff and cruise at 5000' fuel burn has to be at least twice the fuel burn at FL280 cruise for the FJ33. I looked at the one engine fuel burn for my FJ44 at 5000 vs. 280 and it is 2X. The FJ33 should have similar fuel specifics to the FJ44. This flight probably didn't have 20 minutes of fuel to do a go-around, fly to another airport, and land.

It could be more fuel efficient than advertised, but we'd have to see independent test data to confirm.

But on published fuel specs, that looks tight.

I'm torn on this plane.

The engineer in me agrees with Mike C, in that there were a lot of design and regulatory corners that a single power plant gets you into. Especially considering that a MEL rating isn't exactly hard to get, and you need to get a type rating anyways.

On the other hand, Cirrus has done more "new" in GA in the last 15 years than Beech has since they killed the V-Tail and severely curtailed new development on the Stretch Debby (A/G36) and killed the F33 later on.

I personally wish someone would sell a modern 4 place 160KTAS single or 180KTAS twin that was under $300/400k (single/twin) so that depreciated planes built sometime in my lifetime can be afforded by a normal middle class person. But as had been said before by Jason C, GA is doing well, but it's mostly the $1M+ Jet-A burners that are getting R&D and are selling.

I am not following your logic. Why does the fact that it is a new model of a jet really matter in these basic decision points? I can understand to a degree if you are discussing an experimental aircraft and need to explore the performance envelop slowly.
But a Part 23 certified aircraft has pretty solid performance charts (in piston planes, the charts may not be the best for long terms ownership, but the data is solid).


Tim

I am not following your logic. Why does the fact that it is a new model of a jet really matter in these basic decision points? I can understand to a degree if you are discussing an experimental aircraft and need to explore the performance envelop slowly.
But a Part 23 certified aircraft has pretty solid performance charts (in piston planes, the charts may not be the best for long terms ownership, but the data is solid).


Tim

deliveries have been made..
the one in question isn't even registered to Cirrus anymore.

Does not matter if I own the plane, the bank or the company I work for, my life is in my hands. Although the chute might be a viable option, I would rather not test the odds.
I believe this is how the majority of pilots feel (as evidenced by the rather constant disdain for the chute to being with). As such, how is the flight risky?

Tim

Does not matter if I own the plane, the bank or the company I work for, my life is in my hands. Although the chute might be a viable option, I would rather not test the odds.
I believe this is how the majority of pilots feel (as evidenced by the rather constant disdain for the chute to being with). As such, how is the flight risky?

Tim

From Flightaware it sure looks like the SF50 was giving demo flights out of ORL.

Unless they've got it on leaseback / demo to Cirrus.
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