After flying the Ultra, the idea of a II in an increasing fuel price market is a turn off. This CJ performance is great. A CJ2 straight to 450 sounds like the sweet spot.

As gas goes up, I expect legacy lease rates will continue to fall if they want to get flown.

Rarely, if ever, seen in domestic US airspace.

Few 747s do passenger duty any more, mostly cargo, where they do shorter legs, less fuel, more cargo weight/space. Check out PANC to see that in action. They are so heavy they never fly at FL450, most of them are in the low 30s.

Mike C.

Rarely, if ever, seen in domestic US airspace.

Few 747s do passenger duty any more, mostly cargo, where they do shorter legs, less fuel, more cargo weight/space. Check out PANC to see that in action. They are so heavy they never fly at FL450, most of them are in the low 30s.


Mike C.

Very hard to find examples of that now. Extremely rare.


And will land heavy. The point of PANC refueling is to maximize payload instead of fuel weight. This means no FL450, even at the end of the trip.


Light cabins would be the only way to operate at FL450 towards the end of the flight.

The odds a Citation gets in the way of a 747 at FL450 is virtually nil.

Mike C.

Very hard to find examples of that now. Extremely rare.


And will land heavy. The point of PANC refueling is to maximize payload instead of fuel weight. This means no FL450, even at the end of the trip.


Light cabins would be the only way to operate at FL450 towards the end of the flight.

The odds a Citation gets in the way of a 747 at FL450 is virtually nil.

Mike C.

Because 747s are not at FL450 hardly ever in US airspace.

I bet you could look at Flightaware for the next week and not find ONE 747 at FL450 in US airspace.

So the odds of conflict are nil.

Mike C.

Because 747s are not at FL450 hardly ever in US airspace.

I bet you could look at Flightaware for the next week and not find ONE 747 at FL450 in US airspace.

So the odds of conflict are nil.

Mike C.

While flying corporate we had a Lear 35 and a Citation 501SP. A frequent trip was taking the boss home on Fridays from Houston to Witchita Falls. The Lear did it .9, the Citation 1.1, on the same fuel burn. The advantage of the Citation was getting in and out of short fields. The SP was no advantage because corporate policy didn't allow SP on the Citation.

I thought the real benefit of the Tamarack system was they are essentially adding a few feet more wing in addition to winglets, and the active system makes that structurally feasible. I could see a longer wing having a significant performance impact.

The winglets will help a CJ2 get to 450 directly and accelerate faster - this matters most on a long trip when you need to lower fuel burn to get the most range. But a long trip is when you need to carry the most fuel so you aren't likely to be able to get up there directly. I have only flown the CJ for 9 months but I rarely see ISA in the 40's, it is usually ISA +5 or warmer. If it is warmer than ISA+3, the Cj doesn't want to go up until I'm 1200-1500# under gross. You can always make it go up to 450 but then it wont accelerate and you'll just sit there going slow (pushing all that extra air because of your high AOA).

I agree that Tamarack probably won't get you 300NM but I do think it will get you 200-250 when you need it. 250nm gets me almost over one more State before I have to land

I'd love to see an objective controlled test which shows that. That is about 15% improvement in range. That is well outside the norm for what winglets can do. 5% is within reason, maybe 8% if the plane was poorly designed to begin with.

I remain highly skeptical.

Mike C.

I'd love to see an objective controlled test which shows that. That is about 15% improvement in range. That is well outside the norm for what winglets can do. 5% is within reason, maybe 8% if the plane was poorly designed to begin with.

I remain highly skeptical.

Mike C.

So you think Cessna didn't know that when designing the 525?

Yeah, they knew, and they figured out the right design point for the wing. That would have been a very basic part of the design. Airfoil shape, wing span, aspect ratio, etc.

You think they would leave 15% range on the table?

No way.

This is why I don't think there is 15% to gain with wing extensions/winglets.

Mike C.

Well on the face of it that seems like a logical point. I mean after all they are Cessna. Right?

Fact is that I never thought GE would build a light bulb that lasted so long and was so miss priced it killed their bulb business.

Never thought Lockheed would build a heavy jet and forget to run an NPV that would have showed it would never make money. Ever.

Never thought Bendix King would piss away the market leader position.

Companies do inexplicably dumb stuff all the time. You might be right but not for the reason above.

So you think Cessna didn't know that when designing the 525?

Yeah, they knew, and they figured out the right design point for the wing. That would have been a very basic part of the design. Airfoil shape, wing span, aspect ratio, etc.

You think they would leave 15% range on the table?

No way.

This is why I don't think there is 15% to gain with wing extensions/winglets.

Mike C.