Jim Covington and I were talking about Williams powered legacy Citations on Friday and the subject of FJ44's on the 560 came up. If there's an engine upgrade that makes sense in today's market, this is probably it!

It wouldn't have made sense a few years ago because you could buy a CJ3 for $4M, therefor the mod couldn't be done cheap enough to compete. Today the CJ3 is $6M if you can find one, and as rare as a decent CJ3 is, the JT15D-5A engines for the V are also unobtanium.

The V / Ultra is more airplane than the CJ3 in many ways (I'll let Mike C. tell you why) and there are 510 airplanes in the fleet. These are workhorse airplanes that are very popular with charter companies.

Imagine a Williams powered Citation V / Ultra!

Now that would be an interesting machine.

Old news.

https://ainonline.com/aviation-news/bus ... -retrofits

"Sierra Industries and Clifford Development have formed a joint venture called NewJETz to develop a Williams International FJ44-4 engine retrofit program. The 3,600-pound-thrust engine retrofit will power legacy Cessna Citation 550 and 560 series jets, including the Citation V, Bravo, Ultra and Encore."

That was 10 years ago. Both Sierra and Clifford are bankrupt.

It came back again in 2016:

https://ainonline.com/aviation-news/bus ... ne-program

"The package reengineers the Citation V and Ultra with the Williams FJ44-4 engine"

This mod has 3 major drawbacks.

First, it will cost $3M, at least. This is based on the fact the S550 mod with FJ44-3A back 15 years ago was already $2M. Williams is very proud of their engines and sell them for high prices even though they net lots of money from the engine programs.

Second, it will come with a Williams tax, likely at least $400 per hour, with the engine program. Over a 5000 hour TBO period, this is $2M over that time frame.

Third, it will get rid of the thrust reversers. The 560 line is specifically sought after for dealing with short and contaminated runways and this mod would remove that feature. The non TR takeoff and landing distances in snow and ice are ugly.

In addition, the 3600 lbf FJ44-4 engines are actually a bit too big for the 560. You will run out of Mmo/Vmo before you run out of engine, which means the engine is slightly oversized and not as efficient as it would be if it was smaller. An engine about 3400 lbf (Encore PW535A size) would be better.

A further issue is that Textron has withheld LUMP programs from FJ44 converted legacy airplanes, which will elevate maintenance costs.

Add it up and 5000 hours will cost you $5M with mod and engine payments, and that's $1000/hour.

With dry runways, it would be a nice airplane. It will climb like crazy, cruise fast, and go longer range. But the delta cost to do that is quite high.

By the time this gets certified, the used market may have dropped and the demand may evaporate. It is a risky proposition.

You can dream about this, but I seriously doubt it will become real.

Mike C.

Interesting

The linked article refers to Innova Aerospace. I couldn't find a website for them and a search showed a hit saying they closed their doors in 2018.

There are some other compatibility issues, such as W&B effects without TR's, and ISTR there could be issues with motive flow/fuel system compatibility, and certification to current regs. Not to mention, of course, the cost of a conversion to begin with.

Innova bought Sierra in 2015:

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all ... sabreliner

No one is sure why, didn't seem to make sense for them.

They quickly found themselves unable to make it work and was bankrupt by 2018.

Sierra reformed as SkyWay MRO Services, still in Uvalde, TX. I'm not sure who owns the FJ44 STCs Innova got.

I also think there was one other company that had plans to FJ44 convert Citation V, but I can't find a link to them right now.


That would be HELPFUL! Main issue nowadays is Garmin upgrades are making planes so tail heavy, so dropping weight off the engines would be a good thing. I have to fly with 200 lbs in the nose solo. Anybody doing this upgrade will do the Garmin thing, guaranteed.


That has not seemed to be a problem.

The main issue I hear about is that bleed air, T3, is much hotter from the FJ44 due to higher compression ratio. The ACM precooler wasn't sized for that so an additional precooler is usually added.

The FADEC installation is sometimes problematic. When I looked at S550 + FJ44, seemed to be a lot of FADEC squawks and repairs. The installation wiring may not have been done well enough.

Also, the conversions tended to have a lot of fan whine, a problem that I'm told afflicted the CJ3 series somewhat with the FJ44-3A engine. Some passengers I had in an S550 + FJ44 complained bitterly about it, and my stock V is MUCH nicer they say.


That's the main issue. It will be $3M easy.

Mike C.

Mike,

What do you think the range would be ?

With the garmin conversion it would probably have some actual usefull load unlike the s550...

Would probably be the longest range single pilot jet (with exemption)

Probably a bit less than the S550 conversion with FJ44-3A, 2820 lbf.

That was claimed to be 2400 nm or so.

If you throttle it back to the same speed, probably about the same range. The 560 does get to go to FL450 (S550 limited to FL430) so that will help. It will also climb to altitude way faster, which will help if ATC obliges.


Right.

Must S550 FJ44 conversions are around 8900 lbs empty. That leaves 400 lbs useful load, basically the crew and nothing else.

If you do full Garminization, you maybe drop 300 lbs (I lost 380 lbs). That will really help.

One S550 conversion came in at 9600 lbs. This had to be a mistake, I thought, but after talking to the weighing shop (IJSC Tulsa) and the recent owner, it isn't, the plane is totally overweight. With full fuel and NO cabin load, it is 300 lbs over gross. Yuck!

My stock V with Garmin is 9,220 lbs empty, 880 lbs left full fuel. You also get a 200 lbs ramp weight limit, so 1080 lbs if you take that into account.


SJ30 wins that one at about 2500 nm, but weird and rare.

S550 + FJ44 would be about the same, but no useful load.

560 + FJ44 would be lots of range and useful load. It would be a nice plane, but the economics are just difficult to overcome.

Mike C.

Interesting that Blackhawk can stick engines that cost over a million each on a King Air ans sell them like hotcakes, but no one an make the math work on a couple of $1.5M engines on a jet.

Interesting observation.

I don't really understand people who buy King Airs in the first place, so spending $2M to slightly increase their speed seems weird to me, too. For that money, you can fly a jet and pay for the extra fuel.

A $3M jet upgrade doesn't make sense. The reduced fuel usage is canceled by the Williams tax. The extra range is rarely used, no one is going to charter a 2000 nm flight in a 560 when they can get something larger like a 560XL or 650.

The past failure of both Sierra and Clifford upgrades cast a pall over the idea. They focused on 501s which were owner flown, thus a small market, and the S550, which was a weird plane to being with due to the TKS. If the FJ44-4 had existed earlier, then maybe they jump to the 560 and they would have been successful, but with no engine big enough at the time, they couldn't.

Mike C.

Mike do you know much about FLEX?

https://skyway-mro.com/flex-program-ove ... r-my-fj44/

I assume it’s just an extension approved by FAA but in the end Williams will get you.

Andrew

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Interesting observation.

I don't really understand people who buy King Airs in the first place, so spending $2M to slightly increase their speed seems weird to me, too. For that money, you can fly a jet and pay for the extra fuel.

Mike C.

For the FJ44?

It doesn't make any sense to me.

If you are not on the TAP program, your TBO is 4000 hours. When Williams gets your engines for HSI and OH (technically MPI-3 and MPI-4 in Williams speak, MPI is "major periodic inspection"), they will charge you about 30% MORE than if you had made the program payments (yes, they told me this outright). SO if you are going to continue to fly the engines, the Flex program doesn't make it cheaper than being on program.

If you are on the TAP program, then you already get 5000 hour TBO but you also don't care about this Flex program at all.

The only narrow utility of this program is when you are going to dispose of the FJ44 when you reach a major engine event and you want a few more hours. Your HSI interval grows from 2000 hours to 2500 hours. And then you throw away the engine.

The OH cost for an FJ44 is WAY more than $500K claimed, BTW. Williams makes sure of that.

The real scandal here is how Williams can manipulate the engine intervals so they are 2500/5000 hours when an engine is on program, and they remain 2000/4000 hours if you are off program. How does the engine know you are making payments and thus can last longer? It isn't about a change in maintenance, either, since an engine right at 4000 hours can be put on the program and magically gets extended right then and there.

Basically, the Flex program is asking the FAA to bless non program engines to have the same intervals as program engines. Makes sense, but since Williams holds all the cards, it doesn't actually result in less cost to the owner.

I don't see any owners who talk about being on the FJ44 Flex program, so I suspect it is rare to non existent.

Mike C.

I guess I could slow down to that speed in my V to give the King Air a chance. Otherwise, I check all those boxes you listed.

I'm certain I spend less per mile on maintenance. My runway numbers are less than a King Air 300 series, too.

If you got $6M to spend on a corporate class passenger plane, it shouldn't have props. That's stupid, IMO.

Mike C.

I guess I could slow down to that speed in my V to give the King Air a chance. Otherwise, I check all those boxes you listed.

I'm certain I spend less per mile on maintenance. My runway numbers are less than a King Air 300 series, too.

If you got $6M to spend on a corporate class passenger plane, it shouldn't have props. That's stupid, IMO.

Mike C.