Okay. We had a nice thread on the 500's and 501's. Who has experience in these? They look (and cost) a little better developed than the 500's. And maybe the engines are a little less thirsty and less maintenance intensive? Are they single pilot certified? Looks like the early 525 morphed to the CJ1?

CJ was the original Model 525 with Williams engines and steam gauges. The Williams engines were a breakthrough in efficiency at the time.

CJ1 was the CJ with Collins a Proline 21 panel. Then came the CJ2, CJ3, CJ2+, CJ4, CJ1+, with the latest being the CJ3+ with G3000 avionics.

One type rating gets you typed for all the 525 models and all are single pilot certified.

The old 500's were great airplanes but getting a little long in the tooth.
They are more labor intesive to maintain and Pratt & Whitney overhaul costs are now exceeding the value of the aircraft making the market on these very flacid. The airplane was a very smart way to go when fuel cost were $2 per gallon or less and engine overhauls were running $200K a piece. Those day are gone.

You can spend the worth of the aircraft putting modern avionics in these birds as well.

The CJ was quite a leap in performance and technology, the performance excaped me initially on paper as the engines, Pratt to Williams were very close to the same static thrust. The Williams did far better once airborn.
They were also very quiet, one of our early owners had a complaint of having to listen to the hobbs meter ticking over in the cockpit.

The Williams CJ now looks to have an upgrade available. A modifier of many of the early 500 series Citations was Sierra Industries in Uvaldi, Texas. Mark Huffstutler of that organization has just revealed plans to remove the Williams engines and install the GE/Honda engines on the CJ with some impressive performance and range gains.

Author reserves right to edit for spelin n gramur

That's interesting on the Honda upgrade. I read something about its announcement at NBAA but I guess I thought it applied to the 500 and 501's. How's the performance on the 525's compared to the 501's? There does appear to be a little bit of a price delta. And how does the 525 stack up to the 500 Sierra mods, performance and price?

I think the early 500s and CJs are $200k a year airplanes when all in. Too much for my needs. The Eclipse is probably closer to $100k. No capital included.

You have the jet fever. Come on over anytime to 84 or 90 to take a look.

Flying to Key West Sunday for dinner, would invite you but the plane is filled up, we will do it again.

Mike

Hi Mike. Thanks for the offer. I actually sat in Bryan M's 1.7. It's really a cool plane. Amazingly, even at 6'3 size wasn't an issue. I really don't have jet fever so much as the baron works pretty good for business 2-400 miles; after that it's touchy. And doing more business in Miami I may need something that can make Miami to NY. This kills the deal on the Eclipse and even the Mustang.

I've done a couple trips in the Cj3 and its really a fantastic airplane. Beautiful and comfortable inside, flies just fine, great cockpit and simple as can be from a pilots perspective.

I've had several customers that "upgraded" and quickly came back to their CJ3s.

How much of the performance gain is due to the engine? To the casual observer the Sierra modified 500's seem to outperform even the latest CJ's on the same engines.

What did they "upgrade" too?

I agree it's hard to beat CJ3. I toured the new CJ3+ at NBAA last week. Love!

One went CJ4 and back.
One went XL and back to dual 525s lol.

I hate the intercomm and mic switch on those.
Whose idea was that?

Yeah, CJ4 seems like very little bang for the buck after looking at them last week side by side. Pretty though.

The newest re-engine program/STC from Sierra Industries (dubbed the “Sapphire”) for the popular CJ 525, CJ1 and CJ1+ airframes will utilize the ultra-efficient and innovative GE/Honda HF120 turbofan engine. Initial design specs from GE/Honda indicate that the HF120 will deliver increased aircraft speed, climb performance, range and greater payload – as well as lower operating costs of any comparable thrust-in-class turbofan engine. Another design goal of GE/Honda for the HF120 is to extend its TBO to 5000 hours. Preliminary R&D of the HF120 re-engine program was promising and significant enough to proceed with the STC. As many know, STC’s are very time consuming and expensive, so a respectable percentage of gains in performance must be assured for the program to be successful. There is also a major avionics upgrade option being developed under the same STC program...

So what you're saying is....... Time to go buy a Citation V?

Or two

That engine may be the only lasting legacy of the hondajet program one day.