announced the clean-screen $5.9 million Learjet 45 at the 1992 National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) convention. Cessna lacked a competitively priced midsize jet to counter the new Learjet. At the time, Cessna’s least expensive midsize jets were the $8 million Citation VI and $9 million Citation VII—too pricey to compete with the new Learjet. The Model 45 was Learjet’s first clean-sheet design since the 1963 Model 23—and it indeed was impressive. Learjet undertook the most comprehensive market study in the firm’s history to determine the Model 45’s design requirements. Customers said they wanted double club seating for eight passengers and a flat floor, much more cabin volume than offered by the Learjet 35, and a full- width, fully enclosed aft lavatory with an externally serviced toilet. The 410 cubic-inch main cabin was 50 percent greater in volume than the Learjet 35. Bill Greer, Learjet’s vice president of engineering, added in single-point pressure refueling, trailing link landing gear for soft touchdowns, a completely integrated avionics package with large-screen, flat-panel displays, a powerful brake-by-wire system, and a host of other high-tech systems. Greer’s team also endowed the Model 45 with benign stall characteristics as gentle as any Citation. Greer planned an aggressive 42-month certification
for operators continuously enrolled in PowerAdvantage+. The Ascend will be certified in 2025 as an amendment to the existing FAA and European Union Aviation Safety Agency type certificates, enabling pilots rated on earlier versions to upgrade from the Citation Excel, XLS, XLS+, or XLS Gen2 with differences in training. In my opinion, flight crews are going to relish all the G5000 improvements. I especially appreciate being able to work up a flight plan on my iPad using ForeFlight or Garmin Pilot software and then upload it to G5000 using the Flight Stream 510 wireless link. For all of the Ascend’s upgrades, it remains true to “simple Citation” iterative design principles currently embraced by Textron Aviation and previously by Cessna. Time-proven doesn’t imply being stuck in a yester-tech rut. While the first-generation 560XL Excel received FAA approval 25 years ago as an amendment to the 1971 Fan Jet 500 type certificate, Cessna and Textron Aviation have refreshed the 560XL design every few years with measurable improvements that have sustained demand. This pays tribute to the vision of former Cessna chairman and CEO Russ Meyer Jr., vice president of marketing Phil Michel, and chief engineer Milt Sills, among other key employees, in the early 1990s. Cessna was faced with a major challenge when Learjet Corp. CEO Brian Barents
Upgrading the flight deck from Collins Proline 21 to Garmin G5000 provides a wealth of new features including synthetic vision PFDs, 3D airport diagrams with taxiway, ramp and runway signs, four touchscreen controllers and Flight Stream 510 wireless connectivity for FMS database updates and flight plan uploading.
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