Cessna Citation I
| Citation I / I/SP | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Role | Corporate jet |
| National origin | United States |
| Manufacturer | Cessna |
| First flight | September 15, 1969 (FanJet 500) |
| Produced | 1969-1985 |
| Number built | 689 |
| Variants | Cessna Citation II |
The Cessna 500 Citation I, built by the Cessna Aircraft Company in Wichita, Kansas, is a small-sized business jet, the first turbofan powered. The Citation I is the basis for the early Cessna Citation family. The Citation I/SP aircraft is a single pilot variant.
In October, 1968, Cessna announced plans to build an eight-place business jet that, unlike its competition, would be suitable for operations from shorter airfields, essentially aiming to compete in the light-to-medium twin turboprop market, rather than the existing business jet market. First flight of the prototype aircraft, then called the FanJet 500, took place a little under a year later, on September 15, 1969.
After a longer-than-expected development flight test program, during which the name Citation 500 was tried, and a number of changes to the design, the finished aircraft was debuted with the new name Citation (Model 500) and received its FAA certification in September, 1971. The aircraft was powered by two Pratt & Whitney Canada JT15D-1 turbofan engines after Cessna's experience with the T-37 Tweet twinjet trainer.
Turbofan rather than turbojets and straight wings rather than swept wings made it cruise slowly compared to other business jets and Learjet salesmen mocked it as the “Nearjet” vulnerable to “bird strikes from the rear”; Cessna renamed it the “Citation” after the thoroughbred but it was nicknamed as “Slowtation”.
In 1976, several product improvements were added to the aircraft in response to market pressures, including a longer span wing (47 ft 1 in vs 43 ft 11 in), higher maximum gross weight and thrust reversers, which made shorter landing fields available to customers. With these improvements came the name Citation I When production on the model 500 ended in 1985, 377 airframes had been built.
Like the Learjets, the Citation I required a crew of two. But since the Citation was intended to be marketed against twin turboprops, which can be flown by a single pilot, this restriction limited its intended market. Cessna's answer was the Model 501 Citation I/SP, with SP referring to its certified single-pilot capability. The aircraft was first delivered in early 1977, and a total of 312 aircraft were produced, and production also ended in 1985.
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