Cessna Citation C500 and FanJet
All of the Cessna Citation family, especially the airplane of model line 5xx (500/525/550/560) are based on the first business jet developed by the Cessna back in 1969. Cessna Citation is the name of the original straight-wing family of jets produced by the Cessna Aircraft Company, each of which has evolved from the first Cessna FanJet, respectively Cessna Citation I.
The predecessor of Cessna Citation airplane has been branded as FanJet500.
In October, 1968, Cessna Aircraft Company announced plans to build an eight-seats business jet airplane that, would be suitable for operations from shorter airfields. Cessna was aiming to place the airplane in the light-to-medium twin turboprop market, rather than the existing business jet market. Most of the business jets in that time were not able to operate from the shor runways.
The flight of the first prototype of Cessna FanJet took place at September 15th 1969.
After a longer-than-expected development certification program, during which the brand name Cessna Citation 500 was tried, and a number of changes to the design, the finished aircraft was debuted with the new name Citation (Model 500). Cessna Citation 500 received its FAA certification in September, 1971. Two Pratt & Whitney Canada JT15D-1 turbofan engines were used as the powerplants of new Cessna Citation 500. With turbofan engines, rather than turbojet engines such as powered the contemporary Learjet 25, and a straight, rather than swept wings, the Citation 500 was over 120 knots slower than the Lear 25 (max speed of Cessna Citation 500 was about 350 kts compared with 473 kts for the LJ25).
Slow cruising speed led to the silly nickname like "Slowtation" or "Nearjet" in the aviation media.
Later development of the Cessna FanJet has brought into producement Cessna Citation I airplane. The design of the Cessna Citation I was little different, thus still very similiar to the former Cessna FanJet. Cessna Citation I was formerly known as Cessna Citation 500. Later on the name was rebranded into Cessna Citation I.
In 1976, several improvements of Cessna Citation 500 were added to the aircraft as the response to market needs.
Improvments which have been done on the Cessna Citation 500 were mainly a higher max gross weight and added thrust reversers. Thrust reversers made shorter landings available to customers. With these improvements came the name Citation I. Cessna Citation I was famous as the very first light corporate jet, which was powered by the turbofan engines. The requirement of single-pilot certification was reflected with further develompment of the
In total 377 pieces of Cessna Citation I were produced till 1985 when the production has been ended. The aircraft’s position in the Citation product line was not filled until much later, with the introduction of the Cessna CitationJet.
Like the Learjets, the Cessna Citation I required a crew of two pilot But since the Citation was intended to compete on against twin turboprops (which can be flown by a single pilot) this was a limitation for its intended market.
Cessna Citation 500. Cessna Aircraft came with the Cessna C501, which was branded as Cessna Citation I/SP. Airplane was fully certified for single-pilot operations. The aircraft was first delivered in early 1977. Total of 312 aircraft were produced until 1985 when the production was ended.