Selling airplanes to the rabble hasn’t been profitable since the Collapse of 2008. Cessna has been following the money upmarket at a breakneck speed by deemphasizing its historic leadership position in light jets and developing larger business jets. (Note that “breakneck speed” where products require FAA certification means “over maybe a 12-year period”.)
The Cessna Longitude, currently flying around for demonstration purposes but not yet fully certified, showed up at our local airport the other day (photos). If you have $27 million, 8 friends, and a co-pilot (the aircraft requires two pilots), this is a beautiful machine indeed.
Despite being approximately $27 million short in the funds department and 6-7 people short in the friends department, the Cessna sales folks were extremely gracious and I was able to talk to some of the engineers and test pilots as well as the real prospective customers, some of whom had flown the aircraft.
My high-level impression is that it has become tough to innovate on performance or cost. The latest bizjets are not dramatically faster or cheaper to run than designs from 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. Thus a lot of the innovation and competition will be around passenger comfort. Cessna, which has a great track record in interior noise control, says that the plane should be roughly 6 dBA quieter than the Bombardier Challenger 350, its nearest competitor. A friend who operates Gulfstreams and high-end Embraer jets said that the in-flight Longitude was “amazing” inside, “like riding in a Rolls Royce going 50 mph. You can talk in a normal tone of voice. It is like wearing noise-canceling headsets the whole time.” The cabin altitude at FL450 (about 45,000′ above sea level) is 6,000′ rather than the conventional 8,000′. The Longitude has a conventional aluminum fuselage, as opposed to composite (plastic), so making it strong enough to handle the higher pressure differential adds weight and reduces the passenger capacity, but why would you want a bunch of commoners cluttering your jet anyway?
The baggage compartment is accessible while in flight. The seats fold almost completely flat for sleeping (though they don’t have footrests that extend so some kind of jet bed will be required for airline-style first class sleeping). Fit and finish is amazing, comparable to the Gulfstreams that I’ve been in (in the hangar, not as an invited passenger!). A Global Express pilot agreed that Cessna has caught up to the industry leaders in the fit and finish department. He said that the airplane had a great control feel.
The cockpit is a beautiful place, but I can’t figure out why there is so much of it. The Garmin G5000 includes seven sizable LCD displays, four of them functioning as controllers for the three biggest. My first reaction: “It looks like a programmer was told to replicate electronically every gauge or instrument that was in a B-29.” There is a massive pedestal in between the pilot seats and this is covered in switches and levers. This is an advanced jet, but why should we need all of this in a clean-sheet design? Suppose that one had a heads-up display with airspeed, altitude, and a big arrow pointing toward the direction where the plane is supposed to be headed. How much more is truly critical? Why does one want separate gear and flap handles? Why not have the airplane figure out that we’re on downwind or base and offer to configure the airplane appropriately? Maybe there should be some emergency control for flaps and/or gear, but if a $500 DJI drone can land itself why can’t a $27 million jet that can display georeferenced approach plates figure out when it is time to lower the gear on an ILS approach? The computers are displaying vertical speed. Why can’t they call “positive rate” and raise the gear after take-off? Similarly, why can’t the computer call “V2 plus 10” and retract the flaps after take-off?
Separately, the virtual reality flight from Teterboro to Paris was a great experience. As VR gets better I am wondering why any American will work. Why not chill out in the (means-tested public) house, tour the world’s most beautiful places by VR, play games with friends by VR, and get off the sofa only either to (1) use one’s EBT card to pick up some free-range carrots at the local Whole Foods, or (2) use Medicaid to see a physician regarding a sore “VR butt”?
My current dream airplane is Cessna’s Latitude, for a mere $16M. Cessna engineers smartly started with their proven Sovereign (great runway performance and perfect safety record) then put a taller/wider/shorter cabin on it. The result 6ft tall of comfortable seating for 6 (+ 2 in a divan), and a big lav that passes the wife test. Shared systems + wings + engines + cockpit from the Sovereign simplify type ratings for the many existing Sovereign pilots. With 6 skinny passengers it can even reach Hawaii or Europe.
Looks more like a way to trap us into looking at kid photos. The generation that invented the blog is now trapping us into kid photos.
Lion: If the photos are coming from my phone, your alternatives are (1) kid photos, or (2) golden retriever photos. Old people are boring!
A friend who is a pilot for a wealthy individual is in the process of selling a Learjet 45 in order to purchase a new Latitude.
The owner liked the Cessna cabin a lot, and was getting tired of the high maintenance costs associated with his Learjet.
The pilot was extremely impressed with the cockpit, engines, and flight controls. During the demo flight in cruise flight with the boss in the cabin the demo pilot pulled an engine to idle.
The airplane slowed down, but there was no perceptible yaw or pitch, the boss had no idea that they had just ‘lost’ an engine.
The Cessna Latitude can make it to Hawaii? I thought a plane needed more than a few hundred miles of buffer in its range to reliably make it to Hawaii? Maybe something like a G2, with 4k miles of range.