Every major business jet manufacturer will descend on Orlando for the annual NBAA (National Business Aviation Association) extravaganza in less than two weeks, and all of them will spar for the attention of prospective customers interested in upgrading their current aircraft or purchasing one of the new models in development or in flight test.
For Cessna Aircraft Co., the timing couldn’t be better. Its pilots have been putting the Citation Latitude prototypes through their paces since February when the first aircraft first flew. With every test flight, the jet has hit the mark. Now Cessna is reporting that the certification program has yielded improvements in range and runway performance beyond what the company initially projected. As a result, the aircraft specification is being changed to reflect an increase in range, to 2,700 nm at long-range cruise, an increase of 200 nm. Runway performance also is significantly improved, with takeoff distance now 3,668 ft., rather than 4,030 ft.