You cruise effortlessly in and out of small airports rather than massive hubs, hitting three or four cities in one day if you need. While that might sound obvious - who wouldn’t want to fly private jets? - experiencing it firsthand in the little Vision was eye-opening. The Vision, though, is a Wonkavator, an open, airy capsule moving you through time and space, your face pressed against the expansive glass.Ī series of flights over several days from the east coast to Duluth, Minnesota, and back with a pair of Cirrus pilots laid bare the allure of this specific mode of travel. Those, frankly, are more like elevators - you get in one place, get out in another, with barely any sensation of flight in between. This isn’t any small private-airplane flight, not at these altitudes and these speeds. You’re bathed in sunshine, surrounded by scrolling clouds, cities, mountains, and patchwork fields miles below. When that jet - the Cirrus Vision Jet SF50 - has the largest windows in the industry, thanks to its equally pioneering carbon fiber construction, the thrill doubles. Unlike in a commercial airliner, or even a cozy regional jet, there’s never more than a few feet of physical matter in any direction between you and the great, unpressurized beyond. The device is said to have saved at least 142 lives.įor the advances Cirrus has made in the aviation field, TCB inducted Dale Klapmeier into its Hall of Fame in 2015.Flying at 28,000 feet in a private jet the size of an SUV is a special kind of thrill. A signature component of each Cirrus plane is the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System-a rocket-deployed, 65-foot parachute that can control the rate of descent and prevent severe crash landings. The starting price is $2 million.ĭale Klapmeir and his brother Alan founded Cirrus in 1984 with safety as a key motive to their early aircraft builds. It received FAA approval for last October.Įach Vision Jet is assembled and painted in Duluth. Cirrus is hoping that number will swell as new orders come in from Europe, along with Australia, which also recently gave the OK to the Vision Jet. So far, the company has accumulated more than 600 orders for the jet. Cirrus’s Vision Jet, as an innovative entry to the aviation field, required separate approval for use. “The EASA approval of the Vision Jet Type Certificate paves the way for a ramp up of aircraft deliveries in Europe and continues to propel Cirrus Aircraft into new markets across the world,” Pat Waddick, president of innovation and operations at Cirrus, said in a statement.īefore the rulings, single-engine turbine planes were not allowed to fly at night or with Instrument Meteorological Conditions, a flight category that requires pilots to fly with instruments (or IFR) as their foremost reference instead of outside visual references, a separate category known as visual flight rules (VFR). ![]() The EASA approval, as well as a separate EASA approval in March for the use of single-engine commercial IFR (or instrument flight rules) operations, could open the doors to an untapped market for Cirrus. This week, the company’s personal jet will be on display at the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition in Geneva, Switzerland. The single-engine personal jet, which hit the market last year as the first and only of its kind in the world, recently earned approval from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).ĭuluth-based Cirrus announced the news on Monday alongside another milestone: the delivery of the first Vision Jet to Europe. Cirrus Aircraft’s Vision Jet is now able to fly in Europe.
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