Then and Now: Business Models
- By Roger A. Mola
- Air & Space magazine, May 2010
Cessna’s Citation X hasn’t played as many roles as its propeller-driven ancestors, but the business jet is speedier than all the rest.
Courtesy Cessna Aircraft Company
The forerunners of today’s business jets were multi-use airplanes known not for their opulence but their versatility. One of the earliest, the Beechcraft Model 18, performed a variety of roles, from military trainer to air ambulance.
“It was just so adaptable, that’s the beauty of the design,” says Dorothy Cochrane, curator of general aviation at the National Air and Space Museum, which has a Beechcraft D-18S on display. “It was an airline feeder, a utility transport, a floatplane, a snowplane. At one point, it was a bomber trainer with a gun turret.”
The Museum’s Model 18 is one of 9,000 copies that Beech Aircraft Corporation has built since 1937. “Anything that lasts for a 32-year production run has to be pretty damn good,” says Cochrane.
After the all-metal monoplane was converted into transportation for business executives in the 1940s, sales of the Model 18 sustained the company for decades. “The Beech 18 found a niche in business aviation and [the company] stuck with it for sheer economic reasons,” says Museum curator Von Hardesty.
The airplane’s production line was closing when, in September 1969, rival Cessna Aircraft Company test-flew a turbine-engine model called the FanJet 500. Cessna soon renamed it after a Thoroughbred horse, the 1948 Triple Crown winner Citation.
By 2009, the company had delivered more than 6,000, making Citations the world’s largest family of business jets. Business aviation suffered from negative media coverage in late 2008 and 2009 when the CEOs of Detroit’s automakers, coming to Washington, D.C., to ask Congress for financial assistance, all flew in on private jets. Sensitive to the criticism, the National Business Aviation Association last October expanded its “No Plane, No Gain” campaign with talking points to help bizjet owners and their customers characterize the jets as necessities rather than luxuries. “In this tough economy, we need to reach as many customers in as little time as possible, as airlines have pared down schedules and ceased service,” the NBAA suggests in a sample letter.
Much as the Model 18 was the mainstay for Beech, Cessna’s Citation X is the only variant to have sold in every year since its certification in 1996, and is Cessna’s biggest and fastest jet. Golf legend Arnold Palmer bought the first one, and sales have held steady at 12 to 26 per year.
The Beech 18 was a speedster in its time; Walter Beech set a record in one in 1940, when he flew from St. Louis to Miami at 234 mph. Speed may be the key to the Citation’s success. With maximum cruise at 604 mph, it is the fastest civilian jet flying.
Roger A. Mola is an Air & Space researcher.
Comments (4)
It was the sound of those Prats on the Beech 18 that was and is pure music at takeoff. Like a Harley vs a rice burner.
Posted by John DeBenedictis on May 24,2010 | 09:53 AM
i think these flight simulators are cool. I want to know how to do one.
Posted by kyle on June 18,2010 | 11:17 PM
Corporate aviation has come a long way from the first Learjets and Citations. It would be nice to see a story about the Gulfstreams, Challengers and Falcons; and thier crews that daily ply the north Atlantic between the US and Europe.
Posted by Gerry Ross on March 17,2011 | 12:05 AM
You left out a few between the 18 and the jets. The DC-3, Queen Aires, Aztecs, and others. I had the honor of flying a Howard 350 for awhile, and sure would like to see one again. It was big, impressive, and fast. I could fly circles around the early King Airs. And those P&W R-2800's sure made beautiful music.
That was back in the days of real airplanes, with round engines, steam gauges, and no damned computer telling you what to do.
Nowadays, flying is just another job.
Posted by don sproule on May 8,2011 | 03:44 PM