AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2015 - 28

February

PILOT BRIEFING

NEWS

Sponsored by Breitling

THIS MONTH IN AVIATION
FEBRUARY 1, 2003. Space Shuttle Columbia explodes.
FEBRUARY 2, 1872. French naval architect Henri Dupuy

de Lôme achieves 5.6 to 6.8 mph with his airship,
driven by a propeller turned by eight men.
FEBRUARY 3, 1959. "The Day the Music Died." Crash of
the Beechcraft Bonanza 35 carrying Buddy Holly and
Richie Valens.
FEBRUARY 3, 1995. Eileen Collins is first woman to pilot
a spacecraft.
FEBRUARY 4, 1902. Charles Lindbergh is born.
FEBRUARY 5, 1977. Apollo 14 lands
on the moon.
FEBRUARY 13, 1945. Aerial bombing
of Dresden, Germany.

FEBRUARY 17, 1911. Glenn Curtiss lands a prototype

seaplane on the U.S. Navy armored cruiser
Pennsylvania.
FEBRUARY 18-21, 1995. Steve Fossett
flies first transpacific balloon flight.
FEBRUARY 20, 1962. Lt. Col. John Glenn
orbits the moon in Friendship 7.
FEBRUARY 20, 1986. Russian space
station MIR is launched.
FEBRUARY 24, 2011. Space Shuttle
Discovery's final mission.
FEBRUARY 29, 1964. President
Lyndon Johnson reveals the
Lockheed A-12 spy plane.

|

Second
Vision jet
flies
Cirrus SF50 is on track for 2015
BY JIM MOORE
CIRRUS AIRCRAFT has a second
Vision jet flying for certification tests. The seven-seat
personal jet is expected to sell
for $1.96 million.
The first Vision SF50 jet
used for FAA certification testing began flying in March 2014,
and has logged nearly 220
hours over 150 flights. A third
flight test model was expected
to join the fleet soon.
Cirrus hopes to have certification complete and begin
deliveries by the end of 2015.
Cirrus said it has more than
500 orders for the jet and
expects to build 90 in 2016,
ramping up at a rate of 125 aircraft per year in 2017.
T h e c o m p a ny i s s e tting up a flight training and

28 | AOPA PILOT February 2015

mentorship program for pilots,
promising an intuitive transition for those familiar with
piston aircraft-including
the Cirrus SR20 and SR22
models, which have logged
more than 6 million flight
hours among a fleet of 5,000
aircraft.
The SF50 is expected to
cruise at 300 knots at 28,000
feet with a 1,000-nauticalmile range. It will seat up to
five adults and two smaller
passengers, and will be fitted
with the same type of ballistic
parachute system standard on
all Cirrus aircraft and credited
by Cirrus with saving nearly
100 lives in the SR-series fleet.
EMAIL james.moore@aopa.org

Cirrus Vision SF50
COST: $2 MILLION

Max cruise speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 knots true airspeed
Wingspan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 feet 4 inches
Height . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 feet 6 inches
Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 feet 11 inches
Cabin width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 feet 1 inch
Cabin height . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 feet 1 inch
Engine . . . . . . . . . .Williams FJ33, 1,800 pounds of thrust
Stall speed, with flaps . . . . . .mid-60-knot range (not yet
calculated)
Takeoff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,615 feet
Takeoff over a 50 foot obstacle . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,128 feet
Landing ground roll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,245 feet
Max operating altitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28,000 feet
AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2015
