Finally a VLJ Makes It

About a decade ago, the very light jet was the hot idea.  Everyone seemed to have a design and they were bringing tons of investment in to make the planes and sell them in quantities and at prices that had previously been unthinkable.  As it turned out, there was a good reason why it had been unthinkable and the projects either never made it to production or made a few before bankruptcy followed (sometimes more than once).  Eclipse did better than most in making jets before they folded, later re-emerging in a slimmed down form.

Cirrus is one company that stuck with it and didn’t go bust.  It did benefit from a lot of Chinese investment and the fact it had a successful piston lineup to generate some income didn’t hurt.  Their approach was the SF50 Vision, a single engine jet.  It was a slightly unusual design but not a bad one and it has finally made it to certification and production.  This example is a regular at Boeing Field so maybe it lives there?

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