Cessna Citation Mustang achieves type certificate!

At 4:15 p.m. today (Friday, September 8, 2006), the Federal Aviation Administration officially approved the type certificate of the Cessna Citation Mustang. Type certification comes less than a year and a half after the Mustang's first flight, with all design performance and specifications having been achieved. The type certificate was awarded ahead of Cessna's promise of certification in this year's fourth quarter.

The six-seat Citation Mustang is certified as a single-pilot, FAR Part 23 aircraft, with a cruise speed of 340 KTAS, and maximum operating altitude of 41,000 feet. The FAA type certificate provides for full use of all Mustang systems, including single-pilot operations; the only limitation being flight into known icing conditions. The Mustang will be certified for flight into known icing well before the first customer delivery.

Introduced at the 2002 NBAA convention, the Mustang is the 27th airplane Cessna has certified in a decade, more than any other aircraft manufacturer.

The Mustang Prototype made Cessna history on April 23, 2005 by completing its first flight 10 days ahead of schedule. Mustang Production Unit 1 (P1) logged its first flight a year ago, and then stole the show at NBAA in Orlando last fall.

While the Mustang is certified according to FAA's 14 CFR Part 23 Normal Category rules, Cessna has gone much farther by calculating and publishing all Mustang takeoff and initial climb performance using Part 23 Commuter category standards. The Commuter Category rules provide a significant enhancement in the level of safety during takeoff and climb-out over performance criteria of other aircraft now being certified under the Normal Category of Part 23.

And at Cessna Aircraft's structural testing facility in Wichita, technicians have stressed the Mustang airframe to a level five times the normal life of an aircraft. This is well beyond type certification requirements….and resulted in an airframe with an unlimited lifetime.