It probably shouldn’t have come as any great surprise that Cessna earned its Mustang type

and production certificates in mid 2006, the first truly light jet to achieve that milestone.

After all, Cessna had been building a variety of Citation models since 1972, and it already

was the world’s most successful manufacturer of business jets.

Cessna was far from the first to offer a turbine-powered business airplane. That honor belongs to the

Morane Salnier MS760 of the late 1950s. But the Mustang was in many respects the embodiment of the

very light jet (VLJ), even if then-Cessna CEO Jack Pelton disdained that description.

Physically, the new model wasn’t that dissimilar to the early Citations. In fact, the Cessna 510 could have passed

for a downsized Citation 500 with metal-bonded fuselage and wings and a swept, Sovereign-style, semi-NLF airfoil.

In contrast to the Eclipse 500, Vern Raeburn’s poster child for VLJs, the Mustang was half-again the

Eclipse’s weight, sported 6 feet more wing and a 7-foot longer fuselage. As a point of reference, the Mustang

also offered 7 feet more span than the original Lear 23. No one ever referred to the Lear as a “very light jet”.

WHY THE MUSTANG WAS A RUNAWAY HIT

Cessna Citation 510 Mustang

FIRSTLOOK

THE CITATION MUSTANG 510 WAS THE FIRST TRULY LIGHT JET, AND NINE YEARS LATER, IT CONTINUES TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PILOTS.

By Bill Cox

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Still, the Mustang was the smallest civilian business jet Cessna had built. Apparently on the premise that less is more, gross weight on the Mustang was only 8,645 pounds, and max seating was for six rather than eight. Yet, the Model 510 Mustang came certified, right out of the box, for 41,000 feet and was designed to fit into 3,500-foot run-ways. This was obviously a different kind of Citation. Cessna had enjoyed excellent sales on its first commercial pure jet, the Citation 500, and the Mustang turned out to be another instant hit. The Wichita company delivered 350 Mustangs during the first six years of production. At an average price of about $2.8 million, that represented just under a billion dollars in sales. (By the end of 2014, total Mustang deliveries stood at 465, and total fleet hours exceeded 500,000.) Once you’ve flown the airplane, it’s not hard to understand why the 510 has become so popular. Since it is a jet, some folks auto-matically confer the type with incomprehen-sible complexity. In fact, it’s hard to imagine how Cessna could have made the Mustang easier to fly. For pilots with time in piston twins, especially cabin-class models such as the Duke, 421 and 680 Commander, Cess-na’s Citation 510 is far simpler to understand and operate in virtually every respect.

Systems are super-simple. Flaps and speed brakes are electric, and only

the gear and power brakes are hydraulic. Either generator

can operate practically everything on the

airplane, once the air con-

ditioning and wind-shield de-ice

are shed. It also doesn’t hurt that the Mustang is produced by the world’s pre-eminent legacy jet aircraft manufacturer, with more experience building light, turbine-powered business aircraft than anyone else. As a re-sult, Cessna has service centers all over the world, and that means owners of Citations can usually find parts and maintenance expertise wherever they choose to fly. Accommodations are for two pilots up front and four folks in back. That’s some-thing of a departure for a jet, even a light one. Most other aircraft at least pretend

to offer seven seats, even if range with a full load of people would be extremely limited. Cessna thought long and hard about the number of

seats, as no one had produced a six-seat business jet before the Citation 510.

Even the first Lear 23s offered eight seats. The Mustang was specifically configured for one-plus-five. Cessna hoped its new jet would appeal to the owner/pilot market where six is more than enough. The Mustang uses a conventional forward air-stair entry door, and those who turn left at the top will find climbing into either front bucket easier than on other turbine equipment. On most jets, the center console that houses engine controls extends to the floor, so flight crew members must step over the seat to get into position. The Mus-tang provides a large gap between the floor and console at the center, so crew can step forward without gymnastics to climb into the pilot/co-pilot positions. Similarly, Cessna installs the control yokes on columns that extend horizontally from the panel rather than growing up from the floor. This opens up additional foot of leg room for the flight crew. The Mustang offers a “blue room” direct-ly opposite the entry door and four seats in back. The aft cabin is predictably luxurious, providing excellent creature comforts, de-pending, of course, on the size of your crea-tures. It’s a roomy cabin, as well, perhaps more so than the competition, since there’s no attempt to sandwich in a seventh seat. From engine start to shutdown, the Mustang was specifically designed to be idiot-proof. The Pratt & Whitney 615F-A turbofan engines are fitted with Full Au-thority Digital Engine Control (FADEC), a computer monitoring system that man-ages every phase of engine operation and automatically protects every system before a developing failure becomes critical. Avionics are centered around the popular Garmin G1000 PFD/MFD, flat-screen dis-play, a version of which has come to dom-inate the VHF/GPS world. The Mustang mounts a PFD in front of each pilot and a huge MFD at center panel. The autopilot is the Garmin Attitude and Heading Refer-ence System-based G-700 that provides sensors in roll, pitch and yaw. Engine start with help from FADEC is simpler than with any other jet I’ve flown. The power quadrant looks a little bare, with only two thrust levers and no condition levers to worry about. You push “start,” wait

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Citation 510 Mustang

FIRSTLOOK

Once you’ve flown the airplane, it’s not hard to understand why the 510 has become so popular. Since it is a jet, some folks automatically confer the type with incomprehensible complexity.

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for eight percent N2, bring the appropri-ate thrust lever over the gate to “run” and watch everything come alive automatically. FADEC won’t allow you to introduce fuel too early or make any other mistakes. Just as with Mother Nature, you can’t fool FADEC. Taxi is easy with the low-idling Pratts. It takes a major handful of breakaway thrust to initiate taxi, exactly the opposite of some jets

that idle at 45-50 percent power. Pre-takeoff checks consist primar-ily of assuring that both engines are running, flaps are set, and the door is closed. FADEC takes care of most of the other takeoff checklist items. Run the thrust levers to the stop marked “take-off,” release the brakes and feel the burn. There’s not much reason to linger low in

a jet, so most pilots like to high-jump straight to FL350 or even FL410, ATC permitting. Trouble is, ATC usually won’t allow such luxuries

unless you live somewhere off the airways where you can’t interfere with

overflying airliners. If you’re granted a dispensation to leap directly to FL410, Cessna claims you can

Citation 510 Mustang

This past year, Tom, a TBM owner/pilot arrived at our facility here in Miami to receive type-rating training for his

Citation Mustang. He admitted to a concern about leaving his comfort zone in the turbo-prop by having to obtain multi-engine and type ratings. The annual recurrent for the TBM was more checking the boxes than a training event, and he feared the FAA check-ride required to move up to the Mus-tang. Tom wondered if piloting a single pilot jet was biting off more than he could chew. These concerns are not unusual for the average upgrade to a single-pilot jet aircraft. Light turboprops only require completion of a factory-training program in most cases. These programs don’t always provide the rigorous systems knowledge and aircraft handling skills required to pass an FAA Prac-tical Test because they are not required to. Day One of Tom’s training consisted of a morning review of the Mustang’s limitations and abnormal/emergency memory-action items. Clients are expected to arrive with this information put to memory to allow us to dive in to flight training immediately. We also discussed the flight profiles such as power settings and gear/flap configura-tions expected in the check ride. After two hours of this, we did a complete preflight and strapped ourselves in the Mustang to begin the first of 10 flights over the next five days. Each flight covered the requirements of the Practical Test Standards for the type rating and was basically a mock check ride.

Here are the tasks flown on each flight:• Engine failure before V1 • Engine failure after V1• Steep turns• Recovery from unusual attitudes• Stalls in the clean, takeoff and landing configuration• Engine fire in cruise, shutdown and air restart• Vmc demonstration• Emergency decent

• Two non-precision approaches – one with procedure turn and one circle to land, both single engine• One precision approach, single engine• No flap landing, two engine

A busy flight repeated twice each day until the procedures became second nature. Tom remarked that adding all the common distractions found in the real world such as IMC, crosswinds and ATC chatter was a benefit of flying his own aircraft. The afternoon session began with a re-view of the morning flight. Tom recognized that he was, at this point, way behind the Mustang but felt confident that he would improve. We discussed the typical turbojet transition hang-ups that presented them-selves during the morning flight.

Here are some of the typical transition hang-ups:• Failure to program the cleared route and altitude in the FMS and brief the departure procedure before taxiing. The aspiring tur-bojet pilot often carries over bad habits of rushing away from the ramp and deferring these critical tasks, leaving them unpre-pared for takeoff.

• Not activating the TOGA mode on the flight director before the takeoff roll. The high deck angle and speed associated with turbojet aircraft can overwhelm the pilot if he/she arbitrarily pitches for what they think is appropriate. The flight director presents an angle-of-attack reference and is paramount for situational awareness.

• Overdependence on brakes during taxi because of excessive thrust. Idle thrust is usually sufficient to maintain safe taxi speed on level terrain.

• Not anticipating turbine engine spool lag and undershooting or overshooting desired airspeeds.

• Failure to use the autopilot during single-pilot operation. The higher speeds and complex ATC instructions lend them-selves to higher pilot workload and loss of situational awareness. They need to let the autopilot be their virtual crewmember.

• Excessive flare during landing or improp-erly using the elevator for aerodynamic brak-ing during landing rollout. This propeller-pilot technique can cause dangerously high round outs during the landing phase or excessive float and runway overrun during the rollout.

After this, aircraft systems ground school emphasized abnormal and emergency scenarios, and then it was back in the Mustang for another flight repeating the same procedures practiced during the morning session. Over the course of the next two days, we flew, studied systems, ate and slept until it all sunk in and made sense. On the third day Tom started to catch up and eventually was thinking ahead of the plane. I noticed the beginning of casual conversation between maneuvers, a sure sign of progress. The big errors were history at this point; we were now trying to polish his skills. Days Four and Five were more of the same. We ended Day Five with a mock oral exam and flight expected during the check ride. I sent a confident Tom off to the examiner with a handshake. The rigorous type-rating training received in his aircraft over the five days prepared Tom to pass the combined multi-engine and type rating check ride on the sixth day. At the time of this writing, Tom has flown more than 150 sin-gle-pilot hours, and he credits the higher standard of performance required for making him a better single-pilot operator.

Jack Boyd is a piston and turbine instructor pilot and president of Gold Standard Aviation in the Miami area

ONE-ON-ONE MUSTANG TYPE RATING By Jack Boyd

FIRSTLOOK

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start leveling in 27 minutes from sea level in ISA conditions. Initial climb rate will easily top 3,000 fpm using 170 KIAS to 10,000 feet, then Mach .44 for the remainder of climb. Power adjustment at the top of climb consists of merely pulling the thrust levers back to the “cruise” detent. Forty one thousand feet is a lonely place most of the time, though a majority of airliners and other corporate jets are certified for it. If they’re flying light, they may ascend to FL410 on the initial climb, but the airlines prefer to wait until they’ve burned down to a more civilized weight before reaching for the high sky. Pilots don’t buy jets to fly slow, but the relevant question has always been, how much speed is enough? The usual answer is, there’s never enough. In the light-jet class, current-ly consisting of the Embraer Phenom 100, Eclipse 500/550 and the Cessna Mustang, a reasonable maximum is about 370 knots, typ-ically at FL340/350. Book cruise speeds for all three models are in the 340- to 360-knot range, and the Cessna entry technically scores 340 knots. I’ve flown the Mustang twice, and both times, I’ve seen cruise numbers closer to 350 knots. On my last Mustang flight, the check pilot commented that Cessna was considering upping the published spec to 350 knots. Even if you accept the book figures of 340 for the Mustang, 360 for the Eclipse and 350 for the Phenom 100, the difference in time en route is hardly noticeable on a typical 600 nm trip — less than 10 minutes. If efficiency is more important than speed, you can step up to FL410 in the Mustang and still see 325 knots burning 502 pph. This compares to 670 pph at FL350 to fly only 25 knots faster. Higher is always cheaper and less congested and, again, the difference in time en route is usually minus-cule. Maximum range at the lower setting is

about 1100 nm in three-and-a-half hours, nearly always cruising in

smooth air and sunshine on top of the weather.

Descents can be pretty much whatever you and ATC agree upon. Reduce thrust to idle, extend the boards and you can come downhill at 3,000 fpm while the 8.3 psi pressurization system keeps everyone’s ears in good shape. The gear can go out practically to redline. The jet syndrome rears its head once more when it comes time to land, though again, the Mustang is far easier to manage around the pattern than most twin-engine piston models. Typical ref speeds are less than 100 knots, depending upon weight. On my first landing in Independence, Kan., six months before the airplane was introduced, the magic number was 94 knots, and the trailing beam gear sys-tem forgave my slightly high flare and allowed me to return to Earth with no loss of dignity. Mustangs don’t come with thrust re-versers for braking, but the large anti-lock brakes do a good job of slowing the airplane to a stop without help from twin buckets in back. The Citation 510 consistently scores some of the lowest takeoff and landing distances in the class. As always, takeoffs demand more space than landing. Flying from sea level on an ISA standard day, the Mustang can lift off and start up in about 3,100 feet and grind to a stop in 2,400 feet. Nearly a decade in production, the Mus-tang has proven a strong contender for the light-jet dollar. It flies as far and nearly as fast as its competition, sports a wide, com-fortable, oval-shaped cabin, and its price is only undercut by that of the Eclipse 550. That’s a formula that’s liable to keep the Mustang competitive with any other light, twin jet for years to come. Just don’t call it a VLJ.

CESSNA CITATION 510 MUSTANG Engine(s)- make/model: P&W 615F-A

Thrust (lbs): 1460

TBO (hrs): 3500

Fuel type: Jet A

Landing gear type: Tri/Retr

Max Ramp Wt (lbs): 8730

Max TO weight (lbs): 8645

Max Landing Wt (lbs): 8000

Zero Fuel Wt (lbs): 6750

Basic Operating Wt (lbs): 5600

Useful load–std (lbs): 3130

Usable fuel–std (gal/lbs): 385/2580

Max Payload–full std fuel (lbs): 1150

Full Fuel Payload (lbs): 550

Wingspan: 43’2”

Overall length: 40’7”

Height: 13’5”

Wing area (sq ft): 210

Wing Sweep (degrees): 11

Wing loading (lbs/sq ft): 41.2

Power loading (lbs/lb st thst): 2.96

Press Differential (psi): 8.3

Cabin Alt: 8000‘@41,000’

Seating capacity: 6

Cabin doors: 1

Cabin width (in): 55

Cabin height (in): 54

PerformanceMax Cruise speed (kts): 340 @FL350

Mach Limit Speed : .63

Max Cruise Fuel Burn (gph/lbs): 100/670

Max Range (nm): 1200

Best rate of climb, SL (fpm): 3110

Time to Climb (min to FL410): 27

Max Operating Alt (ft): 41,000

Stall (Vso – kts): 73

Takeoff Field Length (ft): 3110

Landing Distance (ft): 2380

For more information, contact The Cessna Aircraft Company1 Cessna BoulevardWichita, KS 67215Phone: (316) 517-6000Web: www.cessna.com

All specifications are based on manufacturer’s calcAll specifications are based on manufacturer’s calcula-tions. All specs and performance numbers are drawn from official sources, often the aircraft flight manual or the manufacturer’s website

Citation 510 Mustang

FIRSTLOOK