Hello forum As many of you here all know I am a 5 year owner of a Citation Mustang which I primarily use in my business. I truly LOVE the airplane and its efficiency, I find it fits my missions perfectly to be very reliable and easy to fly. FL 410, 500 lbs/hr, and a comfortable cabin make for a perfect machine (well,,, almost perfect it isn't as great as the almighty PC-12 but I digress ). That being said the airplane was delivered with the typical Cessna cheap - o interior consisting of dark tan seats, bright gold rear bulkhead fabric and tons and tons of disgusting plastic on both the sidewalls and overhead areas. Exterior wise, the paint was decent, but at 10 years beginning to show its age, particularly around the windows and fuel tank areas. Soooo, what to do? I briefly thought of trading up toe a Premier 1A but after reading of all its faults and problems dropped that idea. Looked at a Citation X (!) briefly but that will have to wait for another day (and more hotels!). So I decided to refurbish my aircraft. Took it down to San Marcos Texas to Specialized Aero who had redone my MU2 a few years back and we decided to use Gianni Versaces G650 as a template for the interior (just a bit more roomy, that airplane) and go with a combination of murdered black and gl0ss black on the outside separated by a small white pinstripe along with my company logo. The seats were covered in a super soft high grain leather with the traditional Versace greek key design on them and the carpets were custom ordered with the same design. All of the sidewalls, overhead, bulkheads and other ancillary areas were covered in either black or white leather with indirect lighting installed, newly refinished piano black cabinetry, tray tables and cup holders. So for less than 150K I was able to get a new airplane for awhile longer to put out that fire....considerably cheaper than trading! Later this year she will receive the NXi upgrade to the G1000 avionics and will be the first airplane next year to receive Tamarack active winglets boosting her cruise speed by 10 knots and her range by 200 NM. So here is my "new" airplane (****ty iPhone pics to follow) Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Nice paint scheme... satin (murdered) over gloss is v. nice. Interior excellent. How long was it 'down'?
Looks great, especially the interior. My limited experience with dark airplanes is that they get really hot in the sun-- how is the air conditioning?
Very nice! I stayed in The Saint in Nola last year. (can't recall if I mentioned that to you earlier or not). Cool place. Although I didn't enjoy my room as much as the back-board breakers in the next room seemed to enjoy theirs!
I'm not into aviation, but beautiful interior. Looks wonderful. Just a curious question, but can you fly this yourself ( without a co-pilot ) ? The only reason I ask is my neighbor at the lake use to have a Citation X and I think he needed a co-pilot to fly that ? He has since switched to the mighty Pilatus ( or so I've been told ). Thanks, MDS
Thanks, yes you can fly it single pilot. The Citation X is a much bigger airplane requiring a co pilot.
In speed, there is nothing similar to it which is close. The Gulfstream 650 and 550 are pretty close in speed, but much bigger airplanes, and the Falcon 10 is also fairly close in speed but much smaller. Just in general, the competitors to the X would be the Challenger 350, Gulfstream 280 (and maybe 150) and the Citation Sovereign. I believe the X would have the smallest cabin of all of those airplanes, but is the fastest. The Falcon 50EX would be another comparison, although those are out of production now.
Looks great. You will have to give us a pirep on the Tamarack winglets once you get them. I’ve been passionately following the development of the Tamaracks since word came out about them. I’d they really give you another 200 nm of range, it sure would be an upgrade to my range and I might be looking for an upgrade. The Nxi will be sweet too! Congrats.
