Never letting the product line go stale, Cirrus enters the SF-50 single-engine turbofan into its next generation with the Vision Jet G3. The latest jet gets more than 30 upgrades, including a third-row cabin seat, with the cabin accommodating six adult passengers and one child, a common request among Vision Jet owners. The updated cabin—which gets new materials and colors, updated seating (they’re hardshell-backed with hand-wrapped Alcantara), new tray tables, and mounting locations for personal devices—is available in the Premium and Arrivée-level trims or the Xi-Designed version. The published useful load for the G3 Vision Jet is 2,450 pounds, with a cabin measuring 4.1 feet high and 5.1 feet wide.
Perhaps the bigger news is CPDLC (Controller Pilot Data Link Communication) that’s integrated within the Garmin Perspective Touch+ avionics. The FAA’s CPDLC Data Communication program delivers air-to-ground textual data that eases radio congestion and while it isn’t new tech, it has grown in popularity among high-end GA ops in part because of Garmin’s OEM and aftermarket CPDLC tech.
Standard now in the G3 is a 3D SafeTaxi taxiway routing onscreen utility. There’s also an alert-based emergency checklist feature that streamlines access to emergency checklists, based on the master caution alert. And standard on the G3 Vision Jet and every Cirrus is Safe Return—it’s what Cirrus branded Garmin’s Emergency Autoland with Autothrottle.
Cirrus’s flagship jet has come a long way in styling, equipage, and performance from the first-gen SF-50 released in late 2016. The current G3 model is powered by the Williams International FJ33-5A engine that makes 1,846 pounds of thrust. The published max cruising speed is 317 knots true and the max operating altitude is 31,000 feet.
A fully loaded Vision Jet G3 with the premium interiors is $3.68 million. Look for a full in-flight report on the new Cirrus Vision Jet in an upcoming Smart Aviator feature on AvBrief.
I was catching up on reading one of the aviation magazines I subscribe to, and there was an article about the Epic single engine turboprop plane. One wonders how said aircraft compares to the Vision jet regarding overall aerodynamic and propulsive efficiency and operating cost per flight hour.
I’ll take two.