The Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet only has been in production for 15 months and the planemaker already is announcing a Generation 2 version, starting at s.n. 94 this year. The G2 includes a series of substantive improvements that add as much as 100 nm to range, boost tanks-full payload and make the interior more commodious for passengers. The G2’s price is $250,000 higher than the original, so the new base model lists for $2.38 million. Fully equipped with popular options, it goes for $2.75 million. It’s still the lowest priced turbofan aircraft on the market and its performance, payload and range capabilities are proportionate to its price.
The new model features the Perspective Touch+ cockpit, powered by Garmin G3000 avionics, that has twice the processing power, new RVSM-capable air data computers, a Flight Stream 510 WiFi and Bluetooth datalink, and an optional autothrottle system that works with the autopilot coupled. The G2 can be flown to FL 310, a 3,000- ft. altitude boost, and its pressurization has been increased to 7.1 psi from 6.4 psi  to preserve an 8,000-ft. cabin altitude at the maximum cruising altitude.
The G2’s interior cossets passengers with considerably lower cabin sound levels, the same large windows as the original model and newly available, optional executive class center section seating. The upgraded layout includes wider and plusher chairs, a center console with fold-out work tables and storage compartments and optional fold-down IFE video screen in the overhead panel. 
The pilot and passenger chairs now have “kangaroo pouch,” front side pockets to hold personal items. When the wider executive class chairs and center console are installed, access to the rear-most three seats is blocked, so they may not be occupied. The rear seats, though, may be removed to provide more carry-on luggage space for four occupants.
The new airplane has lost nothing of the original model’s best qualities. It still has the smallest footprint of any production turbofan aircraft, scarcely larger than a Beech Baron. So, I will fit into most 40 X 40-ft. piston-twin hangars. For its relatively small exterior size, the Vision Jet has a generously proportioned cabin. The cabin floor is flat and maximum width is 5.1 ft., the same as in the Phenom 100.
With such plumpness, it’s easy to understand why the aircraft’s top cruise speed is just over 300 KTAS. It also has a 250 KIAS Vmo and Mach 0.53 Mmo due primarily to its high-lift wing.
Credit: Cirrus

The 300-lb. capacity aft external baggage compartment has been reshaped to provide more usable volume for long items, including golf club bags and skis. But the elongated part of the baggage compartment has a 40-lb. weight limit. The executive configuration center console may be easily removed and stored in the baggage compartment when the rear three seats are used.
The cabin door is located well aft of the cockpit, affording easy access to the second and third row passenger seats. But the pilot’s chair slides all the way back on its tracks to the door sill, allowing easy access for opening and closing the upper and lower doors by the pilot. It then slides up to the cockpit in the proper position for flying the aircraft.
The Vision Jet has the best cockpit visibility of any light jet we’ve flown, having a virtually unequalled field of view outside the cockpit. It has an ergonomic cockpit layout and handling qualities that will make Cirrus SR20/22 pilots, accustomed to Perspective+ flight decks, feel right at home.
Credit: Fred George

Photographic proof of performance claims. FL 310, 309 KTAS at ISA+5C on 37% thrust. EFIS screens are the sharpest in the aviation industry, symbol colors are unambiguous, synthetic vision is standard. Credit: Fred George

The G2 is the only turbofan aircraft in production to be equipped with a parachute. The Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS), much the same as with the firm’s single-engine piston aircraft, is intended to be used in the event of engine failure when a safe forced landing cannot be made, in the judgment of the pilot. It’s also available in the event of pilot incapacitation.
A Brief Review of Structure and Systems
The G2 uses low-pressure, low-temperature cure carbon fiber sandwich construction in most major airframe parts, including hand layup of outer pre-preg carbon fiber plies. Those are sandwiched around honeycomb core material that is then vacuum bagged and cured in low-temperature ovens.
The exception is the wing spar. It’s made of pure pre-preg carbon fiber plies cured in a high-pressure, high-temperature autoclave for high strength. It’s a “black aluminum” structure, typical of that is used on the Boeing 787 or Airbus A350.
Two seats in mid-cabin plus three seats aft. Executive seating option provides center console between larger, mid-cabin chairs. Credit:

High-lift airfoils are used for the wing, emphasizing enhanced low-speed performance over top end speed. Vmo is 250 KIAS and Mmo is Mach 0.53, more in line with turboprops than jets. Wing loading is low at 30.7 lb./sq. ft., which is great for runway performance. The tradeoff is a harsher ride in turbulence at typical cruise altitudes. 
While airframe parts are mostly composite, the primary flight control surfaces and trailing edge flaps are aluminum. High-strength metal alloys also are used for landing gear, seat tracks and concentrated stress areas.
The flight controls are mechanically actuated using push-pull rods and bell cranks. Left and right sidesticks are linked to the ailerons and ruddervators on the V-tail, respectively, for roll and pitch control. Rudder pedals provide yaw control through the ruddervators. Yaw and pitch inputs to the ruddervators are mechanically mixed by linkages.
Four-way conical hat-style switches atop the sidesticks provide inputs for electrical roll and pitch trim tabs. A pitch trim wheel in the center console provides an alternate means of actuating the pitch trim tabs. There is no yaw trim.
Twin ventral fins below the dorsal V-tail have electric servo tabs that provide automatic yaw stability augmentation at 200 ft. AGL and below. Above that altitude, autopilot servos linked to the ruddervators provide automatic yaw damping.
The electrically actuated flaps extended to 50% or 15 deg. for takeoff or landing, and 100% or 39 deg. for landing. Gear down/flaps down stall speed at MTOW is 67 KIAS. Vso is 64 KIAS at the 5,550 lb. max landing weight, so Vref at 1.3 Vso is 83 KIAS or lower, in the same range as that of the SR22. Such low landing speeds eliminate the need for ground spoilers and anti-skid brakes.
An electric motor hydraulic pump (power pack) provides power for landing gear extension and retraction. In the event of a powerpack failure, the gear may be mechanically unlocked with a handle in the cockpit and allowed to free fall until fully extended.
The main landing gear have long travel, trailing link struts for soft landings. High-capacity Beringer brakes provide considerably better stopping power and heat dissipation than the discs on early SR20/SR22 aircraft. The brakes are manual and actuated through the rudder pedals. The parking brake traps pressure in the brake lines to hold the aircraft still. 
The 28 VDC electrical system has an engine-driven 270-amp starter generator and a 24 volt battery, accessible through the floor of the aft baggage compartment. It powers the main busses, along with the essential and emergency busses when needed. An engine-driven 76-amp alternator normally powers the essential bus and emergency bus. The alternator produces slightly higher voltage than the starter/generator so that one-way flow diodes in the system prevent the main bus from powering the essential and emergency busses during normal operation. The diode and voltage differential design eliminates the need for bus tie relays. The main and emergency batteries together can provide at least 60 minutes of emergency bus power.
Left and right wet wing tanks, refilled through over-wing ports, each hold 148 ga. (992 lb.) of fuel. Gravity feeds fuel into left and right collector tanks. A jet pump normally feeds fuel from the collectors to the engine fuel system. An automatic electric boost pump supplies fuel for starting, redundant supply during takeoff and when jet pump output pressure is too low. The system normally alternates between drawing from the left and right tanks at 2 gal. or one-minute intervals. The pilot also can manually select left or right tank if needed. A fuel/oil heat exchange eliminates the need for anti-icing fuel additives.
Pressurization mostly is automatic with the air data system sensing departure field elevation for takeoff and the avionics system furnishing destination field elevation for landing. A vapor cycle machine in the aircraft nose provides air conditioning with front and rear evaporators delivering copious cooling air flow through large automotive-style vents. Conditioned, cooled air also is used for windshield defogging.
There’s engine bleed air for engine inlet anti-ice heating and for pneumatic boot operation on the leading edges of the wings and V-tail. Electrical heat protects the pitot probes and angle of attack vane. TKS fluid is used for windshield deicing.
All exterior and interior lighting features LED. The interior lighting package is impressive, with individual lights for each crewmember and passenger, instrument, circuit breaker and overhead panel illumination, crew task, foot well and storage pocket lights and convenience lighting activated by opening the cabin door. Exterior lights include navigation, strobe and landing lights, leading edge ice detection lights and 15-min. convenience lights on the underside of the fuselage and each wing to ease pre-flight and passenger boarding tasks in the dark.
A pneumatic fire detection loop provides engine and nacelle fire and overheat detection. Dual high-rate halon bottles provide engine fire extinguishing. A guarded switch on the overhead panel closes a fuel firewall shutoff valve to the engine and arms both fire bottles. Push-to-discharge buttons adjacent to the guarded switch trigger the fire bottles. After that, plan on an engine-out glide to landing or CAPS deployment.
A portable Halon 1211 fire extinguisher in the cockpit is available to extinguish cabin fires.
Let’s Go Flying
Matt Bergwall, the firm’s director for the Vision Jet product line, invited us to fly the G2 version late last year. Preflighting the aircraft is simple, with easy access to most systems. Locking jet fuel and TKS fluid caps assure the pilot controls what goes into the tanks. One exception is checking engine oil. All but tall pilots may need a short step stool to see the engine oil level through the spring-loaded access door in the top nacelle. The aircraft also would benefit if there were an LED light inside the nacelle to illuminate the engine oil level sight gauge. This would eliminate the need to use a flashlight on preflight to check the gauge.
The aircraft has clamshell upper and lower doors with fold-down air stairs for easy boarding behind the pilot seats.

When we opened the aircraft’s clamshell doors, we were immediately impressed with the interior upgrades, including the optional mid-cabin executive chairs and center console. The cabin has the ambience of a luxury automobile, making it far more inviting than many entry-level turbine airplanes we’ve flown. The position and size of the cabin doors also make for easy ingress and egress. Sliding the pilot seat back staggers it from the copilot’s chair, affording effortless access.
The improved acoustical insulation package is thicker and denser than that of the original version, cutting cabin noise levels by 3 dB, half the sound pressure of the original model. Better insulation adds 10 lb. of empty weight, but that’s fully offset by removal of an anti-ice bleed air heat exchanger, aero fences inboard of the ailerons and boundary layer energizers ahead of the ailerons.
Upgrading from twin lead acid to a pair of Mid Continent True Blue lithium ion batteries reduces empty weight by more than 60 lb. Just as importantly to pilots, they have considerably more stamina for supporting avionics functions prior to engine start. The addition of Flight Stream 510 enables pilots to plan a flight using Foreflight or Garmin Pilot on a tablet computer, then transfer it to the aircraft avionics system once battery power is switched on. The cockpit has left- and right-side USB charging ports, supporting EFBs and thus permitting paperless flight deck operations.
USB charging ports allow personal electronic devices to be linked to the optional inflight entertainment system.

The flight deck layout follows the pattern of Cirrus piston engine aircraft. The dual, large-format display screens are angled toward the pilot for easy viewing. Three, landscape configuration touchscreen controls are mounted below the display screens. We appreciate being able to use one for PFD functions, another for MFD functions and the third for radio control.
A bolster panel below the triple touchscreens has dedicated sections for electrical system, exterior lights, environmental and ice protection switches. Notably, Vision Jet is one of the few current production turbofan aircraft we’ve flown that has a switch that must be turned on to the “bleed air” position prior to flight to pressurize the cabin. In most other aircraft, this function is automatic, usually tied to throttle lever position and/or weight off wheels sensing.
In contrast to most other Garmin-equipped cockpits, the auto-pilot and auto-throttle controls are mounted high in the center console rather than being housed in a glareshield control panel.
Starting the aircraft’s single 1,846-lb.-thrust Williams International FJ33-5 turbofan is effortless. Turn the engine control knob to run and press the start button. The FADEC handles all the other functions, including switching on the fuel boost pump. 
Chockful of options, the aircraft’s empty weight was 3,646 lb. With two aboard and 1,787 lb. of fuel, ramp weight was 5,833 lb. Computed takeoff weight was 5,800 lb. Departing Runway 11 at Roberts Field (KRDM) in Redmond, Oregon, elevation 3,080 ft. at 7C, using flaps 50%, computed takeoff distance was 3,400 ft. Available runway was 7,006 ft.
Bergwall reviewed the engine failure on takeoff procedures: 1: Below 1,000 ft. AGL, establish best glide speed and land straight ahead, avoiding obstacles. 2: Between 1,000 ft. and 2,000 ft., slow to less than 135 KIAS and pull the CAPS handle and parachute to the surface. The aircraft has 26G seats to protect occupants, greatly improving survival odds following a forced or parachute landing. 3: Above 2,000 ft., the pilot establishes a 115 KIAS best glide speed and searches for a suitable landing area. The aircraft, in spite of its stubby proportions, has a respectable 14.7:1 glide ratio. 4: Lose an engine at FL 310 and you can glide 75 nm to a sea level airport.
There was a 10-15 kt. quartering tailwind as taxied to the runway from Redmond, Oregon’s Leading Edge Jet Center. The aircraft is the only civil turbofan aircraft we’ve flown with a free castering nosewheel. The design is the same as with Cirrus’ piston engine aircraft. Differential braking during taxi provides most of the directional control. The V-tail and ruddervators provide very little directional control, especially with a quartering tailwind. The aircraft could benefit from the addition of a positive nosewheel steering system, in our opinion.
Cleared for takeoff on Runway 11, the aircraft accelerated about the same as an Eclipse 500. The aircraft’s main landing gear are well aft of the center of gravity, so it takes a healthy pull back on the sidestick to unstick the aircraft at the 90 KIAS rotation speed. After weight is off the wheels, back pressure on the sidestick can be reduced.
We retracted the landing gear with a positive rate of climb and then the flaps at 115 KIAS. We engaged the auto-pilot at 3,500 ft. MSL — 400-plus ft. above the runway — so that we also could use the autothrottle. The Garmin system back drives the throttle lever, so the crew has positive visual and tactile feedback that the system is operating properly. The system automatically reduced thrust to max continuous for the climb, maintaining engine parameters within limits.
FMS climb speed varied from 173 KIAS at takeoff, decreasing to 138 KIAS near level-off at FL 310. Our route of flight took us northeast to Kimberly VOR (IMB), then up to Spokane, west to Yakima, down to The Dalles and finally back to Redmond. That would give us time at altitude to check cruise performance and differences in cabin sound levels.
Bergwall noted that Williams dialed up maximum climb and cruise thrust of the FJ33-5 between FL 240 and FL 310 for the G2 to enhance performance and assure the aircraft at FL 310 would meet or exceed the maximum cruise speed of the original model at FL 280, its maximum certified altitude.
It did not disappoint. Level at FL 310 at 5,457 lb. in ISA conditions, the aircraft cruised at 309 KTAS, or spot-on book predictions. The engine was producing 683 lb. of thrust, according to the cockpit displays. But fuel flow was 60 gph while the book forecast 64 gph. Specific range at 309 KTAS was better than book predictions for cruising at 280 KTAS.
Just as impressively, cabin sound levels were considerably lower when we removed our headsets, based on subjective observations. This was in part due to  the G2’s improved acoustical insulation and in part because of its increased cabin pressurization.
Returning to Redmond, we requested the RNAV (GPS) Runway 11 approach. During the descent, the auto-pilot and auto-throttle smoothly and precisely kept the aircraft within its 250 KIAS Vmo and 0.53 Mmo redlines. Approach vectored us around arriving jetliner traffic and, eventually, it became clear it would be easier to hand fly the aircraft than make inputs to the autopilot.
At this point, we disconnected the autopilot, which also disconnected the autothrottle system. To reduce pilot workload, it would be advantageous if the autothrottle system could be used independently of the autopilot, in our opinion, much the same as autothrottle systems installed in most other civil turbofan aircraft we’ve flown.
However, Vision Jet’s docile handling characteristics and slow approach and landing speeds, make it virtually as easy to hand fly as Cirrus’ piston engine aircraft. At 5,000-lb. aircraft weight, Vref landing speed at flaps 39° was 81 KIAS. Landing distance over a 50 ft. screen height was 2,800 ft.
As we’ve previously noted, though, the aircraft does exhibit quite pronounced thrust/pitch coupling characteristics due to the engine’s being mounted well above the CG. Pull back the thrust lever and the nose pitches up. Push forward and the nose pooches down.
We taxied back to Leading Edge Jet Center after 2+00 hr.
Our Conclusions
Vision Jet is well suited as a step-up product for Cirrus SR20/SR22 owner-pilots. Outward visibility is superb. Cabin spaciousness is unexcelled. The FJ33’s FADEC makes pilot workload considerably lower than when operating a PT6A-powered turboprop. Based on our previous flight with Bergwall in an orginal Vision Jet, we feel confident in concluding that the G2’s stall characteristics and approach speeds are right down with the best of the single-engine turboprops. This aircraft very much is confidence inspiring for piston aircraft pilots upgrading to their first jet.
While the original SF50 was an ideally suited step-up airplane for Cirrus SR20/SR22 operators, the G2 would be even more so, if Cirrus fits it with a pitch/thrust compensation system and positive nosewheel steering.
The signature Cirrus Aircraft Parachute System provides unparalleled occupant protection in the event of engine failure or pilot incapacitation.

Cirrus has a well-established track record of making regular, substantive improvements to its piston engine product line. Its sixth generation SR aircraft, for instance, are head-and-shoulders above the first examples we flew at the turn of the century.
The G2 Vision Jet has a bright future and subsequent versions most likely will be more capable, quieter and longer range. For now, this aircraft has no direct competitors at its $2.38 million base price point. It’s no wonder Cirrus has racked up more than 600 orders for the Collier Trophy winner.