Out of Queenstown, Longitudinally

[Charl]

… With the Cessna Citation Longitude, to be exact.
And yes because you are wondering, there existed a Citation Latitude as well.
Not to mention a Citation Hemisphere.
I don’t tend to fly the stock aircraft, let alone megarich commuter craft, but this one notified me of an Update in the Sim.
Duly installed, went to Queenstown where such a thing might feel at home.



Interesting area-rule squeeze around the engines, cockpit initially looked OK but…
So many INOP areas, so many unexplained things.
Is the Longitude cockpit really such a mishmash of bits strewn randomly about the place?
Anyway I got it started, taxied out.
Then upon advancing the throttle was startled by Bitchinbetty going NotakeoffNotakeoffNotakeoff.
Backed off a notch and I swear I heard BlowjobBlowjobBlowjob.

Nonetheless, pulling back hard on the yoke, we were airborne!



If the flight model is to be believed, it gets Up There pretty smartly, too.
Checking the interwebs confirms this: about a quarter hour to 43,000ft which averages 2800 fpm!



There are so many bizjets available: in this particular USD26 million class, no less than half a dozen.
I guess even in this electrically networked era, there is benefit in personal contact, if only to fit in a round of golf at some remote location.

Anyway, it got me to Auckland in record time at Mach=0.84 which really didn’t stretch it as it goes easily to Port Moresby.
Utterly boring, the whole affair.
Just as you’d expect.

[hasegawa]

I still have a Cessna Citation X in my virtual hangar. It has the Collins Pro-Line 21 avionics suite and not the Garrmin 3000 like this more modern Jet.

https://www.collinsaerospace.com/what-w ... ro-line-21

[Splitpin]

Great presentation Charl ....super sharp

[Naki]

[Aharon]

I think the last shot of NZAA approaching seconds before touchdown should be next month's banner.

Regards,

Aharon

[Charl]

Too late! The Hi-res original is already in the bin.
I will work on this, SP needs some competition.

Thanks for stopping by, gents.
Andreas, I'm not sure the glass cockpits have improved/simplified the flying process.
Just like the car industry, they increasingly try to outdo each other, by creating New! Exciting! stuff deep in layered menus.

In the sim, I simply glaze over, once I have Nav/altitude/speed sorted.
Knobs just work better.

[chopper_nut]

Nice pics. That's pretty much all I flew in MSFS. There are a couple of vids on youtube of flying the real thing and it seems to be pretty accurate. I agree that they should've made a lot more of the cockpit functional but it's got some long legs on it and you can really do Pacific and Atlantic crossings with it. If I go back to MSFS, I'll get the Flight FX Citation X as my main ride. It's in XP and is a really interesting aircraft to operate.

[hasegawa]

Charl, I totally agree – glass cockpits often keep pilots busy in menus rather than actually flying. Knobs and old-school dials may not look flashy, but at least they tell you what you need without digging through three submenus.

The Learjet 25, the true ancestor of the business jet, brings back that clarity and charm – not the Morane-Saulnier Paris or Lockheed Sabreliner, but the Lear really shaped the image of the business jet we all know. It’s great to see it in the sim.

Next month, I’ll see if my pensioner’s budget can stretch to it… I actually flew the same Learjet 25 from Xtreme Prototypes in P3D, so I can confirm the charm of those old-school gauges firsthand.

https://www.xtremeprototypes.com/shopexd.asp?id=88