Man what a shitty thread.

How many "flushes" are in the jiffy pop looking piece?

Chip-

There’s a fan? This is too good. You’re telling me if it malfunctions, the sh!t might hit the fan?

There’s a fan? This is too good. You’re telling me if it malfunctions, the sh!t might hit the fan?

Meanwhile back to flying the Mustang.... I flew from Immokalee, FL (near Naples) to Elmira, NY today. The plan was easy with VFR at departure and arrival, light tail wind enroute, and good temperatures aloft. The planning log is attached. I normally would fly this 1,000 nm trip at FL400/FL410 but the wind allowed me to consider lower altitudes. I decided on FL390.

Even at that altitude the fuel requirement was only 1618 lbs. I fueled with 2,450 lbs. I was alone today so between being 200 lbs less than offical max fuel, and only one person I was about 600 lbs below max takeoff weight.

Enroute weather is rarely a concern in a jet on a trip long enough to go high, but there was a large storm area over Georgia and a bit of Florida. The storm area was larger than the Flightaware image below at the time I went through. I think Flightaware shows weather when the flight ends. Nexrad was showing tops 300 to 350, probably would have been higher later in the day. Onboard radar showed nothing at higher altitudes. My eyeballs showed nothing even close to my altitude. The airlines were not in the rain but were screaming about turbulence in the mid 30s. At FL390 I was getting just a bit of turblence so I moved up to FL410. It was a non issue. I rode in smooth air, Starlink Mini in the side window, getting some computer work done.

As the flight progressed I picked up more tailwind as expected on the flight log. I remained at FL410. The temp was ISA-3. At that temp and lower the Mustang is very happy at FL410. Cabin altitude is 7,800 in those conditions.

Elmira was using runway 28 which is close to a ridge so you know there will be a change in the wind about 800 AGL. Winds were 310 at 14 gusting 24. It was entertaining but hardly difficult.

I landed with 650 lbs remaining which is very comfortable. Thats a bit more consumption than the plan but not surprising due to taxi, departure vectors (about 50 miles eastbound before turning north) and early descent. All in a great trip perfect for the Mustang.

The Mustang is one of the best pilot owner airplanes ever made. Really upset with Textron. About abandoning and discontinuing the best owner flown Jet ever made. Imagine upgraded Mustang EX, with G3000, autoland, winglets, upgraded engines, GW increase, improved paint, interior, GWX8000 etc. way better than an SF50 but they let Cirrus dominate the owner flown segment with an inferior, albeit awesome product. Too many margaritas tonight , should shut up now.

Would they call it something like Mustang 2? Maybe they could abbreviate that somehow.

Chuck for the most part the marketplace has provided the upgrades you listed. Garmin has kept the Mustang current with NXi. The next generation of Garmin is in development and reportedly has auto throttles necessary for auto land. I have flown G1000 NXi and G3000. I don’t find the touch screen interface superior it’s just different. Offering G3000 would require a recertification by Textron which is not going to happen. NXi base upgrade was $60k with very high percentage of the fleet accepting. G3000 would be many times that amount. I don’t see many owners doing that. When TBM offered both systems a surprising number still chose G1000.

Interior upgrades from multiple sources including Textron.

Tamarack is working on winglets, I am on the list with deposit. Too soon to predict the results but the power to weight of a Mustang is similar to the original CJ. The CJ saw results from winglets primarily due to increased climb rate which reduces fuel to altitude. That’s where the range increase comes, albeit exaggerated by Tamarack marketing. It’s entirely realistic that fuel to FL410 would be reduced enough to provide 100 miles of cruise. That would only be 150 lbs of fuel. None of that has been promised I am speaking about results on the original CJ. This is far more useful than larger engines.

With jets like Mustang with smalller engines temperature aloft is an important part of planning long distance flights. If temp at FL400 is ISA+5 I can’t go there at max weight. That means I am at FL380 or even FL360 for a significant portion of the trip. Winglets would enable more trips at the higher altitude. That means the current range is available more days than it is now. That is much less of a factor on other Citation models such as the M2 with larger engines that can maintain power at higher temps. No one is going to upgrade the Mustang engines so winglets are the only possible enhancement.

I loved my Mustang(s). The only reason I sold mine is to gain more seats and a bit more speed (30 knots). They are great owner flown airplanes.

The winglets will probably weigh about that. They have not come with a gross weight increase so I wouldn't expect one for the Mustang STC.

The Mustang is not blessed with a lot of useful load with full fuel.

Mike C.

In my opinion, Textron screwed up dropping the Mustang, and probably would have liked to have it back to remake that decision. It was the only very light jet targeting the owner pilot at the time. Others moved into that market like Cirrus and has become the market leader in owner flown jets. Over 600 copies and still selling them as fast as they can make them.

I read once where the average piston Cirrus owner has a net worth of 14-25 million. I would guess the VJ may be higher. They like tech, and aren't into fixer upper aircraft, lots of buttons, old tech. So Cirrus, Piper, Socata, and now Epic have moved into that space, and have sold thousands of single engine turbines. Sold to pilots that could and many would move into the Cessna fold if it had technology that matched what they have become accustomed to. But Textron wanted to sell the bigger jets, and abandoned a very large market that they under-estimated.

That number surprises me.

Surprised me too. But thinking of many of my friends that I met on COPA, that would be a rather modest number. Wonder where the median net worth might be? Probably helps explain why almost every Cirrus sold is fully optioned, and now up to about 1.3 mil with a 2 year waiting list.

That number surprises me.

Curious how far apart the median and mean numbers are, in most populations of aircraft owners, there are probably some extreme outliers.