Not from Textron. They consider it "too modified" to qualify.


The cost savings is substantial, but the downtime and less MIFs are huge factors, too.


It is literally the same plane as a 550. There were SBs to convert a 550 into a 551 with minimal actual changes to the airplane.

What this means is that if the 551 was over gross, the only risk is legal, not technical. How you use that is up to you.

Mike C.

Yeah I don’t like being non-proficient. Right now I split my time between my 206 and my 340. Since I’ll never sell my 206, I was trying to be realistic with the amount of hours I’ll likely allocate to the jet.

FWIW most of my twin turbine time was in non RVSM aircraft with only a wing leveler and altitude hold. That said, AB made it easy to get to FL430, and idle board descents from the FL’s was common to help out approach.
The last turbine twin cessna I flew was the Tweet. It seemed easy enough.

Hopefully in not too many years I’ll get to work less and fly more.

Last week I got to rehack a currency that I haven’t had in a long time.

Now Bruce, you've been around BT long enough to know that you need to account for rare exceptions when you make a statement like this. Otherwise you will be criticized for painting with too broad a brush!! "Hey, it doesn't apply to MEEEE, so you're WRONG!!"

You needed to write it this way...

"It would be very difficult to maintain proficiency flying a jet only 80 hours per year. There are some circumstances where it can be done. And there are some pilots who are endowed with natural gifts most of us could only dream of possessing who pull it off. For the majority of pilots flying such relatively few hours, and who can't or don't compensate with adequate training flights across all the necessary conditions to make such training useful, proficiency will suffer. To be brutally honest, the overwhelming majority of pilots fall into this category. Though again, some don't and supplement their normal flying with an abundance of training. In fact, one can say the same things flying pistons, especially for pilots who are actively flying IFR. But I don't want to muddy the waters of this thread talking about pistons. That's a topic for another day."

Yeah, I know that's a lot of words to make the same basic point most of us understood with your much simpler statement.

But you should really spend whatever time is required to write a post that accommodates every possible exception if you don't want to be educated about those exceptions and smited with some dislikes for good measure.

Which in this case, totally invalidated your opinion.

For any objective standard of "proficient", the jet will take less hours than the 340 to keep it.

For example, engine failure in the 340 is vastly more likely to happen and vastly more difficult to handle than the jet. Mistakes are often deadly. In the jet, much easier and far less error prone.

You will be much safer in the jet if you fly and train the same amount as the 340. Ultimately, that's the only standard that means anything, did YOUR safety improve with the change. It doesn't matter if you meet some arbitrary standard somebody else set for what they think is "jet proficiency".

The Citations are easy to fly, really have no vices or gotchas.

If we started pilots in jets and then asked them to transition to a piston twin, that would be HARD!

Mike C.

Now Bruce, you've been around BT long enough to know that you need to account for rare exceptions when you make a statement like this. Otherwise you will be criticized for painting with too broad a brush!! "Hey, it doesn't apply to MEEEE, so you're WRONG!!"

You needed to write it this way...

"It would be very difficult to maintain proficiency flying a jet only 80 hours per year. There are some circumstances where it can be done. And there are some pilots who are endowed with natural gifts most of us could only dream of possessing who pull it off. For the majority of pilots flying such relatively few hours, and who can't or don't compensate with adequate training flights across all the necessary conditions to make such training useful, proficiency will suffer. To be brutally honest, the overwhelming majority of pilots fall into this category. Though again, some don't and supplement their normal flying with an abundance of training. In fact, one can say the same things flying pistons, especially for pilots who are actively flying IFR. But I don't want to muddy the waters of this thread talking about pistons. That's a topic for another day."

Yeah, I know that's a lot of words to make the same basic point most of us understood with your much simpler statement.

But you should really spend whatever time is required to write a post that accommodates every possible exception if you don't want to be educated about those exceptions and smited with some dislikes for good measure.

Which in this case, totally invalidated your opinion.

I don't think the data supports this statement. if your missions were about 45' to 60' (which mine will be when I get into a 501), that is roughly 2 trips per week. In my experience, that is plenty to be proficient, especially if you fly approaches half the time (in actual, and at night, which I do).

For context, i don't think most warbirds fly >80hrs/year. Most of the L39 guys I know do not fly >80hrs/year in the airplane. I don't think they are all non-proficient. I think it depends largely on what you do with your hours, and the individual mindset in how one approaches aviation.

Straight 501 all day long. find a good partner, defray half of your fixed costs, and never look back. I'm on this same trajectory, and the math works.

I flew my 501 85 hours last year. I feel more proficient in it compared to flying my previous twin bonanza and queen air 150hrs/yr. Much easier aircraft to fly. Plus the availability of sims really helps with emergency procedures.

I typically try to fly FL360-380.
I have taken it to 410 only once. I was light, right around 9000lbs and it was an ISA day. Mach 0.6 700 lbs/hr. Climbed about 400fpm from 380 to 410

I fly my Citation around 100 hours “ish” a year. I am definitely more proficient, and comfortable in the jet than any of my previous aircraft.

Ditto. Exactly matches my situation.

Mike C.

BT has been boring lately so I will don my flame suit.

I don’t believe anyone is truly current in a turbine at 100 hours per year. I think that hour total is tough to be truly current in any high performance complex plane operating in the flight levels.

Citations are simple for the performance they offer. They are not ‘simple’ machines. Flying at even slow jet speeds requires a level of precision and speed of thinking that is tough to maintain when you only fly 100 hours per year.

Flame away.

it depends on the pilot.

I've seen doctors master a procedure after doing only a few of them (sure, experience helps but eventually it plateaus). I also routinely watch other doctors that have done thousands of the same procedure do them so poorly (and they are not aware) that it's beyond my understanding.

same with pilots.

Mike, do you still do any piston flying?

Hours and proficiency are only loosely related. Hours watching the AP fly the plane don't make you proficient, and that is the vast majority of hours jet pilots get.

You can fly 200 hours and be marginal. You can fly 50 hours and be sharp. it all depends on what you do in those hours.

For myself, I do a yearly training at a sim school or in airplane (alternative each year). Then every 3 months or so, I do a practice flight which involves 3 approaches, single engine work, air work, and I do it generally without AP for the entire ~1 hour flight. I get more stick time in that 1 hour flight than some folks flying 50 hours. During "normal" use, I almost always fly an approach, and often hand fly them to keep my skills up. The goal is to make hand flying, a perishable skill, easy enough that I can hand fly AND do some thing else at the same time.

So blanket statements like "X hours is required to be proficient in a jet" are mostly meaningless. It depends on what you do in those hours, and who you are.

Mike C.