The Cessna 526 CitationJet is a
twinjet
A twinjet or twin-engine jet is a jet aircraft powered by two jet engine, engines. A twinjet is able to fly well enough to land with a single working engine, making it safer than a single-engine aircraft in the event of failure of an engine. F ...
trainer built by
Cessna
Cessna () is an American brand of general aviation aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of the Cessna Aircraft Company, an American general aviation aircraft manufactu ...
as a candidate for the United States
Joint Primary Aircraft Training System
The Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) was an aircraft procurement program of the United States in the 1990s by the United States Air Force and United States Navy, a merger of 1980s era training aircraft programs. The winner was dec ...
. It was a twin-engined, tandem seat aircraft, based on the
Cessna CitationJet
The Cessna CitationJet/CJ/M2 (also known as the Model 525) are a series of light business jets built by Cessna, and are part of the Citation family.
Launched in October 1989, the first flight of the Model 525 was on April 29, 1991. Federal Avi ...
executive aircraft. However, it was unsuccessful, with only two prototypes built.
Design and development
The United States military issued a
request for proposal for a trainer to be used by the
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
and
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
.
Cessna responded with the 526, based on its
525 CitationJet civilian business jet. The 526 and 525 shared 75% commonality including the wings, engines and landing gear. The electrical- hydraulic- and fuel systems were also common to the two types. The 526 had a redesigned fuselage featuring a tandem two-seat cockpit with zero-zero ejection seats; and a new
empennage
The empennage ( or ), also known as the tail or tail assembly, is a structure at the rear of an aircraft that provides stability during flight, in a way similar to the feathers on an arrow.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third ed ...
with a low-mounted
tailplane
A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabilizer, is a small lift (force), lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters ...
instead of the 525's
T-tail
A T-tail is an empennage wikt:configuration, configuration in which the tailplane of an aircraft is mounted to the top of the vertical stabilizer, fin. The arrangement looks like the capital letter T, hence the name. The T-tail differs fr ...
.
The prototype first flew on 20 December 1993 and was followed by a second prototype with its first flight on 2 March 1994.
The CitationJet did not succeed in the competition, which was won by the turboprop
Beechcraft T-6 Texan II
The Beechcraft T-6 Texan II is a single-engine turboprop aircraft built by Textron Aviation. It is a license-built Pilatus PC-9, a trainer aircraft. The T-6 replaced the United States Air Force's Cessna T-37B Tweet and the United States Nav ...
, a variant of the
Pilatus PC-9
The Pilatus PC-9 is a single-engine, low-wing tandem-seat turboprop training aircraft designed and manufactured by Pilatus Aircraft of Switzerland.
Developed as a more powerful evolution of the preceding Pilatus PC-7, the PC-9 features an enlar ...
.
Specifications
See also
References
Notes
Bibliography
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{{JPATS
1990s United States military trainer aircraft
526 CitationJet
Twinjets
Low-wing aircraft
526
__NOTOC__
Year 526 ( DXXVI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Olybrius without colleague (or, less frequently, year 1279 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomina ...
Aircraft first flown in 1993
Aircraft with retractable tricycle landing gear