December 1993/Citation V ultra

PILOT REPORT
U
pdate:
Citation V Ultra
Cessna’s popular eight-place light business
jet gets a thrust boost, new Honeywell
avionics and more payload capacity.
By FRED GEORGE
December 1993, Document No. 2500 (5 pages)
Cessna again is turning up the heat in the highly competitive,
light business jet market. In September 1994,
the world’s most prolific manufacturer of turbine business
airplanes will start delivering the new Citation V
Ultra, the ultimate straight-wing Citation.
The V Ultra, slated for certification in March 1994,
will have better overall performance, a higher level of
standard equipment and a new avionics suite that
includes three large-format displays and an upgraded
flight management system. Performance improvement
is entirely the result of installing more powerful turbofan
engines.
Aerodynamically, the airframe is virtually identical to
the Citation V. The V Ultra will be fitted with 3,045
pounds-thrust Pratt & Whitney of Canada JT15D-5D
engines, the most powerful version of the small turbofan
engine family that made its debut more than two
decades ago.
The -5D engines, internally changed and upgraded,
will have five percent more thrust than the -5A turbofans
installed on the Citation V, and they will give up nothing
in flat-rating. They will produce rated takeoff thrust
up to 80°F at sea level, and they also will squeeze
about one percent more thrust out of a pound of jet fuel
at altitude. (See sidebar.)
Extra thrust will enable the V Ultra to out-climb and
generally out-perform the current Citation V. For example,
Cessna claims the V Ultra will be able to climb to
FL 430 in 29 minutes—10 minutes quicker than a Citation
V. Less than half an hour later, the Ultra will be
able to step-climb to FL 450.
Cessna estimates that cruise speeds will increase by
three to five knots as well.
Most airframe systems are essentially unchanged
from the Citation V, although the long list of standard
equipment items will increase the basic operating
weight by 260 pounds. Cessna marketing officials
point out that the longer standard equipment list
accounts for most of that weight increase. The new
aircraft’s maximum gross takeoff weight (MGTOW)
will be bumped up by 400 pounds to 16,300
pounds, so the V Ultra will actually have an additional
300-plus pounds of payload capacity versus a comparably
equipped Citation V. The new aircraft’s payload
with full fuel will be 1,000 pounds, compared to 655
pounds for the Citation V.
The V Ultra’s sea-level, standard-day balanced field
length (BFL) should be 3,210 feet at MGTOW—or just
over a plane-length more than the Citation V’s. The
initial climb rate of the Ultra, however, is 4,100 fpm,
a 10 percent improvement compared to the Citation
V’s. The Ultra will have climb performance approaching
but not quite equaling that of the Learjet 35/36.
Under hot and high takeoff conditions, the Ultra
looks even better. The Citation V already has hot and
high airport performance that is among the best in its
class, and the Ultra will improve upon those numbers.
For example, Cessna estimates that the V Ultra will
need 4,640 feet of runway for takeoff at 5,000
feet/ISA+20°C, which is 240 feet less than the Citation
V requires and clearly superior to any other aircraft
in its class. Operators will face few, if any,
COPYRIGHT 1995 THE MCGRAW-HILL COMPANIES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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range/payload tradeoffs when departing from high
elevation airports on the hottest summer days.
PASSENGER COMFORT
Arguably, the V Ultra will have the most comfortable
cabin Cessna has ever installed in a 500-series Citation.
The new aircraft’s cabin is still the longest in the
light jet class at 17 feet and five inches, but it’s about
three inches shorter than the Citation V’s. This change
has allowed the cockpit divider bulkhead to be moved
aft by an equal distance for more legroom and storage
space up front for the flightcrew. The forward refreshment
center is somewhat shorter than the one in the
Citation V, but Cessna claims it holds an equal volume
of food and beverage supplies.
Mirrors on the bulkhead dividers of the standard interior
will make the cabin appear to be longer. Single
piece, seamless sidewall panels also will add to the
feeling of spaciousness, among other changes.
Plenty of comfort and convenience features will outfit
the cabin: upgraded interior furnishings of wood, fabric
or leather overlays on the sidewall armrests; plated
metal fittings and accordion-pleat window shades in
place of pull-down plastic shades. The standard equipment
list includes a Global Wulfsberg Flitefone VI.
The cabin will seat up to eight passengers in doubleclub
configuration, or seven in the more typical configuration
that will feature a left-side, forward refreshment
center installed ahead of the cabin door.
Passenger chairs have been re-designed with softer
cushions that Cessna claims are more comfortable and
offer increased headroom. Swiveling up to 30 degrees,
the chairs will have integral, retractable headrests in the
seatbacks and will have storage drawers in the
pedestals. These formerly optional features are standard
on the V Ultra.
STANDARD EQUIPMENT
The V Ultra also has a long list of standard equipment
that was formerly on the options list, and it has a new
avionics suite that includes greater component redundancy.
(See sidebar.)
Most of the V Ultra’s standard features, such as the
interior amenities, were ordered as optional upgrades
by as many as 80 percent or more of the Citation V
buyers. Cessna decided to combine such popular features
into a package in order to lower the price.
Vapor-cycle, electrically powered air conditioning is
one of the standard features that was an option on the
Citation V. The vapor-cycle air conditioner allows the
cabin to be cooled prior to engine start when the aircraft
is linked to a ground power cart. During ground
operations and flight below 18,000 feet, it also can
be used to supplement the refrigeration from the
bleed-air driven air-cycle machine.
On the V Ultra, the landing lights have been moved
to the outboard wing recognition light group, a change
that surely will please many pilots who want to turn on
every exterior light for maximum visibility in congested
areas, such as Class B Airspace. The modification also
likely will improve the service life of the bulbs.
Many other features of the Citation V have been
directly carried over to the Ultra, which should please
potential buyers. For example, external luggage compartments
provide 41 cubic feet of room that will hold
850 pounds of baggage, equipment and business supplies.
The aft section of the cabin may be configured to
hold an additional 600 pounds of luggage. Notably,
the new avionics package did not cause any loss of
external baggage volume.
Cessna elected not to adopt the trailing-link-design
main landing gear used on the CitationJet, among other
models. The Ultra retains the conventional main landing
gear short-travel oleo strut used by the Citation V.
With all the similarities between the Citation V and
the V Ultra, some people have asked about the availability
of an upgrade package. Sorry, there are just too
many differences between the two aircraft, particularly
in regard to the engines and avionics, to make a retrofit
package a feasible option at this time.
PERFORMANCE VERSUS PACKAGE PRICE
Cessna says that Ultra operators will be able to fill the
tanks, load five passengers and their baggage, and fly
more than 1,700 nm with IFR reserves. A Citation V
departing with full fuel was limited to three passengers
plus baggage, or to four modestly sized people whose
combined weight could not exceed 655 pounds.
As shown by the Range/Payload Profile, the Ultra also
will be able to fly more than 1,200 miles with maximum
payload, including eight passengers, which is an increase
of more than 400 miles compared to the Citation V.
Such range performance does not move the Citation
V Ultra to the top of the light jet class, nor does its maximum
cruise speed leave the competition in its wake.
But, the Citation’s low takeoff and approach V-speeds
make it one of the most docile-handling turbofan aircraft
ever built.
All in all, it’s the V Ultra’s cabin, however, that distinguishes
it from others in this class of business aircraft.
Simply put, the volume available for passengers is without
equal in the light jet class. Factor in the V Ultra’s
newly upgraded interior furnishings, its more sprightly
performance and its new avionics suite and Cessna is
bound to have a sure winner.
The first 20 aircraft will be priced at $5.395 million.
B/CA
COPYRIGHT 1995 THE MCGRAW-HILL COMPANIES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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L
arge-Format Displays Dominate the
Citation V Ultra’s Panel
“Fewer tubes, more information” will be the design theme for the Citation V Ultra’s Primus 1000 avionics
suite that will use the largest format CRT displays yet installed in a light jet aircraft. Three eight-by-seveninch
electronic flight instrument screens—left- and right-side primary flight displays (PFDs) and a multi-function
display (MFD) in the center—dominate the panel.
The displays will replace up to five separate CRTs and eight or more conventional analog instruments. Together
they will provide more information than was available even when the panel was stuffed with the five-tube EFIS
option. Honeywell’s engineers, however, face the challenge of making all of this information useful to crewmembers
without immersing them in a triple-screen sea of clutter.
In early October, we pored over Cessna’s Citation V Ultra development aircraft flight deck to check on its
avionics suite progress. We found that Honeywell’s engineers were creating an array of alphanumeric, color,
graphic, symbolic and motion cues with which newly transitioning pilots should quickly become comfortable.
Text, numeric and symbology clutter, for example, will be minimized by presenting such data on a need-toknow
basis, reflecting the current dark screen design philosophy. Among other features, green, yellow and
magenta color cues eliminate confusion as to the source of lateral nav information. A curved arc ver-tical speed
indicator display with a rotating needle catches the pilot’s eye with its movement. Magenta airspeed and altitude
trend vector tapes help spot deviations in desired flight performance.
Honeywell has spent considerable time incorporating hand-eye coordination features. The PFDs have positive
click, baro-set knobs on the faceplates—not on isolated remote panels. The MFD faceplate has both a speed set
knob and an altitude pre-select knob, positioned adjacent to the numeric displays they control. In between the
knobs are five, well-spaced line select keys with on-screen soft labels, used for functions such as electronic checklists
and V-speed selection. The menus associated with the line select keys are one-screen deep, enabling quick
and non-confusing return to the main menu screen.
The Ultra’s Primus 1000 avionics suite uses the now popular hub-and-spoke layout, having dual 1/2-ATR integrated
avionics computers (IAC) that contain EFIS symbol generators, flight directors and a fail-passive autopilot
forming the hubs of the system. Only the pilot’s side IAC will have an active autopilot function.
Other avionics manufacturers will tie into the IAC principally by means of ARINC 429 interface spokes,
although the FMS tunes the short-range nav radios by means of discrete ARINC 429 links. Analog interfaces
mainly are limited to the radio altimeter, attitude and directional gyros and the autopilot servos. The result is a
reduction in wire count and weight, compared with conventional box-to-box electrical connections.
Pulling the access panels out of the Ultra’s nose baggage compartment reveals another feature of the Primus
1000. The entire package occupies considerably less volume than the five-tube EFIS option available in the Citation
V. Twin sets of compact Collins Pro Line 2 and Pro Line 400 remote comm/nav/pulse radios—including
dual DMEs and non-diversity Mode S transponders—reside in the nose just behind the Primus 650 weather
radar. (Currently, Cessna does not plan to offer Primus II radios as an option).
Other system components consist of entry-level, mechanical, vertical and directional spinning gyros furnished
by Honeywell. Cost considerations prohibited the use of strap-down mechanical or interferometer optical gyro
(IFOG) attitude-heading reference systems. Dual Honeywell micro air data computers each provide altitude
reporting, and they are linked to the IAC to provide single waypoint vertical navigation based on short-range
navaid data.
A Global Wulfsberg GNS-X/ES FMS will make its debut in the Citation V Ultra. The new single-box FMS will
contain GPS and Loran-C sensors and feature a color CRT display plus a full alpha keyboard.
The entire package will weigh less than the five-tube EFIS option in the Citation V—even though the large display
tubes weigh 25 pounds each and the wiring harness will be contained in HIRF and lightning-hardened
shielding.
The V’s avionics package convincingly proves that digital electronics continues to be the fastest-developing
technology associated with business aircraft.
COPYRIGHT 1995 THE MCGRAW-HILL COMPANIES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Distance (nm)
Specific Range
2,000
1,600
1,200
800
400
0.45
0.40
0.35
0.30
TIME AND FUEL VERSUS DISTANCE
Conditions:
800-lb payload;
NBAA IFR reserves (100-nm
alternate); zero wind; ISA
272 nm
1,216 lbs
657 nm
2,232 lbs
SPECIFIC RANGE
FL 450
FL 430
1,053 nm
3,265 lbs
0
0 1
2
3
4
5
Source: Cessna Aircraft Company
Time (hrs)
All data preliminary
FL 410
High-Speed Cruise
FL 390
1,460 nm
4,319 lbs
FL 370
FL 350
1,645 nm
4,741 lbs
High-Speed Cruise
Conditions:
13,000 lbs;
zero wind; ISA
Citation V Ultra
These graphs present preliminary range, fuel
and payload information that reflects the
future capabilities of the Citation V Ultra. Do
not use these data for flight planning purposes.
Time and Fuel Versus Distance—This
graph shows the plot of a high-speed cruise
mission. The numbers at the hour lines indicate
the cumulative miles and the fuel burned
for the high-speed cruise profile. While the
intermediate points on these lines are accurate
only for the full trip, they can provide the
user with a rough idea of the time and fuel
required for trips of intermediate length.
Specific Range—The specific range of an
aircraft, a measure of its fuel efficiency, is the
ratio of the nautical miles flown to the
pounds of fuel burned (nm/lb). Higher specific
fuel consumption (nm/lb) numbers indicate
better fuel efficiency. This graph shows SFC
values at seven altitudes for the Citation V
Ultra at an intermediate cruise weight of
13,000 pounds.
Range/Payload Profile—This graph is
intended to provide rough simulations of trips
under a variety of payload and airport density
altitude conditions, with the goal of flying
the longest distance at high-speed cruise. The
payload lines—intended for gross evaluation
purposes—are each generated from a half
dozen or more points. Elapsed time and fuel
burns, for an intermediate 1,000-pound payload,
are shown at the top of the chart.
Keeping these limitations in mind, it is possible
to get a “feel” for the airplane’s capability.
0.25
FL 330
0.20
340 360 380 400 420 440 460
Source: Cessna Aircraft Company
Speed (KTAS)
All data preliminary
Balanced Field Length
SL
ISA
5,000 ft
ISA+20°C
Gross
Takeoff
Weight (lbs)
Fuel
Burn
(lbs)
Time
(hrs)
RANGE/PAYLOAD PROFILE
1,216
2,232
1
2
3,265
3
4,319
4
3,215
3,100
4,643
4,473
16,300
16,000
2,760
2,540
2,515
2,495
3,930
3,438
3,000
2,690
15,000
14,000
13,000
12,000
1,980-lb Payload
1,500-lb Payload
1,000-lb Payload
500-lb Payload
Zero Payload
Conditions: NBAA IFR
reserves (100-nm alternate);
zero wind; ISA;
high-speed cruise
11,000
Source: Cessna Aircraft Company
All data preliminary
0
250 500 750 1,000 1,250 1,500 1,750
Range (nm)
COPYRIGHT 1995 THE MCGRAW-HILL COMPANIES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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Pratt
& Whitney of Canada JT15D-5D
The V Ultra’s performance boost comes from the latest variant of the Pratt & Whitney of Canada JT15D,
a veteran of more than two decades of business aircraft service. The original -1 that powered the Citation 500 in
late 1971 had but 2,200 pounds of takeoff thrust, a bypass ratio of 3.3:1 and a steep-thrust lapse rate that limited
the Citation’s service ceiling to the low- to mid-30s—except when the aircraft was lightly loaded or on particularly
cool days.
Look closely at the -5D, and you will notice a loose family resemblance to the -1, but that is about the only kinship
to be found. Starting at the front, the newest JT15D uses a wide-chord blade fan with computer-refined aerodynamics
and beefier blades that are more resistant to foreign object damage. The fan rotates inside a new
abradable aluminum and Kevlar fan shroud case that offers tighter tip clearance and better fan blade containment.
The modifications permit the fan redline to be raised from 104 to 106 percent N1.
The fan and the low pressure, axial compressor are machined from solid billets of metal. Pratt & Whitney calls
them integrally bladed rotors (IBRs). These one-piece components may be more precisely balanced than similar
components assembled from many parts, and they weigh less, rendering the -5D engine two pounds lighter than
the -5A. They also leak less air and, therefore, are more aerodynamically efficient.
The high-pressure turbine blades are made of single-crystal alloy, allowing the inter-turbine temperature to be
raised by 20°C. The higher temperature limit and the increased N1 fan speed redline enable the -5D to produce
737 pounds-thrust (uninstalled) at 40,000 feet on a standard day compared with 702 pounds-thrust for the -5A
used on the Citation V. The -5D’s thrust-specific fuel consumption (TSFC) at altitude is 0.868 pph/pound-thrust versus
0.876 pph/pound-thrust for the -5A—close to a one percent improvement.
An added benefit of the -5D redesign is increased low cycle fatigue (LCF) life. The IBR fan and low compressor
will have a 30,000-cycle LCF compared to 14,000 cycles for similar dovetail-bladed components on the -5A.
P&WC plans to offer exchange IBR components to replace worn or damaged fan rotors or low compressor rotors
at prices that are competitive with detachable blade components.
Best of all, P&WC expects the-5D to have a mature time between overhaul of 3,500 hours and a hot section
inspection interval of 1,750 hours. Engine certification by Transport Canada and the FAA were scheduled to be
completed at B/CA press time.
COPYRIGHT 1995 THE MCGRAW-HILL COMPANIES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED