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Cirrus Jet Aircraft

  1. Cirrus History

    The Cirrus Aircraft Corporation was founded by brothers Dale and Alan Klapmeier in 1984. Having grown up in a flying family, the young boys set out to build cool airplanes. With partners Jeff and Sally Viken, they commenced the launching of the homebuilt Cirrus VK-30 plane. Having successfully completed 5,000 sales of the SR20 and SR 22 prop airplanes since 1999, Cirrus later came to realize the need for an efficient and economical family jet. In 2008 the first Cirrus SF50 was flown.

    Although making a point of not wanting to be classed as a VLJ, Very Light Jet, the Cirrus SF50 has the VLJ requisites of seating capacity, weight, range, short runway options, and economical operating costs, but is being branded as a personal jet or entry level jet. That works too and helps to propel the SF50 into its own category of jet ownership geared for personal use, but certainly able to accommodate the needs of small business jet purposes.

    Cirrus went through some tumultuous financial times but in 2001 sold 58% of the jet aviation company to Crescent Capital, the US division of the First Islamic Bank of Bahrain. In spite of the $100 million infusion, turbulent times intermittently led to layoffs, lawsuits, and delay of production beyond the prototype jet. In April of 2012 the Duluth, Minnesota based company announced that they had sold the company to China Aviation General Aircraft (CAIGA) and the SF50 project would continue to progress. With CAIGA being wholly owned by the People’s Republic of China, there has been concern that the manufacturing would be moved from Duluth to overseas.

    The SF50, fitted with a single Williams International FJ33-5A Fanjet, is designed to have a max cruise speed of 300 knots with a maximum operating altitude of 28,000 feet. This compact jet will seat 5 adults and 2 children. A nifty “what if” feature that comes with all Cirrus aircraft is the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS).

    The niche market seems to be appealing to current Cirrus owners looking to move up from their prop planes. There are over 500 orders placed for the SF50 jets with a majority of those being placed by current Cirrus airplane owners.


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  2. Cirrus Vision Jet​
  3. Cirrus VisionJet​
  4. Cirrus Jet​