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Owner’s
Five Years Later
by Marc Dulude, Owner-Pilot
Corner
Five years ago, I wrote an article in the August 2017 issue of Twin & Turbine where I described the
process that led to my taking deliv- ery of the 2000th Citation Jet built, a Citation CJ3+. In that article, I noted the enjoyment I get from conducting very detailed comparisons of aircraft candidates, and the one I did before deciding on the CJ3+ was very com- prehensive. Now, with five years of operating experience, I wanted to re- visit the analysis and provide some ad- ditional information that I hope might prove helpful for others considering the purchase of the highest level of single-pilot operated aircraft.
One of the critical reasons I had chosen the Citation CJ3+ over competing aircraft was the tremendous
support and interest I had received from Cessna, part of Textron Aviation. At every stage of the investigative process prior to making a decision, Cessna was incredibly responsive to my questions and open to additional visits and questions. In the 2017 article, I also highlighted Cessna’s fervent desire that I visit often during the production stage – something that I did several times. Of course, one of the fears might have been that Cessna would change its responsiveness once the purchase was complete. Nothing could be further from the reality that I experienced. Cessna has built their business model around being highly responsive to their customers, and I knew that help was never more than a phone call or email away. As I write
PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL BOWEN
this article, I cannot think of a single time that I was truly AOG (Aircraft on Ground) with my CJ3+, but I did have a few times when I wanted to better understand something that had happened and the Cessna resources were immediately brought to bear to investigate to resolution.
Another key criterion for choosing the CJ3+ was that the core avionics panel is the Garmin G3000. In my view, the G3000 and the G1000 NXi are the most capable avionics panels available in the general aviation world today, and I wanted to ensure that this was the system with which I interacted every f light. Garmin has proven exceptionally receptive to input, which has led them to also be the industry’s innovation leader – exactly the kind
April 2022 / TWIN & TURBINE • 27