At the Singapore Airshow 2024, Textron Aviation displayed four of its popular aircraft variants at display. To understand more about these aircraft and discuss on various aspects, Aviation World Team met two senior management of Textron Aviation, Jimmy Beeson, Director, Technical Marketing & Tony Jones, Vice-President Sales – APAC. They shared their insight with Vishal Kashyap, Managing Editor of the publication.Excerpts… Q: We would like to know more about the current market status of Textron Aviation and also if you would like to focus upon any particular aircraft that is being quite famous in the APAC region? Jimmy Beeson: From a company standpoint, I’ll say we were always among the leaders in the market in terms of innovation and producing products to meet the needs of various customers throughout the world. And I think that’s a great lead into the second part of your question of what products appeal to this market. I think four of them we have on static at SAS 2024 to show, but certainly it doesn’t stop there. King Air Family Look at the King Air platform, which we’re now celebrating 60 years of the King Air and how durable and reliable that platform is. But also, you know, I think it’s a great opportunity to be able to see that how configurable it is for a multitude of missions. So, when I look at configuring not only from an interior standpoint to meet the customer specifications and needs in terms of how many customers I can take, what sort of baggage and payload capacity I need to have on the airplane, but also a platform that is versatile in how you operate it in terms of being able to operate on and off runway. So, that makes it very popular in areas of the world. Where, either you’re trying to operate in and out of short runways, high altitude runways, or potentially dirt, grass, and gravel runways as well. So, that makes it appealing to customers all over the world. Then you take the 360, for instance, and its high payload capability. It’s got a very high full fuel payload of over 1,500 pounds, meaning I can fill the tanks and still put either 1,500 pounds of payload or roughly seven or eight passengers onboard and still maintain that great range that the King Air 360 can do. And then I look at the King Air 260,that still maintains the great durability and reliability, but also has the ability to either take large amounts of payload, or passengers, or loiter and stay in the air for a great amount of time. Those are all great characteristics of the King Air platform that’s made it so successful over the last 60 years. The 360 and 260 platforms were also bringing about change to the King Air. The product line, which I’m sure you’re probably very familiar with at this point, the auto throttles, the digital pressurization, electric ground cooling, and the beautiful new interior. So, you’re starting to see a lot of that step change that you see on even some of the citations with the new interior making its way into the King Air platforms as well. Citation Jet Series The two CJ series have done very well in the market. The M2 is the smaller of the two. It’s our light entry jet. It’s got great performance and great operating economics, so it’s very efficient to operate both from a fuel burn standpoint and cost of operation standpoint. What I feel makes it attractive in markets such as this is its performance capability. So, it has great range, great payload range, meaning it can maintain a large percentage of its range when you’re adding payload, albeit passengers or payload, to the platform. But it’s got great short field performance. So, both on standard days and high and odd performance, so high elevation, warm temperatures, it maintains great short field performance, which makes it available and capable of performing in and out of a lot of airports that some other jets just simply can’t. CJ-4, much of the same, great operating economics, even better payload to range capability. You’re talking about an airplane that with four passengers on board can go over 1,900 nautical miles. Even with eight passengers on board, it can go almost 17. So, you don’t have that steep drop off in operating range when adding payload. And then you maintain a lot of those light jet capabilities, the great field performance, the great operating economics. Those are all things that you don’t lose by stepping up into the larger CJ. You just maintain all that great operational characteristics. Citation Latitude Lastly, the Latitude, which is an aircraft we have done a great job of positioning as both a commercial option but also a great charter or corporate flight department option. It’s very comfortable. Its cabin amenities are well-appointed, but it maintains great operating economics, short field performance. It’s got the latest in Garmin G5000 technology, which makes it very pilot-friendly and very intuitive and easy to operate. It allows our pilots to just aviate and operate the airplane rather than worry about knobs and switches. And control. So, really building on a legacy of the Citation brand and the Citation family, culminating in the newer aircraft such as Latitude and Longitude. Longitude being our flagship aircraft, it’s got an almost 3,500 nautical mile range and great payload and great cabin technology, great cockpit technology. It also has the G5000 suite in it with an optional HUD EVS now, enhanced vision system. It’s got a heads-up display integrated. Q: Your focus is on enhancement of technology and onboard facility for all the category of business Jets. Is this one of the key areas that you have improvised? Jimmy Beeson: Well, I guess more so, I think the message now is rather than a sole focus on improvements to legacy or clean sheet designs, we found a proper mix where we continue
