![]() There’s a good, engineering-based explanation for the Vision Jet’s huge windows. A whimsical thought took me back to Willy Wonka and his glass elevator, though some intermittent turbulence quickly brought me back to reality. With vistas at every angle, I really had never been able to see so much from an aeroplane cabin before. But once we gained some altitude, the little plane steadied, and I marvelled at how much I could see from the Vision Jet’s signature oversized windows. I’d recently seen the movie Sully, starring Tom Hanks and a white, pencil-thin moustache. Our initial destination: The Hudson River, where we could get an unparalleled aerial view of Manhattan. Now, I was starting to get nervous about flying in a brand new plane built by this company I’d never heard of. Before my flight, I sat down with Ben Kowalski, vice president of marketing and communications for Cirrus, who took me through a couple of dozen slides, explaining everything from the company’s founding in a Wisconsin barn to the invention of a ballistic parachute that guides Cirrus aircraft safely to the ground in the event of a catastrophic equipment failure. In other words, the pilot has to take off and land. They will still have to go through the process of earning a pilot’s licence to abide by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations in the US and Civil Aviation Regulations in Australia, but after that, the Vision Jet essentially flies itself in the air. Not only does the company want its customers to avoid the hassle and expense of employing two pilots to travel Cirrus actually wants the jet’s owners to learn how to fly with minimal training. Oh, also, the aircraft is designed to be piloted by you, so that adds extra fun to your $2.7 million investment.Īside from the price point, what really sets the Cirrus Vision Jet apart is its promise to be a personal aircraft. And based on your option package, you could also install a bathroom in the Vision Jet’s cabin, just in case you need to relieve yourself along the way. In fact, you could fly from Newark to Miami in a Vision Jet (barely) without touching down. With a maximum cruise speed of 300 knots (555km/h) and a range of 1850km, the aircraft is hardly a puddle jumper. Unlike prop planes that have speed and altitude limitations, the Vision Jet is capable of cross country flights, albeit with a few stops. ![]() Me, I feel like I splurged when I bought a new bicycle for $930.īut this jet is next-level. Cirrus told me that the company hopes to attract customers that don’t want to spend eight figures on a private jet but also want something more sophisticated and versatile than a prop plane. Well, “affordable” in the sense that Learjet’s newest, most modern aircraft costs over $US20 million ($27 million). With a price tag of just under $US2 million ($2.7 million), the Vision Jet is not only the smallest jet on the market, it’s also the most affordable. ![]() It’s supposed to be supremely safe, exceptionally easy-to-fly for a single pilot, and generally futuristic. That’s how the Cirrus Vision Jet is designed. I didn’t even consider the idea that we might crash. “It’s a lot like Flight Simulator 2000.” And it was, except we were in an actual jet - the world’s newest and smallest, in fact - soaring thousands of feet above the Atlantic Ocean, very much flying. “Now try to stay inside the boxes,” the pilot said, pointing at a touchscreen in the cockpit. I clutched it, pulled back, and felt the jet climb. To my left, there was a joystick, roughly the same size and dimension as my favourite ’90s arcade game, After Burner. ![]() ![]() Somewhere over the Hamptons, the pilot told me to take the controls.
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