Cessna Citation Mustang

Where it came from

Cessna announced the Mustang at the NBAA convention in 2002, at the height of the very light jet boom, when a dozen programmes were promising a jet for the price of a turboprop. Most of them never delivered an aircraft. Cessna's did. The prototype flew on 23 April 2005, the FAA certified the type on 8 September 2006 — the first very light jet to be certified — cleared it for flight into known icing on 9 November, and the first customer aircraft was handed over on 22 November 2006.

The design is deliberately conservative. A straight wing, a T-tail and the Citation family's structural tradition, two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW615F engines of 1,460 lbf each, and a Garmin G1000 glass flight deck as standard equipment. It was certified for single-pilot operation and aimed at owner-pilots as much as at charter operators, which is the reason its systems are as simple as they are.

Production ran until May 2017 and 479 aircraft were built, at which point the entry-level slot in Cessna's range passed to the M2. The Mustang being out of production is worth knowing rather than worrying about: 479 airframes is a large enough fleet that European operators, crews and parts are ordinary rather than specialist, and the type's simplicity is a large part of why it stays on the charter market.

Who charters a Mustang

Two to four people, one short leg, and a day that an airline schedule would ruin. A pair of executives to a plant visit, a family of four to the coast, a couple to a wedding two countries away. This is the aircraft that turns a five-hour door-to-door day into a two-hour one for something close to turboprop money.

The comparison usually runs three ways. Against a King Air 200 or a PC-12, the Mustang is a jet: roughly 95 km/h faster, at 41,000 ft above the weather rather than in it, with an 8,000 ft cabin where the turboprops sit nearer 10,000. It gives up their cabin volume, their cargo doors and their unpaved runways. Against the CJ1 above it you save on the hour and give up a seat, about 70 km/h and a slice of usable range. Against a Phenom 100 at the same four seats, you save again on the hour and give up cabin size, baggage and a better lavatory.

Four seats and a real four-person load

Our published 1,900 km sits between two honest calculations: Cessna's 2,130 km with four passengers and a pilot, full fuel and a 100 nm alternate, and Conklin's 1,784 km on a 200 nm alternate. Neither assumes what a charter actually looks like. Four adults with proper suitcases and sensible reserves gives a planning range of 1,300–1,650 km, and that is the number to build a trip around.

This is the type most likely to hand a client a fuel stop they did not expect, so plainly: London–Geneva at 750 km, Paris–Nice at 690 km and London–Nice at just over 1,000 km all go nonstop with four aboard. London–Ibiza at 1,450 km is at or past the honest limit and depends on the day's winds and the real weight of the bags. Geneva–Lisbon does not work. For those the answer is a CJ1 or a Phenom 100, not a longer Mustang day.

The cabin, the hold and the lavatory

2.97 m long, 1.40 m wide, 1.37 m high — the lowest cabin of any aircraft we quote. Four seats in a club, facing in pairs, plus a small refreshment area. You do not stand up: you come up the airstair and slide into a seat. For an hour that is genuinely fine, and for three hours it is the trade you have made for the price. The compensation is the same as on any 525-series jet — an 8,000 ft cabin at 41,000 ft, which is a calmer hour than a turboprop at half the altitude.

The lavatory, since nobody asks until they are on board: it is an aft belted seat with a self-contained toilet under it and a privacy curtain. Not a compartment, not externally serviced. It works if it is needed, and on a typical 60–90 minute Mustang leg it usually is not. Baggage is about 1.78 m³, generous on paper for four people, but roughly nine tenths of it is in the external tailcone hold, which is sealed once the door closes. Only a small in-cabin space is reachable in flight.

The corridors it actually flies

Realistic block times, four aboard, no fuel stop: Milan–Nice about 50 minutes, Geneva–Nice an hour, London–Paris 1 h 10, Paris–Nice 1 h 30, London–Geneva 1 h 40. At around 630 km/h the Mustang gives a little of the sector back on the longer legs — perhaps ten minutes to Geneva against a CJ1, and half an hour to Nice — while on the 200–400 km hops the difference disappears into taxi, climb and descent.

That is the shape of the type's working day: one or two short legs and home the same evening. It is the aircraft for the Riviera–Alps triangle, for the London–Paris–Geneva corner of Europe, and for the trips where four people and a schedule matter more than range. What it is not is a Mediterranean-crossing aircraft with the cabin full, and any broker who quotes it as one has not done the weight sheet.

What moves the price

From about €2,400 per flight hour, the lowest jet rate we quote. On sectors this short, almost everything except the hourly rate decides the total.

Positioning comes first. A 50-minute Milan–Nice trip flown by an aircraft based in Munich carries two empty legs longer than the flight you booked. Ask where the aircraft is, not only what the hour costs — a same-day return, or a departure from an airport where a Mustang is already parked, moves the quote further than any negotiation on the rate.

Then crew duty: two pilots, and a long day with a late return can trigger a night stop. Then the calendar — Nice, Geneva and Olbia in season, the Alps at half-term, Cannes in May. Landing, parking and handling fees are a much larger share of a Mustang quote than of a heavy jet's, simply because there are fewer flight hours to spread them across. Every trip is priced individually.