Development
The mock-up of the Citation Columbus's cabin was first shown at the Paris Air Show in 2007. Unveiled on February 6, 2008, development of the largest Citation was first revealed at the 2006 National Business Aviation Association convention as the Large Cabin Concept, or LCC. The Columbus had a target range of 4,000 nmi (7,408 km) with 8 passengers. Cessna had announced partnerships with Spirit AeroSystems for the fuselage, Pratt & Whitney Canada for PW810C turbofan engines, and Rockwell Collins for avionics.
On 29 April 2009 Cessna announced that it was suspending the Citation Columbus program, but indicated at that time that the program might be restarted once economic conditions improved. The company also indicated that it would lay off 1,600 workers, including up to 700 workers from the Columbus program. On July 10, 2009 Cessna announced the cancellation of the program in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Pratt & Whitney also announced the development of the PW810C engines for the Columbus had been halted. The company said "Upon additional analysis of the business jet market related to this product offering, we decided to formally cancel further development of the Citation Columbus". Cessna's parent company, Textron will write-off US$43 million as a results of the cancellation. The SEC-filed documents indicate that Cessna spent approximately US$50 million on tooling, facilities and other costs for the project. Most of these costs are unrecoverable and cannot be used for other projects.
The Columbus was intended to have the largest displays available. The cockpit would have featured a synthetic vision system, autothrottles, optional head-up display and Collins' MultiScan weather radar with optional windshear prediction.
On 11 July 2009 Cessna announced that it would return US$10M to the City of Wichita and Sedgwick County. The money was received as an economic incentive for developing the aircraft in Wichita and was part of $70M in cash assistance and tax breaks received from those two governments.
Read more about this topic: Cessna Citation Columbus
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