Cessna may be seeing the result of new entrants into the small bussiness jet market like:
Sino Swearingen (SJ-31)
Eclipse Aviation (500)
Adam Aircraft (A700)
Safire Aircraft (Safire Jet)
and a new turboprop from Epic Aviation (Epic LT) that's as fast as a Citation II.
Add the new Hondajet to the list of competition also.
Fast doesn't count in the world of business aviation, range does (and aircraft manufacturers routinely post numbers on range that are, um, somewhat suspect).
Also, none of the other planes that you mentioned is certified. Cessna, on the other hand, has planes available today.
You mean SJ-30. Typo? Not a direct competitor with Cessna, except the CJ1; notably faster; not yet certified (1986 original design), no manufacturing plant in place. Not quite vaporware, but not quite real; about 150 orders in the book, I think. Well funded by Taiwanese investors (that's the "Sino") in the name.
Neither Vern Raburn nor Jack Pelton see direct competition. Cessna's smallest jet, the Mustang, is about 1.8x the cost of an Eclipse. And Raburn has defined his market as people who do not use general aviation now. Cessna's Citation Mustang market is the pilot/owner moving up from a piston twin or turboprop single.
I am losing a steak dinner bet on this one being certified by 12/31/05. Ain't gonna happen. In fact, the A500 is dragging. I believe that they will ultimately pull it off, at least as far as the 500 goes. As fuel prices rise the 700 looks worse and worse.
Well, that's what the sales literature says. Are you aware that it's supposed to be an amateur-built kit aircraft? FAA has said they will not be certifying it in the amateur built category, which makes it difficult to, like, use. (Not to mention, even amateur-built experimentals, the ones least restricted, can't be used for hire, like as air taxis, a huge market for this class of plane). Epic's reaction, which you can see on their website here, is to make a 4-seat version. (The FAA seems to be conjuring up new prohibitions on experimentals with more than four seats, and/or turbojet power).
FAA has advised Epic to get a type certificate; Epic does not have the half-billion dollars it costs these days to jump through the FAA's endlessly moving array of certification hoops, a process that takes a minimum of three years.
And the underlying premise of the main article, which might have been true in 2003 doesn't seem so. Textron had their conference call today. Cessna forecasts 245 bizjet deliveries in CY 05 and 290 in FY 06. Fifty of the new planes will be the new Citation Mustang (some of which probably would have been CJ1 orders if there was no Mustang).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F