Learjet 60 vs. Citation VI & VII

[ignaciojc]

Hi everyone;

I`m interest about the operation facts of both aeroplanes in order to have first hand info anda advise my boss which one to choose.

About the Citations ... confortable but expensive to mantain

The Learjet best performance but no so confortable...

Thanks for your advise and cooperation.

The plane will be used in South America and USA.

Regards

[dboy]

I thought that the lear60 is using the same landing gear as the lj 35. In other words it needs a lot of runway to land.

For the citations i have no idea but i guess they use less runway.

[donPablo]

Too few details IMHO. Like: how many pax you plan carry, what runways and how long are the average legs...

Learjet 60 is a robust and comfortable airplane. Don't know why would you think other way.
It has APU. Not so super reliable but, if maintained by a person who has seen more than one of that type, works well. Same thing regarding the airplane itself. If pilots do not brake it by impelementing their "own" versions of checklists and use it properly, then almost only scheduled maintenace.
Depending on how many hours you plan to fly, but if 300-500/year this is a very good price-to-value airplane.

Runway... Well you can use it at 3900-4000 ft runways if not under AOC. That would be the only weak point I see.

[500 above]

Take a look at the Astra SpX/Gulfstream G100 also. A lot of aircraft for relatively little money these days.

[ignaciojc]

Thanks for the answers.

For sure the Learjet is a good option and here there are a lot of them flying.

About the landing gear is an upgrade of the lj 35 and 55.
In older post I`ve read about the mantenience of the Cessnas as a drawback, but I would like to check that info.

The plan is to fly 4/5 and plenty of luaggage to 2000 km legs.

Regards

[Booglebox]

My company operated a LJ60 for a while, and the pilots / engineers told me a few things about it, such as:
- fairly useless brakes, especially on contaminated runways (even though this one had the brake mod). Book figures apparently impossible to achieve
- really doesn't like cold temperatures - less than minus 15 is a problem. Things freeze and break either at the time, or a few days later
- taxiing can be interesting due to lack of nosewheel steering, especially when wet / icy
- thrust reversers are a bit delicate and need to be operated carefully

Otherwise, it's a solid machine and pretty reliable. However it has the same wing as the Lear 25, which weighs nearly 10000lbs less, which equals high takeoff and landing speeds, and coupled with crap brakes, that means that it can't go to many places other smallish bizjets go to e.g. Lugano, London City, Cannes, etc. because it needs loads of runway. We worked with a rough rule of thumb: less than 6500ft, check with the crew (it was on an AOC).
We did get it into Biggin Hill though.

[donPablo]

About nose steering - there is normal nose steering, so no problems with that.

Done it many times in VKO and Samedan with apron full of ice and snow and later slush, and steering was way better than my rear wheels drive car...

Only water in the toilet freezes, but that is the law below 0*C AFAIK :). That is a standard bizav crew issue to flush it before going to the hotel.
Started up from bateries even at -30c and as high as +40, haven't got any complaints from the engines.

Cannes is doable but outside of AOC, London City not and some other runways below 4000ft. Book numbers are ok for 3discs brakes which were standards after some S/N 1xx (that can be checked) or you can always make an SB and add the 3rd disc each side. First serials were 2discs.

What bothers, regarding the previous question, is luggage space. For 4/5 pax usually it is not enough to fit-in loads of stuff in the back. Internal compartment may help but as long as the crew does not pile up catering/their biggest samsonites-they-could-get in there.

I still haven't seen any reply from Cessna crews ;).

[worldoffe]

Lack of NWS? The Learjet 60 does have a NWS of course which is working pretty well actually :ok:

[winkwink]

I've got about 200 hours on both. Lear 60 likes a lot of runway, RoC incredible, but about .79 in the cruise.
C650 feels older inside, pretty average RoC and does about .83 in the cruise. In terms of reliability, our Lear won every time, but it is probably more expensive to buy. Handling and simplicity of operation, the Citation is better.

[Richard101]

The plan is to fly 4/5 and plenty of luaggage to 2000 km legs.If you are planning on taking lots of luggage then the Learjet 60 does not have a lot of capacity in its baggage compartment (in terms of volume), indeed the Lear 45 has noticeably greater baggage capacity. Alas I'm not familiar with the Citations to compare with them.

[Jwscud]

It sounds depending on budget that you want either a Lear 45 (reliable, cheap second hand) or 75 if the boss wants to splash the cash.

[ignaciojc]

Till now, the point is that the C650 has better cruise speed, more baggage space and better runway handling but is worst than the Lear in manteinence.
Anyway in my country there are more than 25 LJ 60 but just a few CIII-VI-VII. and I´m interested in knowing why.
I would like to hear more experience comments from Citations pilots.
Regards
Ignacio

[winkwink]

I'd say the reason for that is that the Citation is a much older aircraft. From memory, the Lear cabin is bigger and more comfortable and the flight deck is much more modern. The Citation looks very much older. It's a cheaper aircraft, which is why cheap owners like George Davies buy them.

[lear60fellow]

Lear 60, no questions about it, it´s the machine to buy. I´ve flown citations in the past and the lear beats all of them. Get an experienced pilot to fly with you for a couple of months and that´s it.

What has been said about maintenance forget it, never had a big issue on the lear. NWS never failed and about freezing it´s a beast, at least you don´t have to remove batteries like on falcons.
RoC, well, I´ve done 17.000ft/min on it. Expect to get FL400 in 9 minutes.
Get one with the new 3 disc brakes, those are the good ones.

BTW, if you are finally decide to buy one I know one on sale with just 1.900hrs, full uploaded, 2007 built. I can deliver that to Argentina in exchange of some Bifés !!!!!

[ignaciojc]

Thank for the update learfellow... My nickname is my hotmail, so if you like the info of the plane will be preciated...
Regards

Ignacio