A very short repositioning flight in the Cessna Citation Mustang from the St. Louis Lambert Airport to the Spirit of St. Louis Airport. As I taxi onto the runway for takeoff, the airport diagram is displayed on the MFD for easy reference. Once On the runway the synthetic vision shows the runway and center line stripes on the pilot Flight Display. This is so accurate that our position several feet right of the center line as seen through the windshield is accurately displayed on the PFD. The takeoff is on runway 30R and the landing at Spirit Airport is on runway 8R. Straight line distance between the two airports is only 15 nautical miles which makes for a very busy single pilot trip. As soon as I level off, ATC confirms I have Spirit in sight and I’m cleared for the visual to 8R. This was a Saturday afternoon so there isn’t much ATC radio traffic.
Tag Archives: flying the citation mustang
Citation Mustang Landing Rogers Arkansas
A beautiful day for a Cessna Mustang single pilot flight to Rogers Municipal Airport-Carter Field Arkansas. This was the day after northwest Arkansas was hit by a winter storm. I approach the airport from the east and fly a right base for a landing on runway 2. You can see lots of snow on the ground and the snow plow has cleared a narrow strip down the center of the runway. ATC and tower radio communications can be heard in the audio.
Cessna Citation Mustang Landing DFW, De-ice Boots
Flying the Cessna Citation Mustang single pilot to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and landing on runway 35C. During the climb out I picked up some clear ice on the wing leading edge. In this video you can easily see the ice breaking up and flying off the leading edge. When the deice boots are activated, they’re inflated with bleed air from the engines. The expanding rubber boot breaks the ice and it falls away into the slip stream. The ability to shed ice from the airframe is very important. Ice can accumulate rapidly on the airframe. As it does it adds weight, creates drag, and changes the shape of the wing thus reducing lift. It doesn’t take much ice to affect aircraft performance. This video shows much more of the cockpit instrument panel and you can easily see me paging through Garmin G1000 to load the Bonham Six arrival and the ILS 35C approach. I have an ipad on which I’ve loaded the Foreflight app and I’ve just started using it. We’re still required to have the NOS paper charts though. Air Traffic control communications can be heard in the 2nd half of the video.
Cessna Citation Mustang ILS approach, Landing and ATC Radio
A Short single pilot IFR flight in the Cessna Citation Mustang (CE-510). I takeoff in light rain from the St. Louis Downtown Cahokia airport (KCPS) and fly an ILS approach and landing into the Spirit of St. Louis Airport (KSUS). It’s a very short eight minute flight between the two airports. When flying Single pilot in instrument conditions, especially on short IFR flights in congested air space, the pilot work load can be extremely high. A thorough familiarity with the autopilot and avionics is a must. In situations like this the autopilot acts as your dumb copilot, faithfully flying altitude and heading while you work the radios and set up the approach. It’s important to have as much of the cockpit and avionics set up before takeoff as possible. This morning I was being vectored for the ILS 26L approach two minutes after takeoff. With two to three minutes to localizer intercept there is very little time to get set up and familiarize yourself with the approach. If you don’t have time to get setup ask for a delaying vector before accepting the approach clearance. Passing to the south of Lambert (KSTL), the approach controller gives us a vector to the right to intercept the localizer. After being handed off to spirit tower I’m cleared to land. Closer to the airport my landing clearance is revoked and the controller directs us to continue. She does this so she can launch another aircraft before we land. After the departing aircraft is rolling down the runway we are again cleared to land. This video includes Air traffic control radio communications and more of the Garmin G1000 instrument panel.