What became of Cessna's FanJet 500 prototype?

Great question. If Cessna doesn’t know you may be out of luck.
Try Edward H. Phillips, he’s written a great deal about Cessna.
There is also a Kansas Aviation Musem (I don’t know what the real name is) that does a lot of work on local firms.
Also, here’s a Kansas aviation history website that has a lot of GA content that Phillips writes for:
http://www.wingsoverkansas.com

For what it’s worth, Wiki has a photo of N503CC, which someone there calls the oldest flying Citation.

One of these days, small jets will be considered historic.
Right now, few are in museums…proabably because they’re still worth something as fliers or parts.

The NASM has an early Falcon 20, one of the original FedEX planes and Pima has a nice original Lear 24 (flown in and donated by it orginal owners). And a few ex-USAF JetStars and Sabreliners have been preserved, that’s all I know of.

I beleive the Mosquito Aircraft Museum has
G-ARYC DH125 Series 1
Should be more BizJets preserved A Jetstar in this country would be nice.

No one in the US seems to know the answer to this question – even Cessna!
I’m trying to establish the oldest surviving Citation and how many prototypes there were. I’ve found no 0002.
Anyone?

Found a pic of the first prototype ‘FanJet 500’ ff 15.09.1969 N500CC
http://www.cessna.com/media_releases/n500ccFirst%20Flight.jpg

First flight of the second, now called ‘Citation 500’ 01.07.1971 N502CC
c/n 500-0001
http://rzjets.net/aircraft/?page=1&typeid=77
is today reg N715JS
http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=715JS

edit: … and a pic of N715JS http://www.airliners.net/photo/Cessna-500-Citation/0846756/M/

N500CC was the prototype 500 and first flew on 15/9/69 so if N502CC is s/n 500-0001, what was the c/n for the prototype?:confused:

The registration N500CC has since passed through a Beech A36 which was w/o and is currently on a Cessna 310.

here we have Cessna’s N500CC and what Pratt & Whitney called ‘Number 2’. But I’m not sure if that means the second aircraft built or 0002.

What is apparent is that 0002 was delivered in 1971 and 0001 the following year, in 1972, so should I be assuming that Pratt & Whitney’s ex aircraft is 0002?

Colour pic is of sn 0002, obtained from South Africa. What was its original US registration and is this P & W’s test aircraft; CF-CPW aka ‘no. 2’?

Remember, were discussing Cessna’s prototype FanJet 500. It differed significantly from production Citations so wouldn’t have been covered under the Citations type certificate.
If that’s the case, it was never sold on and re-registered.

To make an uneducated guess, it was either used as a sales or training airframe/mock-up/display, given to an aviation trade school (as is common with GA prototypes) or university for wind tunnel work, or scrapped.

here we have Cessna’s N500CC and what Pratt & Whitney called ‘Number 2’. But I’m not sure if that means the second aircraft built or 0002.

What is apparent is that 0002 was delivered in 1971 and 0001 the following year, in 1972, so should I be assuming that Pratt & Whitney’s ex aircraft is 0002?

Colour pic is of sn 0002, obtained from South Africa. What was its original US registration and is this P & W’s test aircraft; CF-CPW aka ‘no. 2’?

ZS-ONE is c/n 500-0002
No US reg known – have a look here
http://rzjets.net/aircraft/?typeid=77

pic of N502CC
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1971/1971%20-%202825.html

Is there any likelihood that the Citation Fanjet 500 prototype carried a c/n in the 6xx range that Cessna have used for many of their prototype/proof of concept aircraft – rather than a 500-xxxx c/n?

perhaps interesting:
N501CC, bt 1969, reg by Cessna 2/6/70, c/n 501-0701 or 510-0701 or 701
http://rzjets.net/aircraft/?page=14&typeid=77 p.14
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Cessna-501-Citation/0019319/L/

wiesso

It appears CF-CPW and ZS-ONE are the same aircraft. The B&W photo of CF-CPW is taken from Pratt & Whitney’s own book on their company history. They say it was later sold on to a charter company.

Do we have two Citations with c/n 500-0002 ?

I is in the Canadian Historical Register under C-FCPW, but never registered for Pratt & Whitney or United Aircraft of Canada – only for Flexi Coil Ltd., West Wind Aviation Inc. and Sky Service F.B.O. Inc.

II is the one already mentioned above in South Africa ZS-ONE

I see from the Flight Global archives, the writer, Hugh Field, said that N502CC is ‘number one off the line’. He also said there were two aircraft giving demonstrations at NBAA that year. One of them had been delivered to United Aircraft of Canada for JT15D testing. He flew in N502CC.

N502CC then must be 0001 and United Aircraft’s example, 0002; ‘ZS-ONE’. 0001 must have been used by Cessna until it was delivered in 1972, which explains why 0002 was delivered first in 1971.

Did Cessna only fly one prototype Fanjet 500? I would be amazed if Cessna only had one prototype.

N501CC has been preserved by the Smithsonian. I didn’t know that wieesso, even though it’s a very much later Citation 1/SP. That’s great. They also have the earliest surviving Lear 23. Other iconic business jets must be the Gulfstream G11, Jetstar, HS125 (of course) and arguably the Falcon 20 (or Mystere 20).

I wonder what sn, the oldest flying HS125 is.

I’ve asked Cessna about the FanJet 500 prototype but no one there seems to know much about it.

N501CC has been preserved by the Smithsonian. I didn’t know that wieesso, even though it’s a very much later Citation 1/SP.

It’s built 1969 and registered 1970!
http://rzjets.net/aircraft/?page=14&typeid=77 p.14

Flip. Now that throws a spanner in the works. I see that Citation 1/SPs ended their production run in 1985 and the last serial number was 0689!

According to the National Air & Space Museum:

CESSNA CITATION 501CC
This Cessna Citation, the second built, first flew on January 23, 1970. It spent its life as a test bed vehicle for subsequent Citation series aircraft and engines, instruments and components, systems evaluations, and icing testing and certification.

So 701 was never sold – maybe 700 is the original FanJet 500 prototype.

N500CC was cn 669.
Made its last flight in September 1976, and was later broken up. The fuselage was stored at the Wallace Division ‘bone yard’ at Wichita Mid Continent Airport, Kansas, and last noted there in February 1982.

Full Citation production list (in Excel format) is at www.airlinerlist.com:
http://www.planelist.net/cessna.zip

Regards,
David Eyre

Thanks David

Wonder what else is in that bone yard.

So we have established the origins and fates of 699 and 701. That leaves 700 (Can’t open XL). Was 700 perhaps a static test frame. Of course 701 bears little resemblance to its FanJet 500 roots as it has been consistently developed to almost production standard (1/SP).

According to http://www.avdex.co.za ZS-ONE is Serial 500-0002.
It was registered on 14 July 1997. There is no record available of what/where it was before that date.