1979 Cessna 501 Citation I/SP en Venta (N98AV)

Vendido

Disponibles ahora: 2001 Citation Bravo — $2,300,000

Especificaciones de la Aeronave

Precio Solicitado

Vendido

Year

1979

Model

Cessna 501 Citation I/SP

Registration

N98AV

Notas del consultor

The short version

A 1979 Cessna 501 Citation I/SP, registration N98AV. Two Pratt & Whitney Canada JT15D engines, CE-500 type rating with single-pilot authorisation.

This aircraft has been sold. What follows is about the 501 — the single-pilot Citation I — and about the specific reason people buy it, which is the ambition to fly their own jet.

What the 501 was built to do

Cessna certified the 501 for single-pilot operation, and in doing so created something that had not really existed before: a jet an owner could reasonably fly themselves.

That is still the entire proposition. If you want a two-crew aircraft, the 500 does the same job and there are more of them. The 501 exists for the owner-pilot, and everything worth knowing about it follows from that.

The gate is not the certification. It is the insurance.

This is the paragraph to read twice, because it is where the plan most often stops.

Single-pilot operation of a 501 requires the CE-500 type rating with the single-pilot authorisation. That is a training question with a known cost and a known timeline, and a motivated pilot clears it.

The insurance is a different matter, and it is not in your control. Underwriters decide what they will write based on total time, multi-engine time, time in type, instrument currency and recurrent training. A pilot moving into their first jet with modest total time is frequently quoted a requirement to fly with a qualified mentor pilot for a stated period — often a year, sometimes longer — or a two-crew requirement outright.

If that happens, the aircraft still flies. But the reason you bought this variant rather than a 500 has been deferred, and you are paying a second pilot in the meantime.

So the sequence that works is: get a written insurance quote for the specific pilot, for the specific aircraft, before you make an offer. Brokers arrange this in days. It costs nothing and it is the single most useful thing a first-time jet buyer can do.

Flying it alone is a real workload

Insurance aside, single-pilot jet operation deserves honesty.

A Citation is not difficult to fly. What is demanding is doing everything alone in a fast aircraft in weather: managing the radios, the descent, the approach briefing and the aircraft simultaneously, with less time to think than a turboprop gives you. Pilots who do it well tend to be organised, current, and disciplined about personal minimums.

Two things make a large practical difference. Modern avionics — a WAAS navigator, a good moving map and datalink weather — reduce single-pilot workload more than any other equipment change, and many aircraft of this vintage have been retrofitted. Recurrent training every year, in a simulator, is what keeps the operation safe when something fails on a bad day.

Both are costs. Both belong in the budget from the start rather than as things to add later.

The economics, briefly

The 501 sits at the bottom of the jet market by acquisition price. The operating costs do not sit at the bottom in proportion.

Insurance for a single-pilot jet operation is a meaningful annual number, particularly in the first years. Recurrent training is annual. Hangarage, inspections and engine reserves cost what they cost regardless of what you paid. On a forty-plus-year-old airframe an hourly engine programme is usually absent, so the next hot section or overhaul is a single invoice that can approach the purchase price.

None of that makes the aircraft a bad idea. It makes it an aircraft to buy with a reserve rather than with the last of the budget.

What to verify on any 501

A written insurance quote for your pilot. First. Everything else is conditional on it.

That the aircraft is genuinely a 501 and not a 500 being described loosely. The single-pilot certification is the reason for the premium; confirm it from the serial number and the paperwork.

Engine hours since new, position against intervals, and programme status.

Corrosion and basing history. At this vintage, storage matters far more than hours.

What is actually in the panel — make and model, ADS-B Out and RVSM certification status, and whether the navigator is WAAS-capable. For single-pilot IFR this is not a luxury question.

Inspection status, as the actual report with dates and hours.

Damage history and title, in writing, plus an independent search.

A pre-purchase inspection at a facility you choose. Not the seller's suggestion — and that applies to whoever publishes the listing, us included.

Who the 501 suits

An owner-pilot with the hours, the currency and the discipline for single-pilot jet operation — or the willingness to fly with a mentor while building them. Someone flying one- to two-hour legs from airports where runway length rules out larger equipment. A buyer whose budget covers the operating year, training included.

Who it does not suit

Anyone whose plan depends on flying it alone from day one without having confirmed that with an underwriter. Anyone who flies too few hours a year to stay genuinely current — in single-pilot jet operation, currency is not a formality. And anyone who needs range.

What is currently available

The aircraft listed on this site today is a 2001 Citation Bravo, serial number 550-0995, with PW530A engines on Power Advantage+ with full coverage, a Honeywell Primus 1000 panel and Universal UNS-1K FMS.

It is a two-crew aircraft, so it does not serve the owner-pilot ambition directly — worth saying plainly rather than steering you toward what happens to be in stock. Its full specification and assessment are on its own page.

Further aircraft are due into inventory. If single-pilot operation is the requirement, say so when enquiring, and say what your total time and time in type are — that determines what an underwriter will allow, which determines which aircraft are actually worth looking at.