Cirrus Vision Jet SF50 (G1/G2/G2+)

The Vision Jet is not a small light jet. It is a large high-performance single, designed for the SR22 owner who wanted to go faster and higher without hiring a pilot. Everything follows from that: one engine, one pilot, a cabin you step into rather than climb through, and side-yoke controls that feel like the piston Cirrus it replaces.

Cirrus has delivered more than 500 since 2016, which makes it the best-selling civilian jet by unit volume in most recent years. The transition from an SR22 is the shortest of any jet on the market, and Cirrus built a training pipeline around exactly that path.

CAPS, the whole-airframe parachute, is standard and no other jet has it. Be precise about what it changes: it does not protect against pilot error, and it has an altitude and speed envelope outside which it will not save the aircraft. What it does is give a single-engine jet an answer to the question a single-engine jet otherwise cannot answer, which is what happens if the engine stops over terrain, at night, or in cloud. For a buyer weighing this against a used twin-engine VLJ, that answer often matters more than the second engine, because a light twin jet's second engine brings its own handling demands at exactly the moment things go wrong.

The G1-to-G2 step shows in both price and capability. A G1 is a real aeroplane and priced accordingly; it simply does less, and FL280 puts it in more weather and more traffic than FL310 does.

311 KTAS at about 66 gallons an hour, and it is worth knowing where that number comes from. A widely-repeated "50 gph" figure does not belong to any regime this aircraft actually flies. AOPA's flight report records 70 gph at FL280 and 64 gph at FL310. Plan on the mid-60s.

The 1,200 nm range belongs to a pilot flying alone. With four aboard and bags it is nearer 860 nm still-air, and less against a wind — plan a fuel stop on a transcontinental leg. See Payload-Range Dynamics for the full arithmetic.

Runway is the honest limitation: budget 3,200 ft over a 50 ft obstacle at max gross, more when hot or high. Despite the single engine this is not a short-field aeroplane, and it rules out many of the small fields an SR22 owner is used to.

This is the calculation to run before anything else on this page matters.

Useful load is 2,450 lb (6,000 lb max gross less 3,550 lb empty). Full fuel is 296 gallons, or 1,983 lb — which means full fuel leaves 467 lb of payload. Two adults and almost nothing else.

The aircraft has seven seats. It does not have seven seats' worth of payload and fuel at the same time, and the aft two are child seats rather than full adult positions.

Adults counted at 200 lb, children at 80 lb, 45-minute IFR reserve held back at cruise burn.

Those ranges are still-air and optimistic. They take no account of the climb to FL310, which burns well above the cruise rate, nor of wind. Plan shorter.

The practical shape of the aircraft: four people and bags on a 700-850 nm leg is the mission it flies well. A full cabin is a short-leg configuration, and the 1,200 nm headline number belongs to a pilot flying alone.

Business travel (9) is what it is for: 600-900 nm legs, above most weather, flown single-pilot by the owner without the scheduling and cost of a crew.

Cross-country (8) for the same reasons, with the caveat that a full cabin shortens the legs materially.

Local fun flying (3) is a poor fit. It is expensive per hour and needs real runway.

Flight training (1), aerobatics (1) and backcountry (1) are not this aircraft.

Cargo (2) is limited: a jet cabin with an air-stair door is not a freight platform, and full fuel leaves only 467 lb of payload.

Garmin Perspective Touch, G3000-based, from the outset. That is a large part of why the SR22 transition is manageable, because the logic and philosophy carry over directly.

Safe Return emergency autoland appeared late in the G2 run and is standard on G2+. It lands the aircraft without pilot input at the press of a button. Whether that changes your risk calculus is personal, but it changes the insurance conversation and the conversation with the family.

Autothrottle from G2 onward materially reduces single-pilot workload in the flight levels, and is the single feature most worth paying up for.

A young, tightly-controlled type with very little aftermarket. The meaningful upgrades are factory service bulletins and Cirrus-approved avionics updates rather than third-party STCs.

That cuts both ways: less opportunity to personalise, and far less risk of buying somebody else's poorly-executed modification.

Cirrus JetStream is the normal way to own one, and it is not an engine programme. It covers the Williams engine via TAP Blue, the CAPS overhaul, annual recurrent training for one pilot, and both scheduled and unscheduled airframe and avionics work including parts and labour.

It is priced at roughly $58,000 a year plus $450 a flight hour, bought as prepaid blocks with a minimum of 150 hours. Unused hours do not roll over, so flying less than the block does not cost less.

Service is through Cirrus-authorised Vision Jet centres rather than any turbine shop, which is the practical limit on where you can base it. Know where your nearest centre is before you buy.

JetStream enrolment is the single largest swing factor, both in what the aircraft costs to run and what it is worth when you sell. Get its status in writing.

Generation drives price more than hours do. A G2 with autothrottle and the FL310 ceiling commands a clear premium over a G1, and Safe Return adds again.

CAPS repack status is a real dollar item at resale: an aircraft approaching its repack is worth less by roughly the cost of that repack.

Low total time matters less here than on a piston, because the engine is on programme and the airframe is young.

Early G1 ceiling. FL280 costs real range and puts the aircraft in more weather than the FL310 aircraft.

CAPS service life. The parachute requires periodic repack and component replacement, and it is neither cheap nor optional. Check currency and budget for the next one. The JetStream programme covers it; ownership outside that programme does not.

Runway requirement, as above, disqualifies some home fields entirely.

Range with a full cabin is materially less than the headline figure.

The line that moves most with the pilot rather than the aircraft. A low-time owner transitioning from a piston is quoted very differently from an experienced one, and some underwriters require a mentor programme for the first season. Expect it, budget for it, and treat it as cheap.

Single-engine and single-pilot keeps hull rates below the twin-engine VLJs at similar value, and the parachute is viewed favourably by underwriters.