Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in Volume 7 of B.H. Magazine, order your copy now.
Cirrus has never been interested in building aircraft for people who treat flying as a commute.
The Vision Jet was designed for owner-operators, business elites, entrepreneurs, the time-poor and the pathologically impatient, aimed at clients who want to skip the terminal, file a flight plan from their phone, and be wheels-up before their associates have made it through security.
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Having built over 700 of their pioneering Vision jets to date, the third generation focuses on room and refinement.
The headline change is inside the cabin, which now seats seven occupants – six adults and one child – courtesy of a new third-row bench. The middle and rear seats remain fully modular – strip them out, and you've got a pressurised cargo hold for golf bags, ski gear or a questionable amount of duty-free.
The seats themselves are re-bolstered with refined ergonomics across the headrest, armrests and knee area, each hardshell seatback hand-wrapped in Alcantara. It's a cabin that confidently says money without needing to say another word about it.
Up front, pilot and co-pilot seats adjust to their full aft range one-handed, and every passenger gets a personal device mount tucked behind a carbon fibre cover – because even at its ceiling of FL280, someone's going to need to check their portfolio.
On the flight deck, Cirrus's Perspective Touch+ avionics pick up a suite of workload-slashing upgrades. ATC Datalink lets pilots text air traffic control directly, so that route changes and altitude assignments are delivered without the radio pantomime. Alerts-Linked Checklists surface the relevant procedure the moment a caution pops. Automatic database updates keep navigation data current without the pilot lifting a finger, and 3D SafeTaxi paints unfamiliar airport surfaces in enough detail to make you wonder why cars still cannot manage a roundabout.
Then there's the ramp presence. New Cirrus Spectra wingtip and landing lights are 2.7 times brighter than before, crowned by a signature halo light that makes the G3 unmistakable at dusk.
Oh, and if everything goes sideways? A whole-airframe parachute will literally catch you if all else fails, or if you cark it behind the controls, the Safe Return Emergency Autoland will fly the thing to the nearest runway without you. The signature Cirrus promise, from US$3.68 million (~AU$5.3 million).