With three conforming Vision SF50 single-engine jets logging time for the certification flight-test program, Cirrus Aircraft is on track for first delivery by year-end. “The program is coming along really well,” said Matt Bergwall, Vision SF50 product line manager. Conforming prototype C1 is finishing natural-icing testing, and any additional flight-into-known-icing tests can be done on the ground so that full known-icing capability will be included with type certification. C2 is undergoing systems testing and will have a production interior installed in July.

Another key milestone is the Vision’s Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (Caps). Cirrus has dropped more than fifty 6,000-pound cylinders to test the Caps for the SF50. “We’re fine-tuning the design,” he said. An in-flight deployment is planned this summer using C1, and the parachute will be jettisoned after the deployment, as was done during testing of the SR20/22 piston series.

Assembly of the first production airframe—P1—is under way, with composite components made at Cirrus’s facility in Grand Forks, N.D., flowing to the assembly line in Duluth, Minn. Cirrus has orders for more than 550 of the $1.96 million (2012 $) jets, which are powered by a Williams International FJ33-5A producing 1,800 pounds of thrust and feature a touchscreen-controlled Garmin G3000-based avionics suite. “There are a still a lot of position holders from way back,” Bergwall said. “We originally announced it in 2007, and for more than eight years or so they were right with us in the darkest of times. We’re anxiously awaiting getting these aircraft in customers’ hands.”