Very Light Jet Magazine

VLJM: Very Light Jet Magazine is here with Dale Klapmeier, Co-founder and Vice Chairman of Cirrus Design. Dale, tell us about building on the incredible success of the SR-22 and your decision to go into the VLJ arena.
DALE KLAPMEIER: Well, actually, that is the best way to put it - building on the SR-22. And that is why we're going into the jet market. It is interesting that there is all of this excitement in the development of small jets now.

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This industry has always followed the engine development. We design airplanes around engines. We tell our engine suppliers we want an engine that will do this mission because of market need. Without an engine you can't have an aircraft. We now have small, light and efficient jet engines for the first time ever, so that's why there's so many airplanes coming out in this arena.

We see our airplane not as a VLJ - we're calling it a personal jet or The-Jet by Cirrus because we're looking at it completely differently. We're not going to build a small jet - we're going to build a bigger, more comfortable, faster, farther range, greater distance and power airplane that just happens to have a jet engine. We're building on the SR-22 and we're building what our customers now want and that is to move up to the next level.

They want to carry more, faster, and farther than what you now can with the current airplane. We're not looking at, "How do you take a jet and do what jets have done in the past?" but, "How do you create the product that our customers want next, and it will have a jet engine?" Or - it's the propeller driven airplane that just has a whole bunch of short little propellers.

Thank you for your time and participation in Very light Jet Magazine. How can our readers go on the web and find you guys to find out more?
They can go on the web to www.cirrusdesign.com. We're not telling people much about the airplane but that we're building on the SR-22, and that's a good way to put it. We're not putting out specs, timelines or costs specifically, now, because the one thing we can offer is a jet or a product that will have great value. That's our goal - to make sure that our customers get great value. We're not telling anything other than that it's going to be really cool!

Dale, we're all looking forward to the Cirrus Jet. Thank you!
Thank you.