Inside a cavernous building on the Textron Aviation East Campus, a team of workers is putting together what will be the assembly line for the company’s biggest Cessna business jet so far, the Citation Longitude.
The $23.9 million, revamped super–midsize business jet was unveiled in November at the National Business Aviation Association Convention in Las Vegas. The Longitude, with a range of 3,400 nautical miles, also will be the first Cessna manufactured in a Beechcraft plant.
Officials said the decision to produce the Longitude in east Wichita came down to availability of space. And with Beechcraft no longer producing business jets – it shelved the Hawker 4000 and Premier business jets after emerging from bankruptcy in 2012 and before it was acquired by Textron in 2014 – it had the space on the east campus to do so.
This article originally posted on Kansas.com.