Amid industry chatter that it is planning to offer a large-cabin jet to the business aviation market, Textron Aviation’s Cessna Citation division has been quiet about future products, including the next jet in the lineup, the Longitude. Recent news reports suggest that there might be a follow-on to the Longitude, but there is also speculation that the Longitude itself might be subject to a redesign.

The information available from Textron Aviation about the Longitude puts it in a class with aircraft such as the Challenger 650, Legacy 650 and Falcon 2000LX. The Longitude’s anticipated performance is close to that of the Falcon 2000LX, but the heavier Longitude has a longer cabin and will likely have more cabin volume. However, where the Longitude comes up short compared with these jets is in its 77-cabin width. All have flat-floor cabins, which are becoming more popular.

These differences raise an interesting question, and that is whether Textron Aviation leadership and designers are rethinking the Longitude’s cabin dimensions or what a new jet larger than the Longitude might look like. A May 11 BloombergBusiness article quoted Textron CEO Scott Donnelly saying that a Textron Aviation team is working on such a product. While this sounds intriguing, aircraft manufacturers are always evaluating future products years ahead of launch and entry-into-service dates, so this comes as no big surprise. Asked about these plans, a Textron Aviation spokeswoman declined to comment.

Cessna’s Citation division has always been conservative, basing many new models on earlier airplanes. The Longitude follows this strategy, building on the Latitude’s new flat-floor fuselage (which is wider than that of previous Citations) and offering significantly longer range and more speed without having to design a clean-sheet airplane. The Latitude’s performance turned out to be far better than originally promised, too, and this could be the case with the Longitude.

Cessna made a brief foray into the large-cabin market with the cancelled Columbus program, which was launched in early 2008 under the previous leadership. The Columbus would have been Cessna’s first “hybrid” fly-by-wire airplane, with some flight controls employing FBW. Range was projected at 4,000 nm at Mach .80, with seating for up to 10 passengers. Cabin height was 6.1 feet, width 6.8 feet (roughly the same as the Latitude/Longitude) and length 36.3 feet. The program was cancelled in July 2009.

Given the trends in large-cabin jets, one would expect a new Citation model to expand on the cabin interior dimensions of the Latitude/Longitude and Columbus. It is unlikely that the Columbus design offers much to contribute to that effort, although it is interesting to note that the Longitude will have fly-by-wire rudder, spoilers and brakes, the same FBW systems planned for the Columbus.