Cessna Makes TAWS Service Bulletins Available For Legacy Citations

Cessna Aircraft Company last week announced it has released Class A Terrain Awareness and Warning System (TAWS) Service Bulletins covering a large portion of its Citation fleet. According to Cessna, complying with its bulletins “provide the flight crew with aural and visual alerts to unintended approach to terrain. By incorporating airspeed attitude, crew response time, current flight stage and many other factors, it provides additional crew situational awareness.” Covered by the new Service Bulletins are the 525 Citation CJ Mark V and Mark VIII models, the 550 Citation Bravo Mark VII and VIII, the 560 Citation Ultra Mark VIII, the 550 Citation II Mark VIII and the 650 Citation VII. Cessna says new Service Bulletins for Sandel Class A and Class B solutions will be available in October. According to Cessna, the FAA has issued its final report on the forthcoming TAWS mandate, which goes into effect March 29, 2005. The FAA’s final rule on TAWS established two classes of related equipment: Class A systems, which apply to all Part 121 and 135 operations with aircraft configured with at least 10 passenger seats; and Class B systems, which apply to all Part 91 operators, for aircraft having six or more passenger seats, and Part 135 operators with six to nine passenger seats. The TAWS technology is designed to replaced existing ground proximity warning systems (GPWS) and includes the GPWS functionalities but adds premature descent alerts (PDA) and forward looking terrain avoidance (FLTA). For more information on Cessnas Citation TAWS program, e-mail [email protected].