The Cheyenne 400 can. It holds many altitude, time to climb, and speed records. Normally it does not fly at FL410. The best TAS are around FL300. The same is true for the VLJ's.

Consider the C-441 Conquest II. It's faster and the range is better that the King. I used to fly from KFRG (NY) to F45 (FL) in 3.5 hrs. Not a bad deal for a Turbo Prop. Max Alt is 33K....

Here's a fairly opinionated critique of Eclipse:

http://eclipseaviationcritic.blogspot.com/

Grain of salt necessary, but an interesting read.

If you want an actual jet at low cost you can get an older citation and then there is a modification they do in braketville tx that pretty much zero's it out. All you have to do is buy they jet then send it to them. For about 1.2mil they will add new baggage compartments. New engines. Pull the wings and completely redo them. New glass cockpit ect. So if you see an old citation laying around just take the price of it and add 1.2mil to it and that's what you could basically have price wise for a new jet. Operating cost would be nice and low as well as the value of the aircraft shoots up.

As far as what you're wanting you should list some more details. How many people would you like to carry, how far would you like to go, how much baggage ect and also how tall you are.

I fly a Merlin IIIB and it will fly faster further and more efficiently than a Kingair. You can put 9 people plus baggage on it. You don't need a type rating to fly that one because it's at 12500lbs. Now you can put over 14k on it illegally because the only difference between the 12.5k and bigger one is the brake pads. However as stated it's illegal so don't do it :) It has 2k horsepower is extremely quiet on the inside and burns around 600lbs an hour. My boss paid 699k for his and it cost around $750 an hour to operate.

Or you could go with a Cheyenne with some nice PT-6 engines or a jet-prop moves nice and fast with low operating cost.

I would look at the Epic LT, it does like 350knts max and is a single, burns 50 or 60 gallons an hour last time I checked.

other than that I would personally go for the Cheyenne 400LS or the Kingair 300 (not the 350) becuase it's going to be cheaper to buy upfront and only has 2 less seats.

oh btw, I heard someone got an STC for the -400 to put on 5 blade hatzels and are pulling way over 400knts in it.

pretty crazy with 3,200hp at your disposal.

but if you can afford a 350, just go for the avanti, it'll perform like no other.

thanks boys, looks like i've got some research to do. appreciate the insight :)

My advice: don't be the first customer of an aircraft. Don't ever buy the "A" model of anything. Later models are better versions of the original. Go with something tried and true.

I'll second that, when it comes to Eclipse or any VLJ. but the light jets are preety much run out as far as bugs go.

I was looking around alittle more and found the SJ-302

560mph

2,500 miles

single pilot operated

mach .83 high speed cruise and .78 long range

95 gallons an hour at long rnage cruise.

49,000ft celing

and it's under 12,500 pounds

about the early on crash, the pilot was pushing mach .91 which is way over what it was designed to do.

I would buy one.