Cirrus Aircraft announced today it will locate a $15 million customer experience center, called the "Vision Center," at at the McGhee Tyson Airport near Alcoa, Tenn.
The center, which will employ 170 workers, will become the flagship location for sales, delivery, training, maintenance, support, personalization, fixed base operations and more for all Cirrus airplanes, including the Vision SF50 single-engine personal jet which is scheduled for certification in late 2015.
"The Vision Center is the next step in our goal to reimagine general aviation and the flying experience at Cirrus Aircraft," company CEO Dale Klapmeier said in a statement today. "We call that aviation experience 'The Cirrus Life' and with the Vision Center in Knoxville, we are bringing together transformational new airplanes with a reinvented customer and ownership experience, all led by the forward thinking leadership team that is unique to Cirrus Aircraft."
The selection of the Knoxville/Alcoa area was the result of a detailed site evaluation process that initially included more than 15 states and 30 on-airport locations.
The Vision Center will be the location for factory direct type rating training from Cirrus Aircraft. A key component of the SF50 training curriculum at the Vision Center will be a Level D, full-motion flight simulator currently under development at CAE, the world's premier simulator and flight training device provider. This full flight simulator, along with several other fixed training devices, will be the cornerstone of Vision SF50 type rating and annual recurrent training. Other key Vision Center partners will be announced closer to facility completion, currently slated for second quarter of 2016.
A factory service center also will provide support for the new Vision SF50 and more than 6,000 SR aircraft currently in the field.
Cirrus Aircraft is headquartered in Duluth, Minnesota along with the company's research and development and manufacturing operations. The Vision SF50, SR20, SR22 and SR22T aircraft will continue to be produced at company facilities in Grand Forks, North Dakota and Duluth.