One of the major draws of the Cessna Citation family is that a pilot can fly all aircraft in the 525 lineup with a single type rating. This was one of the selling points for Paul Zweifel, who purchased a 2020 Citation CJ4 in December 2025.
Working his way to the top of the single-pilot-flown Citation food chain was a more-than-two-decade-long progression that began as a teenager. Zweifel first became interested in aviation by seeing a local business owner in Scotland, South Dakota, fly his Bonanza off a grass strip.
“I had always been around his aircraft and listening to his stories about how he was able to fly, so I understood the utility and fun of flying from a young age,” Zweifel said, noting that at the same time he began flight training, he also started working for a flight school. Most of his weekends during high school were at the airport, either flying or earning a paycheck that went towards lessons.
Zweifel soloed after about twelve hours behind the yoke. He didn’t fly the Cessna 152 he first soloed in for long, but the tail number, N49541, will always be in the back of his mind. After all, how can you forget the tail number that you first learned to fly in? He went on to pass his checkride on his 17th birthday in a Cessna 172.
“Soon after I got my license, I ended up leasing an older 172 from a guy in Minnesota and flew it everywhere. I would fly to church if I could; I enjoy it that much. After high school, I worked for a company that had several aircraft. I flew on their aircraft often to job sites and business meetings. But I didn’t fly much myself for five or six years.”
Missing having the controls in his own hands, Zweifel joined a Sioux Falls-based flying club that had a 172, Archer, and a Dakota. He explained that all his flying after getting back into the cockpit initially was for fun.
“After a while, I started using the flying club planes more for my own personal travel and was flying their Dakota a lot for my business [Direct Companies, which is involved in automation, data, and technology] that I started in 2007. I tried to get the club to upgrade aircraft to a faster, more capable aircraft.”
Other club members didn’t have similar needs, and Zweifel wound up purchasing his first plane, a Cirrus SR22. He immediately worked towards his instrument rating after the purchase and owned this aircraft for two years before moving into a brand new SR22T in 2015, which was purchased while at Oshkosh with his son Parker.
“After about two years again, exactly, an opportunity came up to buy an older CJ1 out in California. A widowed person owned the airplane, and it had to go through a lot of inspections because it hadn’t been flown much,” Zweifel recalled.
“At the time, all I had was high-performance, complex, and an instrument rating. When I sent the plane out for inspections at West Star in Grand Junction, Colorado, I signed up for my type rating at LOFT in Carlsbad, California. I got my type rating, multi-engine, commercial, and high-altitude endorsement over a 20-day period.”
After a marathon three weeks in training, Zweifel was excited to see the new-to-him airplane taxi up to the FBO ramp. He shook the contract pilot’s hand, pumped some Jet A, and set off with a mentor pilot (his instructor at LOFT) to complete insurance’s required 20 takeoffs and landings. He then completed an in-aircraft checkride before a solo, nearly 1,200 nautical mile flight home to Sioux Falls Regional Airport (KFSD).
The CJ1 was replaced by a Citation Mustang with a Garmin panel three years later, which meant a new type rating was required. With each new aircraft, Zweifel appreciated aviation even more for how it helped his business reach new heights.
“I sold that Mustang after about a year and bought a CJ2, which I did paint, a new interior, and avionics upgrades. It extended our range down into the southeast and into areas that we previously weren’t efficient at getting to, either due to fuel, payload, or number of people we needed to fly with,” he said, saying that after three years, he decided that a 525C would be the next step.
The CJ4’s nearly coast-to-coast-capable legs have expanded the Direct Companies’ range significantly, while still being able to fly into airports with short runways. Oftentimes, the 870-gallon capacity provides tankering ability, bringing fuel out and back from Sioux Falls.
Zweifel’s mission profile is varied and routinely demonstrates the versatility of the CJ4. Some flights may be a few hundred nautical miles or less, while some are over 1,300 nautical miles direct with a full passenger load. He flies about 300 hours per year, mostly for business purposes.
“I would say that our mission is all but typical,” Zweifel explained. “There are times when we take half a dozen to eight guys as far as Oregon or Florida. But we also have a lot of trips to Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and other nearby states, where we might create a bus ride out of it. We will drop two, drop two, drop two, and then come back to pick them up whenever they are done at the job site. I have found aviation to add a lot of efficiency to our business; the response capabilities for our customers have been huge.”
The quality of life the CJ4 has added for the employees of Zweifel’s company has been immense as well. How else would you be able to get them to multiple states in one day and be back for dinner?
“There are many trips we would have to stop for fuel with the CJ1, CJ2, or Mustang. The CJ4 provides so much in terms of capabilities, even over others in its same class. So far, we haven’t had a mission the CJ4 couldn’t fulfill, and we travel across the United States with it, often out of South Dakota,” he explained.
“The CJ4 has been phenomenal for us in speed, range, and overall capability. We have local maintenance [for Citations] here in Sioux Falls, Textron Service Centers are tried and true, and the training aspect has been great from a product standpoint.”
Ask any aircraft owner what their gripes are with their airplane, and they’ll more than likely say that it’s not fast enough. Jockeys of Citations are no exception, and Zweifel’s only wish was that the FJ44-4A powered CJ4 was a 0.80 Mach plane (its Mmo is 0.77 Mach).
If a jet flies fast, time flies faster. Getting into aviation as a teen felt like it was yesterday, and Zweifel’s children are already eagerly beginning their own aviation journeys, having been frequent cockpit companions throughout their lives. His 17-year-old son took his checkride in June to become a private pilot. Aspen and Raegan, his daughters, also want to pursue a similar path and have started studying.
In addition to being a commercially rated fixed-wing pilot, Zweifel is licensed to fly rotorcraft as well. He recently sold a Robinson R44 helicopter and is looking to get another one in the near future.
“What I love the most about aviation is that it’s the only time machine I have been able to find. When days are long and years go by fast, this is the only way for me to buy time, and ever since I saw Back to the Future, I have been looking.”
