page_title: Cirrus VK-30
section_title: Variants
hierarchical_section_title: Cirrus VK-30 / Variants
caption_attribution_description: English: 4X-COD, Israviation ST-50, at the Le Bourget Air Show.
context_page_description: The Cirrus VK-30 is a single-engine pusher-propeller homebuilt aircraft originally sold as a kit by Cirrus Design, and was the company's first model.
  As a kit aircraft, the VK-30 is a relatively obscure design with few completed aircraft flying. Its most important legacy is that the work done on developing and marketing the aircraft convinced the designers, the Klapmeier brothers, that the best way to proceed in the future was with a more conventional layout and with a certified production aircraft. Thus the lessons of the VK-30 were directly responsible for the design of the Cirrus SR20 and SR22, which have been the best-selling general aviation airplanes in the world every year since 2003. The VK-30 also served as a significant inspiration for the creation of the company's latest aircraft, the Cirrus Vision Jet, which in 2018 won the Collier Trophy for becoming the first single-engine personal jet with a whole-plane parachute recovery system.
context_section_description: Cirrus/Israviation ST50
  The VK-30 was the predecessor of the Cirrus ST50, which had an almost-identical configuration to the VK-30, but included a larger ventral fin on the tail of the aircraft, a slightly larger fuselage, and was powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6-135 turboprop engine in place of the piston engine used in the VK-30. Cirrus designed and initially developed the aircraft under contract to an Israeli aircraft manufacturer named Isravation, and first flew it in Duluth, Minnesota in 1994. Isravation attempted to certify and market the ST50 in the proceeding years but it never entered production by the company.
caption: Cirrus-Israviation ST50 at the Paris Air Show in 1997
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