Learjet,.a.Work.in.Progress Much attention and commentary regarding Bombardier’s aviation interests have focused on the Canadian company’s most ambitious projects, namely its CSeries jetliner and Global 7000 and 8000 ultra-long-range business jets. For good reasons. The 100- to 149-seat CSeries is the largest aircraft ever produced by Bombardier and represents a gamble that’s consuming $3.5 billion of development dollars. It is also the first Bombardier aircraft to threaten the near total market control of Boeing and Airbus. Thus it was no surprise when Pierre Beaudoin, president and CEO of Bombardier Inc., focused almost entirely on the CSeries during a luncheon speech early this year. “The comfortable days of duopolies in commercial and regional aircraft are over,” he said. “Some may believe that re-engined aircraft with a 20-year-old design will be good enough,” he continued, taking a sideswipe at the heavy selling A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX. “We believe that ‘good enough’ is not what operators expect or need.” Two weeks after Beaudoin’s speech, NetJets announced a firm order for 50 Global 5000, 6000, 7000 and 8000 business jets, with options for another 70. Should all options be exercised, the total retail price would exceed $6.7 billion. It touted the sale as “the largest aircraft purchase agreement in the history of private aviation.”
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The first of the ultra-Globals, the 7000, is to enter service in 2016. The development of those top-of-the-line models, along with the Global Vision Flight Deck and the CSeries, consume a good chunk of the $1 billion to $1.5 billion Bombardier Aerospace President and CEO Guy Hachey says his company has been investing annually in R&D. With two such high-profile and high-cost programs under way involving high-ticket airplanes, an OEM could be expected to ease up elsewhere, particularly if involved in the light jet business, a market segment that crashed four years ago and remains depressingly down. However, Bombardier has chosen quite another course and actually appears to be investing more in Learjet than at any time since it acquired the line from its bankrupt owner in 1990. The company is now at work on three Learjet models. There’s the Model 85, launched in 2007 and at 66 ft. long with a double-club cabin, the largest aircraft to bear the Lear marque. And, announced at the
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European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition, the Model 70 and 75. The 85 is an all-new design with all-composite construction, a first for Bombardier. Compared to the models they will succeed, the six-passenger Model 70 and eight-passenger Model 75 will feature more thrust, improved takeoff performance, faster climb-to-cruise, better fuel efficiency and lower operating costs. They will be powered by 3,850-lb.-thrust Honeywell TFE731-40BR turbofans, have Bombardier’s signature Vision cockpit layout with three-screen Garmin G5000 avionics and sport canted winglets.The two are priced at $11.1 million and $13.5 million, respectively. A2Z METALWORKER
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July/Aug 2012