The odds on an all-new business jet being announced any time soon are high. After a flurry of launches in 2021 and 2022 – during which Bombardier, Dassault Aviation, and Gulfstream seemed to be going all out to trump their rivals’ top offerings in terms of range and cabin size and comfort – the focus has switched to certification and delivery, with the big three manufacturers concentrating on bringing their latest types into service.
Bombardier chief executive Eric Martel summed up the competitive situation in March when he said the airframers had “played their cards in terms of what products they will be offering” over the next few years, and that only “a new technology gamechanger” would convince him to go to his board and plead the case for funding a clean-sheet programme this side of 2030. His industry counterparts probably agree.
GLOBAL AMBITIONS
Bombardier intends for its 8,000nm (14,800km)-range Global 8000 – which will supplant the Global 7500 as the airframer’s flagship – to be in the hands of its first customer next year.
Dassault is battling supply chain pressures to have its Falcon 10X – capable of flying 7,500nm – in operation by 2027, having pushed back its previous late-2025 target.
Meanwhile, Gulfstream – which has also just flown its smaller, 4,200nm-range G400 – is close to certification for its 8,000nm-range G800.
As far as the other manufacturers are concerned, the only all-new business aircraft platforms known to be in gestation are the Honda Aircraft Echelon – a light jet first revealed as a concept in 2021 and which the Japanese-owned manufacturer hopes to have in service by 2028 – and Textron Aviation’s Beechcraft Denali, a long-delayed single-engined turboprop.
As the sector’s biggest annual gathering, the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) convention and exhibition, approaches, there is the usual speculation around Bombardier doing something to refresh or replace its enduring and successful Challenger family. There are also questions over whether Embraer or Textron might fancy another audacious adventure into a new segment. However, an all-new platform from any of them appears unlikely in the immediate term.
The large-cabin Challenger 650 – though it has gone through multiple iterations – has its roots in the 1980s. Its super-midsize Challenger 3500 sibling dates from the early years of this century, although it too has been updated. Additional upgrades are probably all Bombardier customers can expect. In May, Martel ruled out a clean-sheet aircraft from the Canadian airframer this decade, noting that “what I see between now and 2030 will be… derivatives”.
Embraer’s last clean-sheet launches were the original Legacy 450 and Legacy 500, which morphed into the Praetor 500/600. Chief executive Francisco Gomes Neto did speculate earlier this year that the Brazilian manufacturer might be ready to begin developing a new aircraft in the next two years. However, he did not elaborate on whether this might be a business jet or a commercial programme.
Embraer has persistently floated the idea of launching a business jet larger than its super-midsize Praetor 600. It is not a far-fetched prospect; the manufacturer has plenty of experience of developing large aircraft, including the C-390 airlifter, powered by twin International Aero Engines V2500s. In addition, its first foray into the sector was with the Legacy 600/650 and Lineage 1000, business jets derived from its successful regional jet families.
Whether the Brazilian company, which broke into the business aviation market in the early 2000s, has the appetite to risk billions of investment dollars to tussle in a large-cabin segment dominated by Bombardier, Dassault and Gulfstream remains another matter.
LIGHT REFRESHMENT
In the meantime, the manufacturer has in recent years refreshed its Phenom 100 light jet and Phenom 300 superlight, the best-selling type in its segment for more than a decade. In 2023, Embraer announced the Phenom 100EX, with a revamped interior. Deliveries began this year.
Textron Aviation, which has more business aviation types than any other manufacturer under its Cessna Citation and Beechcraft brands, did launch into the large-cabin segment in 2015 with the Citation Hemisphere, its largest aircraft to date. However, it abandoned the programme three years later over problems with the Safran Silvercrest engine.
Powerplant troubles have also stalled the arrival of the Denali, with the Wichita-based airframer disclosing last year that the turboprop – the first real direct competitor to the top-selling Pilatus PC-12 – would likely not receive certification until 2025. Slower-than-anticipated approval of the GE Aerospace Catalyst – designed and built by the US company’s Italian and Czech subsidiaries – remains the stumbling block.
Despite Martel’s assertion that both his main rivals have “played their cards”, Gulfstream retains the power to surprise. Several of its launches have only been revealed when the programme is already well down its development path; some have even flown. However, with new-ish types in almost every segment it competes in – other than the Israel Aerospace Industries-built super-midsize G280 – it is hard to see which gap the Savannah-based manufacturer might feel the need to fill.
Gulfstream in August completed the first flight of its G400, which it launched alongside the G800 in 2021. The Pratt & Whitney Canada PW812A-powered jet, which is derived from the G500/600 airframe and has a similar engine, gives customers a slightly smaller and lower-priced entry option in the large-cabin segment. Gulfstream is aiming for a 2025 entry into service.
The 19-passenger G800 is coming close to the end of its three-aircraft flight test campaign, just as Gulfstream steps up deliveries of its G700 sibling. The latter entered service earlier this year with Qatar Executive, although certification had been delayed by more than a year largely attributed to staff shortages at a US Federal Aviation Administration caught up with monitoring the travails at Boeing. Both types are powered by the Rolls-Royce Pearl 700.
Dassault is blaming delays in progress with its 10X flagship not on regulators but suppliers struggling to get engineering departments and production back up to speed following the pandemic. In May, chief executive Eric Trappier said he was confident about a revised timeline for the ultra-long-range type, which would see the 10X in service in three years’ time.
The French manufacturer was also forced to reschedule 10X certification because of supply chain snags that delayed the smaller Falcon 6X, which eventually entered service last year. With production of major structures and flight trials of its Rolls-Royce Pearl 10X engine underway, the 10X’s maiden sortie is now likely next year, finally giving the family firm a competitive offer in the ultra-long-range segment.
With the race to zero-carbon aviation high on the agenda, several manufacturers are working on longer-term technology demonstrators. Bombardier has flown a scaled version of its EcoJet blended-wing-body concept, but Martel has said that the research programme is unlikely to morph into an actual aircraft development this decade. Instead, any findings from the study are likely to influence the company’s product strategy into the 2030s.
Other than Embraer, which majority owns the arms-length Eve electric vertical take-off and landing venture, France’s Daher – owner of the TBM and Kodiak brands – has arguably been the most progressive of the mainstream manufacturers when it comes to championing advanced air mobility concepts.
PULSE RACING
Late last year it flew its EcoPulse demonstrator, a TBM 940 powered by six Safran electric motors and an Airbus high-voltage battery, supplemented by its conventional P&WC PT6 engine. Chief executive Didier Kayat is targeting 2027 to have a certificated hybrid version of the turboprop on the market, an ambitious timescale given the regulatory scrutiny that these new-generation power generation systems will be under.
The Honda Aircraft Echelon remains the only acknowledged clean-sheet business jet in early-stage development. Alongside Embraer, Cirrus Aircraft and Pilatus, the airframer is the only other successful new entrant to the business jet market since the 1990s.
The 2,600nm-range Echelon will supersede the smaller 1,550nm-range HA-420 HondaJet light jet, which entered service in 2015, 12 years after its maiden flight. The new aircraft was officially named at last year’s NBAA convention.
Aside from the Denali, Textron’s latest offering in the business aircraft arena is the P&WC PW454D-powered Citation Ascend, an updated version of its 12-passenger Excel, announced in May 2023 and with certification pegged for next year. Also due to enter service in 2025 are a pair of updated light jets, the CJ3 Gen2 light jet, and the M2 Gen2. Both are powered by versions of the Williams International FJ44.
Ten years after revealing its first business jet, the PC-24, at the EBACE European business aviation convention in Geneva, Switzerland’s Pilatus in 2023 announced its first major revision, with improvements to payload, range and passenger cabin. Range with six passengers is now 2,000nm. Its last major product enhancement was in 2019, with the PC-12 NGX, the third generation of the single-engined turboprop, deliveries of which began in early 2020.
SMALLER APPETITE
There seems to be little appetite from the industry to offer anything smaller than the entry-level segment, currently occupied by the Citation M2 and the Phenom 100, with the single-engined Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet the only in-production survivor of the very light jet/personal jet phenomenon of two decades ago that saw at least half a dozen new platforms unveiled.
A year ago, Cirrus released a special edition of the Vision Jet to mark 500 deliveries of the Collier Trophy-winning design, which is powered by a single Williams FJ33 engine. However, another clean-sheet launch from the Chinese-owned manufacturer, which also offers the all-composite SR22 piston, is not likely in the medium term.
Piper Aircraft, one of the companies that dabbled in very light jets 15 or so years ago, remains an important player at the lower end of the business aircraft market, alongside the pilot training and owner-flyer segments. It unveiled in February this year the M700 Fury, its fastest aircraft yet. The PT6A-powered six-seater offers a maximum cruise speed of more than 300kt (555km/h), with a range of 1,150nm.
Daher is considering adding manufacturing capacity to support demand for the TBM 960, the latest version of its pacy single-engined turboprop, with a new facility next to an aerostructures plant the French company bought from Triumph in 2022 in Stewart, Florida. Daher currently assembles the TBM line in Tarbes, France, and its Kodiak family of utility aircraft in Sandpoint, Idaho, but says that its projected 2024 deliveries of more than 80 aircraft will take it close to its production limit.
Finally, Italy’s Tecnam continues to push to the business aviation market the nine-seat P2012 Traveller – a piston twin whose main appeal is to specialist airlines and tour operators. Its case may be helped by the certification last year of a short take-off and landing variant, for which Caribbean VIP operator St Barth Executive is the launch customer.
At the other end of the business aircraft spectrum, Airbus still has high hopes for the corporate version of its A220-100 airliner in a segment dominated by Bombardier, Dassault and Gulfstream. While the ACJ TwoTwenty’s range of 5,650nm may be less than that of its ultra-long-range rivals, the derivative makes up for that in cabin dimensions, according to the European manufacturer.
Sales of what Airbus dubs its “extra-large bizjet” have been modest, with around eight orders since its launch in 2020. However, the programme is still relatively young, with Swiss business aviation services specialist Comlux – which has an exclusive agreement with Airbus to outfit the first 17 aircraft – having delivered two completed examples so far.
