Kate Sarsfield/LONDON
The business aircraft market is ready for a supersonic business jet (SSBJ) and one could be available within the next five years, according to an industry-sponsored study.
The research was conducted by the UK's Meridian International for "several" business aircraft manufacturers and potential risk-sharing partners on an SSBJ.
The Warwick-based corporate company interviewed 73 "key" business aircraft operators of Bombardier Global Expresses, Dassault Falcon 900s and Gulfstream IV/Vs. It did so to evaluate the potential size of the market for an SSBJ in Europe, the Middle East and North America. The study assessed the required performance, price and economics for an aircraft of this type.
The report reveals that most of the operators, comprising corporate flight departments, charter operators and fractional ownership providers, would broadly welcome an SSBJ, depending on "a number of important provisos". They include:
• the SSBJ must be capable of operating over land in as unrestricted a manner as subsonic aircraft;
• it must have acceptable range with real instrument flight rules reserves - "4,000nm [7,400km/h] is not enough. The minimum is 4,500nm";
• the price must be reasonable - no more than 50% more expensive than the $39 million Global Express and GV.
"If an economically viable aircraft with suitable performance and the capability to fly over land was launched in the 2004-7 timescale, nearly 20% of operators said they would definitely order it and nearly 60% would evaluate it with a view to taking delivery positions," says the report.
More than half of the operators interviewed would purchase an SSBJ outright, one-third envisage owning a fractional share and the rest would prefer to share an aircraft with two or more local private partners. The study estimates a market for at least 300 first-generation SSBJs.
Richard Santulli, fractional ownership pioneer and chairman of Executive Jet, is an outspoken supporter of the SSBJ and could acquire around 100 aircraft for his NetJets programme.
"If Executive Jet were to order 100 aircraft, that would be in addition to the estimated 300, since that would be aimed not just at existing operators but a wider market," adds the study.
Business aircraft manufacturers are actively pursuing an SSBJ. Gulfstream and Lockheed Martin Skunk Works recently secured $15 million from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to support their proposed five-year Quiet Supersonic Aircraft Technology programme, designed to demonstrate sonic boom reduction technology.
Gulfstream vice-chairman Bryan Moss says that the partners' preliminary studies are encouraging enough to allow them to continue. The earliest date that an aircraft could fly would be 2005, according to Moss.
Bombardier has preliminary designs for an SSBJ, Sukhoi is actively pursuing its supersonic S-21 and Dassault Aviation is continuing to work behind the scenes on a supersonic Falcon.
Source: Flight International
