The Woracle

Hawker Beechcraft, the former Raytheon Aircraft, has just flown the Hawker 750 and certificated the Hawker 900XP - the latest versions of the ever-popular Hawker 800-series mid-size business jet.

Following the model successfully used by Gulfstream when it decided to keep building the GIV alongside its new GV, Hawker Beechcraft has decided to offer two models side-by-side - the budget-priced Hawker 750 and the higher-performance 900XP.

The result should be higher sales of an aircraft that has long been the best seller in its class.

But I have two questions. When will the 45-year-old design get a new wing? And how long will Airbus keep making the airframes?

Indian business newspaper Mint is reporting that Vijay Mallya, chairman of drinks giant UB Group and founder of Kingfisher Airlines, is to make a personal investment of $200 million to take a controlling stake in Oregon-based Epic Aircraft.

A deal has been on the cards since billionaire Mallya - who also looks set to buy the Spyker Formula 1 racing team - met Epic chief executive Rick Schramek at the AirVenture show in Oshkosh in July.

It will not be an investment without risk. Epic is a kitplane producer that has yet to certificate an aircraft. It is also the first customer for a new and untried Canadian centre for composite aircraft certification in Calgary.

But Mallya's money will be a boost for Epic, which has ambitious plans to follow its Dynasty turboprop single with a twin-engine very light jet, the Elite - in addition to adding the single-turboprop Escape and single-jet Victory to its kitplane line.

Type certification of the Dynasty and Elite will just be the first step. As Eclipse has shown, it can be tough to get the production certification needed to ramp up deliveries, and Epic will have to invest heavily in training and support if it is to become a fully fledged aircraft manufacturer.

Last week, Aviation International News reported that Gulfstream has applied to trademark a slew of new aircraft designations, suggesting it plans to launch a series of new and upgraded business jets.

A search of the US Patent and Trademark Office website confirms Gulfstream in July filed to trademark G275, G325, G375, G425, G475, G525, G575, G375, G600 and G675. It should be pointed out that Gulfstream first filed for most of these, plus G175, G225 and G625, in August 2003 and has applied for several extensions since.

What are we to make of this? Parent company General Dynamics has openly talked about two new business jets coming from Gulfstream, without giving any details. But, armed with some industry intelligence, an intelligent guess is possible.

It was so simple back then - the Gulfstream I

Embraer took the wraps off its ideas for new medium-light and mid-size business jets today at the NBAA show in Atlanta. It was careful to make clear this was not a launch - they are just concepts. But if you want to sign a letter of interest and put down a $90,000 refundable deposit you can get in line for the MSJ. Or if funds are a little tight, $70,000 will reserve you a smaller MLJ. But you won't get a price, performance specs or delivery date just yet. Embraer is still working on those.

You will get a promise of a delivery position if and when Embraer does produce the aircraft. And it will, but the specifics of the designs could change a little as a result of feedback from customers, who are getting their first look at the mockup and the basic specs. And they look promising, adhering to Embraer's established "buy one, get one size up" philosophy.

Just as it has sized the Phenom 100 directly against the Citation CJ1 and the Phenom 300 against the CJ4 - but for up to $2 million less in each case - so the MLJ would compete with the Citation XLS, and the MSJ with the Citation Sovereign, but at lower prices. What makes you think Embraer has Cessna firmly in its sights?

The Citation X was already a text book study in aerodynamics, and Cessna is writing another chapter with the addition of winglets. They seem like overkill on an aircraft already so highly swept and area ruled that, at Mach 0.92, it is the fastest commercial aircraft flying today.

No other Cessna's have them, but the company says winglets should improve the Citation X's hot-and-high take-off and climb performance and high-altitude speed and range. Maybe it's another example, after the Dassault Falcon, of a bizjet manufacturer finally accepting that winglets can look good AND work.

It's actually a little too early to say if they do work as advertised, but Cessna is supporting efforts by Wichita-based WInglet Technology to get supplemental type certification for its elliptical winglets for retrofit on to the Citation X. Elliptical refers to the curvature of winglet, by the way, which is designed to minimise the induced drag.

The latest trend in general aviation is to certificate your aircraft then fumble getting it into production. Sino Swearingen certificated its fast-but-light SJ30 at the end of 2005 after decades of effort, but has delivered only two so far - the second one here at the show.

After pouring an estimated $700 million into the programme, and seeing no return, Sino's Taiwanese backers wanted out. Now the UK's Action Aviation, the biggest SJ30 distributor with 159 on order, has joined with US private equity firm ACQ Capital to buy a controlling stake.

More familiar with real estate than aircraft manufacture, ACQ says the joint venture will put enough money into Sino to get the SJ30 into full production and the company into profit. And they freely admit they face a challenge persuading abused suppliers it's for real this time.

The folks behind the deal clearly love the aircraft. Now they just have to prove to the market that they can produce it, deliver it and support it.

It was slightly surreal to see executives from a US kitplane maker, European airliner manufacturer and an Indian airline seated side-by-side on the podium in a press conference room at a business-aviation show. But this can be an odd industry at times.

The catalyst bringing the three together was not there - Indian brewery billionaire Dr Vijay Mallya. He and Epic Aircraft founder Rick Schramek share a love of aeroplanes and racecars and, after meeting at Oshkosh earlier this year, Mallya agreed to invest in Epic, enabling Schramek to realise his dream of certificating a family of very light turboprops and jets.

So where does Airbus come in? Well Mallya's UB group owns Kingfisher Airlines, which is a major Airbus customer, and Kingfisher has asked Airbus to take a look at Epic to see if it can help certificate the aircraft and maybe benefit from Epic's composites technology.

Airbus's involvement may give Mallya more confidence Epic will make good use of his $120 million personal investment, but it's hard to see how the builder of the 590t A380 mega-liner could help with, or benefit from, certification of the 2.5t Victory personal jet.

It probably couldn't say no, but Airbus isn't committing itself. "We have opened the door, but not yet walked through," said the Airbus exec with a Gallic shrug.

With all the manufacturers busy working on new products to appear over the next year or so, proponents of supersonic business jets are struggling to get a hearing. It's particularly tough for the two independent teams that need an OEM to get their designs off the drawing board.

There are essentially three players with three approaches. Gulfstream says an SSBJ, to be viable, must fly supersonically over land and so must be low boom. It also believes a demonstrator is needed to convice regulators to lift the ban on supersonic flight over the US.

Gulfstream noses ahead with Quiet Spike

Supersonic Aerospace International (SAI) agrees supersonic overland flight is essential, but says it does not need to first build a demonstrator to prove that its Lockheed Martin Skunk Works-designed Quiet Supersonic Transport will produce no perceptible boom.

Skunk magic tames QSST's boom

Aerion says supersonic overland flight is not essential if the SSBJ can cruise as efficiently over land at a boomless Mach 0.95 as it can over water at Mach 1.6 - which is exactly what the company claims for its patented supersonic natural laminar flow design.

Smooth flow cuts Aerion's drag

But while Gulfstream is pursuing its own SSBJ design, Aerion and SAI are trying to assemble industrial consortia to certificate and produce their designs. This is hard to do when the engineering resources at the OEMs are already committed to their own new product priorities.

Aerion and SAI remain hopeful, and Gulfstream continues working the technology, but the prospect of supersonic business jet entering service seems to be slipping further into the next decade. The bizav boom, not the sonic boom, is the biggest obstacle to the SSBJ.

Not every aircraft designer gets the chance to put their creation into production, and Michimasa Fujino is making to most of his opportunity to build a new company, Honda Aircraft, to produce his design, the HondaJet.

The HondaJet is bucking convention in several areas: its overwing-mounted engines, laminar-flow aerodynamics, and composite fuselage. Now Fujino-san is tackling one of business aviation's most unsavoury aspects head-on - the tiny lavatory.

Most passengers will do anything to avoid using the aircraft lav, he says, holding on then heading straight for the toilet in the terminal as soon as they land. But the HondaJet lav is not just for emergencies, he says; passengers will actually want to use it.

So forget that toilet in the terminal. "Passengers will be running on to the HondaJet to use our lavatory instead," he joked at NBAA.

HondaJet - room for a throne

Conspiracy theory time. Aviation International News is linking the appointment of new director of composite technology at Gulfstream to the company's plans for a new flagship bizjet. An aircraft with a composite fuselage. And AIN is not alone in making the connection.

Here's how the thinking goes. Gulfstream's parent General Dynamics makes no secret of the company's plans to launch not one, but two new business jets in 2008. Industry sources tell us Gulfstream is working on a widebody jet with a cabin larger than its current flagship, the G550 - an aircraft than can out-size Bombardier's Global Express.

But think about those signature Gulfstream cabin windows - big, oval, light-giving apertures that every other bizjet manufacturer eyes with envy. Windows that are only possible because certification of the fuselage structure of every large-cabin Gulfstream has been grandfathered back five decades to the original GI. Gulfstream won't - can't - give up those windows.

The only way to have such big apertures in a new wider fuselage under today's certification rules is to have a composite structure. That is a big step for Gulfstream, which uses minimal composites today, but not for the wider industry. Hawker Beechcraft builds the fibre-placed carbonfibre-fuselage Premier and Horizon, sorry Hawker 4000.

Someone was going to say it, so Cessna's sales boss Roger Whyte got in first, calling today (February 6) Cessna's "Columbus day" (after a US holiday). Why? Because today the company unveiled its Citation Columbus large-cabin bizjet in Washington, DC. The name was picked by Cessna because this is the first Citation designed to take its passengers overseas - London to Dubai, Munich to New York, Singapore to Sydney, Sao Paulo to Miami - nonstop.

It will be a big aeroplane - bigger than I realised. It will be bigger and fly further, faster than its competitors, the Bombardier Challenger 605 and Dassault Falcon 2000EX. At $780 million to develop and $27 million to buy, it will be the most expensive Citation yet. It won't enter service until 2014, but there is no doubt Cessna can deliver this aircraft - just look at the Citation X.

One interesting factoid from today's press conference: there are 5,100 Citations now flying - by the time the Columbus enters service, there will be 8,000...

VLJ developer Adam Aircraft has suspended operations - hard on the heels of ATG, which hit a similar wall when it came to funding. Before I have my say here's Adam's statement, issued on Feb 11:

"In a difficult but necessary move, Adam Aircraft Industries suspended operations today at its facilities in Colorado. This measure was required due to the inability of the company to come to terms with their lender for funding necessary to maintain business operations. The company is currently exploring all of its alternatives and will provide further guidance when decisions are made, which is expected to be later this week."

I can't say I'm surprised. I've been sceptical of Adam from the outset, when it retained Rutan's Scaled Composites to design a new-generation all-composite piston twin (the M309). An admirable goal, but no-one had successfully taken a Rutan design through certification and into production. To give Adam its due, it has come closer than anyone, acheiving partial certification and slow-paced production.

But, for me, Adam stretched its credibility a shade too thin when it launched development of a VLJ before finishing the job on its piston twin. Okay, so that was the way the market was going. Okay, so the A700 VLJ was a derivative of the A500 piston twin. But aircraft manufacturers have walk before they can run and Adam was barely crawling.

Adam has recently begun to behave like a real aircraft manufacturer, bringing in experienced management and establishing proper production discipline. But meanwhile the money has run out. Inevitably, the credit crunch will be blamed for for Adam's troubles, but I would look further back for their origins.

I've been waiting for the axe to fall. Every analyst call, every press briefing, I've been braced to hear the boom is over, and the bust has begun. I'm talking about business aviation. Today (12 February) it was the General Aviation Manufacturers Associations' opportunity to burst the bubble at its annual industry review in Washington, DC.

It didn't.

The US economy may be tanking (sorry, slowing), dragged down by dodgy loans and pricey fuel, but business aircraft manufacturers believe their record backlogs remain secure for now. Largely because 50% or more of the aircraft on order are for customers outside North America. As long as the US economic malaise is not catching, deliveries should hold up.

Clearly the US downturn is hurting some sectors of the GA industry - witness the funding woes of VLJ hopefuls Adam and ATG.And the decline in piston-singles sales to private fliers and flight schools suffering the credit crunch. But so far, as GAMA's figures show, business users are hanging in there.

In an aviation community as cosy, and as busy, as that of Wichita, Kansas, it's inevitable people will move from company to company, between Cessna, Learjet, Beechcraft, Boeing and Spirit. But here's one move that's worth noting: Hawker Beechcraft has just hired Russ Meyer III as its director of new product development. He is the son of famed Cessna boss Russ Meyer, and most recently he was programme manager for the Citation Mustang.

"If you would have told me six months ago that I was leaving Cessna, I would have said: 'You're crazy,' " Meyer tells the Wichita Eagle. Meyer says his father, who is chairman emeritus of Cessna, took the news well: "He takes things pretty businesslike." What next, a Boeing taking over at Airbus?

Gulfstream has launched its G650 widebody business jet. A new Gulfstream is big news and the G650 looks, well, like a Gulfstream. It looks like a pumped-up G550, but it's all-new, including the type certificate, which will say GVI - sixth in an illustrious line stretching back 50 years to the GI (my favourite).

It's bigger, faster and flies further than the G550 - bigger, faster and further enough for Gulfstream to put the G650 into a different market segment (ULRVLJ - ultra-long range very large jet?) and keep building the G550. But where does all that extra speed (Mach 0.925) and range (7,000nm) come from?

Where's the swoopy wing and radical area ruling? The G650 looks so...Gulfstream.

Hawker Beechcraft has just put out a nice press release about its achievements in its first year as a private company. Record sales, record backlog etc, etc. What's not included on the list is delivery of the super mid-size Hawker 4000. The official word is "soon", maybe with weeks, but I'm not holding my breath just yet.

I was at Raytheon Aircraft for the rollout of the Hawker Horizon, as they were both called then, back in April 2001. I wrote about its certification in November 2006. But here I am in March 2008 still waiting for the first delivery to a customer. It's been an interesting journey. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great aircraft and worth the wait, but why so long?

Embraer's board has approved the launch of the MLJ medium-light and MSJ mid-size business jets. They are to enter service in 2012 (MSJ) and 2013 (MLJ). They come hard on the heels of the launches of Cessna's large-cabin Citation Columbus and Gulfstream's ultra-long-range G650. Bombardier has also unveiled, but not formally launched, the mid-size Learjet NXT. So it's a busy year so far for business aviation (four or five all-new jets, depending on how you look at it - and the Mitsubishi Regional Jet has also been launched, but that's not a bizjet). And there's at least a couple more new aircraft in the pipeline...