Bombardier’s first Global 7000 flight-test vehicle (FTV-1) touched down in Wichita, Kansas on 21 November to begin its certification campaign.
The ultra-long-range business jet – serial number 70001 with the registration C-GLBO – made a 3h journey from Bombardier’s Downsview, Toronto manufacturing plant to the US facility. It first flew 17 days earlier in Canada.
Before its departure to Wichita – home to Bombardier’s flight-test centre, maintenance facility and Learjet 70/75 production line – FTV-1 had completed five validation flights, the airframer says. The GE Aviation Passport-powered aircraft will eventually be joined in Kansas by four more prototypes which are in various phases of construction.
Bombardier
When it enters service in 2018, the 7,400nm (13,700km)-range Global 7000 will be the largest and longest-legged business aircraft in Bombardier’s seven-strong line-up. It is designed to challenge Gulfstream’s six-year-old dominance at the top-end of the traditional business jet market, fitting neatly between the 7,000nm range of the G650 and the 7,500nm reach of the G650ER.
Bombardier has also proposed a Global 8000, which would have a market-leading 7,900nm range, but the manufacturer has held off making a decision on the future of that programme. It says it will evaluate the aircraft’s development schedule once C-GLBO is in flight testing.
The Global 7000 programme was launched in 2010, but a series of development challenges with the clean-sheet model – including a decision by Bombardier in 2015 to redesign its wing – have delayed its schedule by more than two years. Priced at $73 million, the 12-seat, fly-by-wire aircraft is projected to have a a top speed of 530kt (982km/h) and a cruise speed of 516kt.
Source: Flight International
