FLUG REVUE December 2004: NBAA sees SSBJ offerings

SUPERSONIC BUSINESS JETS ANNOUNCED

By Volker K. Thomalla

The gambling paradise in the desert of Nevada seems to be a lucky venue for the NBAA Convention and Exhibition: by the time the doors of the 57th Convention finally closed at 3pm on 14 October after three days, 31,189 visitors had attended the exhibition. This was only a fraction below the previous record for Business Aviation's world fair of 31,665, which was set in 1998 – also in Las Vegas. The range of offerings on show to visitors was wider than ever before, with 1,084 exhibitors showing off their products and services, up from 1,068 last year. Two announcements caught the headlines in a big way: no less than two companies have supersonic business jet projects in the pipeline, even if the concepts that lie behind them appear to be different.

Under the lead of J. Michael Paulson, the Supersonic Aerospace International (SAI) company is developing a 12-seater supersonic business jet that would have a range of over 4,000nm (7,408km) and a cruise speed of between Mach 1.6 and 1.8. Thanks to a special fuselage and wing shape, the sonic boom should be less than one-hundredth of that given off by Concorde. In Paulson's view, that is sufficiently low for the aircraft to be allowed to fly supersonic over land as well as sea. The Quiet Small Supersonic Transport (QSST) should be able to meet, if not exceed, all the pertinent anti-noise regulations.

SAI QSST

The design of the QSST is futuristic: a long, needle-pointed front section with canards is followed by a relatively short cabin section. The wings are mounted at the rear in a high-wing configuration, ending with an unconventional, inverted V-shaped empennage, in the lower end of which the two engines are accommodated. This design reduces the sonic boom. The calculations and the aircraft design come from Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works, that stable of aircraft design which produced, amongst other models, the legendary SR-71 and F-117 types. With regard to the aircraft propulsion, SAI is negotiating with all three of the big engine manufacturers.

On this point, the second design for a supersonic bizjet is further down the road: the Aerion Corporation of Reno, Nevada, has already decided on the Pratt & Whitney JT8D-219 engine and secured Pratt & Whitney as a project partner. Unlike the SAI design, the Aerion supersonic jet will be able to fly over land, but only by curbing its speed. Thanks to its special shape, the Aerion jet will similarly generate only a reduced sonic boom, allowing it to fly over land at up to Mach 1.1. Over water, the twin-engined jet will accelerate to its maximum cruise speed of between Mach 1.5 and 1.6. This will mean that the travel time between New York and Paris can be shortened to four hours and 15 minutes, while the journey from New York to Tokyo can be accomplished in nine hours and 33 minutes, despite a one-hour refuelling stop in Anchorage.

Founded in 2002, Aerion Corporation is headed by experienced aerospace managers. These include Brian Barents, who has previously held senior positions with Galaxy, Learjet and Cessna. Michael L. Henderson will contribute useful experience as the former chief engineer on supersonic projects at Boeing, while Aerion's Chief Technology Officer, Richard R. Tracy, developed the Natural Laminar Flow Supersonic Wing. This technology could be used on the new business jet. It has already been tested by NASA on an F-15.

The Aerion design looks like a cross between the Starfighter and the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet. With a length of 44.12m and a wingspan of 19.75m, the aircraft will be considerably longer than present business jets. In addition to the diamond-shaped wings, another striking feature of the aircraft are the strakes, which extend from the leading edge of the wing down to the cabin door. The air intakes of the two engines strongly recall the Super Hornet, except that on the Aerion jet they are located on the upper side of the aerofoils.

Over the next 18 months, Aerion plans to negotiate with various international companies about participation in the project. The company is working on the assumption of a five-year development and test phase, at the end of which certification and serial production should follow. At the NBAA Convention, Brian Barents named the earliest date that the jet could enter into service as 2011.

The American aerospace company, Honeywell, traditionally publishes its market forecasts at the NBAA Convention. This year's forecast was a lot more positive than the last few years' have been. Honeywell is predicting a requirement for 8,300 business jets between 2004 and 2014, representing a cumulative value of $131 billion. North America will continue for the foreseeable future to be the biggest market for business jets. According to Honeywell's research, about 74 percent of all new aircraft are sold there. Europe, in second place with 10.8 percent, will be particularly active in the next five years. Polls carried out for the show suggested that almost half of all European flying operations will purchase a new aircraft in the next five years. Similarly, according to the forecast, the manufacturers' investment in new types has paid off, as newly developed jets could account for two-thirds of all sales.

And new aircraft there were in abundance at the NBAA Convention. The Cessna Aircraft Company of Wichita, Kansas is the market leader in business jets, a position the company has every intention of defending. It announced two new versions of its best-sellers in Las Vegas: the Citation CJ1+ and the Citation CJ2+. The CJ1+ will be about 45kg heavier than the present CJ1 model, but, thanks to the new Williams FJ44-1AP turbofans, it will climb faster (taking 32 minutes to climb to 41,000ft instead of 58min) and, once at cruise altitude, it will achieve a 20kt (36km/h) higher cruise speed. At the same time the option list has been trimmed back in favour of an improved standard configuration. Cessna expects the aircraft to be certificated in the summer of 2005.

Atlas Air Service GmbH of Ganderkesee, Germany is one of the first customers for the Citation CJ2+, having placed an order for three aircraft. This new type should be certificated in 2005 too. It differs from its predecessor in having a slightly higher mass (5,669kg maximum take-off weight compared with 5,613kg) and a greater range. It will be powered by the same Williams FJ44-3A-24 engines, throttled and digitally controlled by FADEC, that are also used on the CJ3. 17 of the most popular optional extras on the Citation CJ2 are included as standard in the Citation CJ2+.

Bombardier also had some new planes to exhibit. FAA certification of the long-range Global 5000 jet coincided with the NBAA Convention. The first aircraft should enter into service in January 2005. Bombardier's Learjet 40 XR, a derivative of the Learjet 40, made its debut at the show. The 40 XR has enhanced performance Honeywell TFE731-20-BR turbofans. These have enabled the development engineers to raise the maximum take-off weight of the jet by 295kg to 9,525kg. The first Learjet 40 XR should be handed over to its owner in the fourth quarter of 2005.

A year later, in the fourth quarter of 2006, Dassault Aviation plans to deliver the first Falcon 7X to its purchaser. This customer had the opportunity, along with all the others, to gain a first-hand picture of the brand new three-engine jet on 28 September in Bordeaux, and see what the aircraft, which has been developed entirely on the computer, looks like in reality.

The maiden flight of the 7X is planned for the spring of 2005, and three aircraft will be involved in the subsequent flight testing and certification programme. Dassault has its eye on the fourth quarter of 2006 as the certification date. Its latest jet has a range of 5,700nm (10,556km).

From FLUG REVUE 12/2004

Last updated 11 November 2004

FLUG REVUE, Ubierstr. 83, 53173 Bonn, Germany