Next-Generation Learjet Will Be Bigger, Faster

Business Jet Traveler » December 2007

by BJT Staff

Saturday, December 1, 2007 - 4:00am

Bombardier's next Learjet will be bigger and faster than any of its forebears, the
company has announced. The 10-seat, stand-up-cabin Learjet NXT will fill the market gap between the midsize Learjet 60XR and super-midsize Challenger 300.

The Canadian airframer is working on the twinjet "with a group of international
collaborators," though a spokesperson said "most of the [NXT's] principal activities will take place at Learjet's facility in Wichita, including final assembly,  interior completions, aircraft delivery, contracts, sales and flight test." No suppliers have yet been named.

Preliminary performance data include a Mach 0.82 maximum cruise speed and 3,000-nm range. Bombardier started offering the airplane to customers in September and said it has received more than 65 letters of intent to buy it. The aircraft will be priced somewhere between the $13.3 million Learjet 60XR and $21 million Challenger 300.

A "public unveiling" of the model is scheduled for next October.

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“When you get into the larger aircraft it becomes like a hotel, with dozens of staff supporting the plane based in a galley area down below. You have very comprehensive cooking facilities, and on larger aircraft we have looked at theatres, with spiral staircases and a Steinway grand piano. The limitations for what you can put inside a plane are pretty much the limits of physics, and even money cannot always overcome that. Even so, people are still always trying to push [the limits]. ”

-Howard Guy of Design Q, a UK-based consultancy