Aircraft
Sizing up your choices
Very light jet.

Very light jet. Super-midsize. Ultra-long-range. These are just some of the names that manufacturers, analysts and aviation journalists use to try to pigeonhole business jets into an increasing number of market niches. But with so much fragmentation in the field and a blurring of traditional lines, such attempts at classification are becoming harder than ever.

Marketers emphasize a product’s best attributes, which may explain why we have “very light jets,” and not “small slow jets.” Analysts and market forecasters need to compare models, so they’re more likely to group aircraft by selling price than range or size. Journalists strive for accuracy and simplicity, but as manufacturers continue to add derivative models, easy categorization is becoming all but impossible.