For a year marked by a lackluster recovery in flight activity, tepid used aircraft sales and continued slow sales of new light and midsize jets, there was a surprising amount of activity in new aircraft programs. At last year’s NBAA convention, Bombardier, Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft all announced new aircraft programs (although most are derivatives of existing models) and hints of more to come from other OEMs appear to be more fact than rumor.
Dassault’s long-anticipated SMS took one step closer to becoming official with the announcement by Canadian landing-gear manufacturer Héroux-Devtek that it has been selected by Dassault for an upcoming business jet program. At MEBA last month, Dassault confirmed that it hopes to certify the SMS in 2016.
Bombardier made a big splash at the NBAA show with two new additions to the Global stable, the 7000 and 8000. These two new jets offer an interesting new paradigm, a pair priced exactly the same ($65 million in 2010 $) but with different range and fuselage size options. The Global 8000 is the longer-range version at 7,900 nm and with the shorter cabin. The Global 7000 will fly 7,300 nm and offers a nine-foot-longer cabin. Both share the same GE TechX engines and Rockwell Collins-based Global Vision avionics.
