Aircraft
Learjet 85 Program Flying Along

Bombardier Aerospace has made “significant progress” on its Learjet 85 program, it announced just before EBACE. Work on the two first flight-test aircraft and the complete aircraft static test article is well under way, the company said, with the production of hundreds of composite components, including the 32-foot composite fuselage.

The joining of the nose fuselage to the main pressure fuselage, as well as the assembly of the aft fuselage, vertical stabilizer and tailcone fuselage sections, have all begun at Bombardier’s facilities in Wichita and Queretaro, Mexico. First shipments of wing spars and skins from Bombardier’s Belfast, Northern Ireland site have arrived at Queretaro, where wing assembly has started. In addition, major supplier components, such as the midsize jet’s Pratt & Whitney Canada PW307B engines, are now on the final assembly line in Wichita.