Aircraft
Work Starts on First Production Bombardier Global 8000
Certification for the new speed and range champ is expected late next year
Wings of first production Global 8000
The wings of the first production Global 8000 take shape at Bombardier's U.S. aerostructures production facility in Red Oak, Texas.

As the testing program for Bombardier’s new flagship Global 8000 nears completion, the Canadian airframer announced that it has begun construction of the first production model of the ultra-long-range business jet. It will be the first built from the wheels up as an 8000, since modified Global 7500s were used for the test program.

At a press conference Monday morning at NBAA-BACE, Éric Martel, the OEM’s president and CEO, told a standing-room-only audience that the certification of the twinjet—a longer-legged, faster variant of the Global 7500—is expected to go smoothly as it approached 300 hours of testing.