| BlueSky Business Aviation News | ||||||||||||||||
Furthermore, the aircraft had to be a proven airframe that was still in production today because it was clear that customers wanted new aircraft, not used airliners. Today, there is no such corporate jet on the market. Not being able to design a new jet, Asia Aviation studied the available aircraft on the market today, and selected a new aircraft that would provide the least expensive cabin per square meter of space. This aircraft is the CRJ700. Using the CRJ700 as the basic airframe, we added new fuel tanks to increase the range to meet the market needs, and designed an interior that has all the luxury features that today’s market expects, such as iPad-controlled interior and ambience lighting. The idea As a corporate aircraft professional for over 30 years, I noticed that there was something missing in the family of corporate aircraft. Every manufacturer has been outdoing each other to build bigger, more luxurious, longer-range corporate jets that are getting more and more expensive. The value for money is present in those aircraft because the customers ask for more range, thus value in range. However, there seems to be a small, but significant, portion of the market that is looking for value based on area of cabin, not range. All new corporate jets are expensive. The Boeing and Airbus family of business jets are very expensive and very large and imposing. While they have great values and can take loads of people overseas, for a short trip with few people they are expensive to operate. The same is true for the smaller Embraer Legacy 1000. Furthermore, those aircraft with a large cabin look like “airliners”, with the engine under the wings. While they are fine jets, they do not have the “look” of a business jet, most of which have the engines fuselage mounted. They are also very disproportionate sitting at an FBO compared to all other business jets. Some prospective customers may even find them too ostentatious. Therefore, that still leaves a niche for a large-cabin, “business jet looking”, and economical corporate jet. When looking at the cabin size and the range, why did 3000 NM seem to be the right range? The answer is that this is the ideal range in many geographic markets. For example, this range is perfect for North America as it can cross the continent. It can also fly southbound to Central America where many factories are now installed. It is also perfect for within Europe. People from the Middle East can fly to London, one of the main ports of entry. Finally, for Asia, this range will enable great flights within China or even going as far as Australia, one of China’s major trading partners. The selection To select the right aircraft, Asia Aviation reviewed most of the aircraft in production today. The simple process of elimination reduced the field easily. All aircraft that have under-wing engines were eliminated. Next to be eliminated were all aircraft that are already a business jet. Finally, all out-of production aircraft were eliminated. That left only the ARJ21 and the CRJ family of aircraft. Looking at the ARJ21, the aircraft has yet to be certified, and does not yet have the full worldwide support that corporate customers need. Therefore, the selection became very easy. It left only the CRJ family, but which aircraft should it be? The 700, the 900, or the 1000? Some of you may state that the CRJ family should not be selected because it is part of the Challenger 850, 870, 890 family of corporate jets, thus disqualified. However, if you look at the Bombardier website, the 870 is not listed there. Furthermore, all information available for the 870 refers to this aircraft as a corporate shuttle, thus an airliner with VVIP seats. There is no study or information on the market to state that Bombardier sells this version of aircraft as a corporate aircraft. Therefore, this aircraft meets Asia Aviation initial requirement, as the OEM is not manufacturing a corporate version. Selecting within the CRJ family Looking at the three (3) versions of the CRJ family still in production, the CRJ 700, 900, and 1000, they have comparable performances and economics. However, by going to the 900 or 1000, the price range for the completed aircraft would exceed the market target. Not only would the basic airframe be more expensive, the interior completion would also be more expensive just because of the extra length. Therefore, to meet the target market and have the performance that the market was looking for, the only option was the CRJ 700 at this time. Proving the selection Once the CRJ700 had been selected, Asia Aviation had to make sure the aircraft could meet the customers’ requirement. Looking at airports and facilities around the world, the performance of the aircraft needed to be as good as aircraft with similar capabilities. First, the airframe is a proven airframe, certified in just about all the countries in the world. Over 1500 airframe have been built since 1992 and the 700/900/1000 family has grown and improved since 2000. The new aircraft, the “next Gen”, has still more of a proven reliability and lower operating cost than the previous models. As for the engines, CF34 engine is a well-proven engine with very high reliability and low operating costs. Looking at the performance, (Table 1) we will start with the take-off distance. The selected aircraft had a disadvantage of about 20% on the Global Express, but only a few percent compared with the new Gulfstream G650. Therefore, if Gulfstream think that their customers do not need to use runways shorter than 5,858 feet, and they have done their study, thus, I will follow them. As for landing distances, the selected aircraft have great numbers, having shorter landing distances than the G650 and similar to other corporate jets such as the Challenger 605. Looking at the speed of the aircraft, this is the weakest area. It is similar to smaller jets such as the Legacy or the Challenger 605, but not as fast as the large cabin aircraft such as the Global Express of G650. However, those aircraft are designed to go halfway around the world. Therefore, a high cruising speed is of greater importance My aircraft is designed for short to medium range, thus for a range of about 3000NM, the difference in time between a M.85 and M.80 flight is about 20 minutes over a 5 hour flight. At the higher speed, the aircraft would take about 5 hours and 20 minutes while the slightly slower aircraft would take about 5 hours and 40 minutes. Performances |
||||||||||||||||
