EBACE Show News - May 20, 2008 - (Page 40) NEW AIRCRAFT EBACE 2008 Bombardier Signs Suppliers for Learjet 85 Bombardier (Booth 7521) says it now holds more than 120 Letters of Intent that it is busy turning into firm orders for its all-new Learjet 85. Launched in October 2007, the Learjet 85 is a departure for the Learjet family and for Bombardier, as the company’s first all-composite business jet. In January, Bombardier announced that Germany’s Grob Aerospace is to design and develop the new jet’s composite structure, then provide three prototype aircraft. Bombardier is linked to Grob via Execujet—owner of Grob Aerospace and a major Bombardier customer and sales representative. Nevertheless, Bombardier’s decision to look outside its own organization for the Learjet 85 program met with some raised eyebrows. Today’s generation of allmetal Learjets are built in Belfast and Wichita. Under current plans Grob will supply a handful of structures and components to support the start-up of the Learjet 85 final assembly line at Wichita. After that, series production of the composite structures will be moved to a new Production details of the all-composite Learjet 85 have still to be determined. Bombardier’s Pierre Beaudoin. site, as yet unidentified. Just prior to this year’s EBACE PW307Bs for the Learjet 85 Bombardier’s transcontinental U.S., all-composite airframe Learjet 85 will be powered by two 6,100-pounds-thrust Pratt & Whitney Canada PW307B turbofans, essentially the same engines that are used aboard the Dassault Falcon 7X. When the Learjet 85 enters service, the PW307A turbofans will have logged more than one million flight hours aboard the Falcon 7X, so the PW307 will be fully mature. The PW307B will have P&WC’s TALON low-emissions combustor, which will give the engine the lowest emissions of any turbofan in this thrust class, according to Bombardier. The engine will have 30% lower emissions than specified by ICAO’s CAEP 6 agreement. It also will enable the Learjet 85 to meet Zurich 5 standards, allowing it to operate in Europe with no emissionsbased landing surcharges. The PW307B will be one of the most-powerful general aviation turbofans to use electric starting rather than air turbine starters. The engines will be equipped with Innovative Power Solutions’ (IPS) brushless starter-generators, which promise considerably higher reliability and reduced maintenance burden compared to conventional starter-generators using carbon brushes. —Fred George Pierre Beaudoin, Bombardier Aerospace’s outgoing president and COO told Show News, “Grob does not have a mass production capacity. We will negotiate with them to build a small number (three) of early aircraft and then Bombardier will take on the production role.” Beaudoin won’t say yet where that production will be located, but Beaudoin does stress that “it will be somewhere near Wichita. We are talking about practically the whole aircraft after all. So we might do it at Wichita, or in Montreal or in Mexico. It’s a big piece of structure.” According to Bombardier, the Learjet 85 will be the first all-composite jet to be certified to FAA Part 25 regulations. The company says that its planned certification date of late 2012 or early 2013 puts it ahead of other all-composite designs, such as the Spectrum S-40 and Grob’s own SPn—and that in any case those aircraft will all be certified under Part 23 rules. The eight-passenger and two-crew Learjet 85 will cruise at Mach 0.82 and will have a maximum range of 3,000 nmi (with four passengers). —Robert Hewson Pro Line Fusion for Learjet 85 Bombardier Aerospace announced Saturday that its new all-composite Learjet 85 will feature Rockwell Collins’ Pro Line Fusion avionics system. This is the second application of the system in a Bombardier aircraft—the avionics suite was launched as a key component of the manufacturer’s Global Vision flight deck in September 2007. In the LJ85 fit Pro Line Fusion features three 15-inch LCD displays, synthetic enhanced vision, graphical flight planning capability, Integrated Flight Information Systems with electronic charts, dual advanced FMS, electronic charts linked to EICAS and integrated circuit breaker control. “The Global Vision flight deck has raised the cockpit environment to a whole new level and we are thrilled to offer Learjet 85 operators a flight deck derived from the best,” said Learjet vp and general manager David Coleal. “Pro Line Fusion will offer Learjet 85 pilots key technological advancements such as synthetic vision, and incorporates information management technologies designed to reduce pilot workload,” noted Denny Helgeson, Rockwell Collins’ vp and general manager of Business and Regional Systems. 40 May 20, 2008 www.aviationweek.com/shownews http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews
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