Innovations in the Pipeline

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Noteworthy business aircraft models are in the works on both the higher- and lower-priced end of the spectrum, and airframers expect a couple of these offerings to be in customers’ hands before the end of this year. The six models described below—which represent either clean-sheet-of-paper designs or substantial makeovers of existing aircraft—differ radically in size. But they share a sharper emphasis on utility, passenger comfort, ease of maintenance, and operating efficiencies than many of their predecessors.

Airbus ACJ350-900 XWB

Price: $254 million plus interior

Status: currently in completion (airliner version in service since 2015)

Designed to serve the needs of the rarified few, this widebody twinjet is an airliner variant that’s being made available as an Airbus Corporate Jet (ACJ). Top speed is Mach 0.89. The cabin measures nearly 170 feet long, more than 18 feet wide, and eight feet tall, yielding almost 3,000 square feet of floor space—more than many homes provide.

With so much room to work with, the interior options on the ACJ350 are limited only by what you care to spend. Airbus has floated some ideas, including a grand entryway; above-deck crew rest areas; forward and mid-cabin gourmet galleys; a forward master stateroom suite with bedroom, bathroom with shower, and private office; a mid-cabin lounge; an oversized circular dining table with seating for 10; three junior staterooms with shared bathroom and shower; and an aft cabin media room/theatre with a dozen reclining seats and a large flat-screen monitor mounted to the aft bulkhead.

Maximum takeoff weight is close to 600,000 pounds. Obviously, a bird this big can’t land just anywhere; it needs 6,100 feet to stop. Takeoff distance at maximum weight is 8,770 feet. But once you’re airborne, you can fly far: range with 25 passengers is 11,100 nautical miles.

Bombardier Global 5500/6500

Price: $46.4 million (5500), $54.3 million (6500)

Status: expected to be in service in 2020

In May 2018, Bombardier took the wraps off the Global 5500 and 6500. The models are fresh takes on the legacy Global 5000 and 6000, and they use those aircraft’s fuselage cross-sections as well. But they feature new engines, wings, interiors, and avionics and offer reduced fuel burn and emissions as well as increased range and passenger comfort.

The new Globals are the launch vehicles for the Rolls-Royce Pearl 15 engine (15,125 pounds of thrust), which discharges 48 percent less smoke and 20 percent less nitrous oxide, is two decibels quieter, burns 7 percent less fuel, and has 9 percent more thrust than the BR710 engines on the old Globals.

The latest Globals feature a “re-profiled” wing and other aerodynamic cleanups that Bombardier says will combine with the new engines to boost fuel efficiency by up to 13 percent compared with the legacy Globals. In addition, maximum cruise speed will increase from Mach 0.89 to Mach 0.9, and the airplanes will have longer legs than their predecessors: range is 5,700 nautical miles on the Global 5500 (500 more than on the Global 5000) and 6,600 nautical miles on the Global 6500 (600 more than on the Global 6000).

The new aircraft will feature Rockwell Collins’s Venue cabin-management and 4K entertainment system and Ka-band satellite connectivity. The cabins can be configured to typically seat 12 to 17 and are available with many custom options, including steam ovens in the galley, newly styled cabinets and countertops, and a stand-up shower in the aft lav.

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Dassault Falcon 6X

Price: $47 million

Status: expected to be in service by 2022

Dassault completed the critical design review of the twinjet Falcon 6X earlier this year, and the company says it remains on schedule with development of the 14-passenger 6X, which has the largest cross-section of a purposely designed business jet: eight and a half feet wide, six and a half feet high, and 40.4 feet long. Like most Falcons, the 6X will blend good short-field and long-range capabilities; it will also be able to use runways as short as 3,000 feet while offering a range of 5,500 nautical miles with a top speed of Mach 0.9.

The 6X will be powered by a pair of 13,000- to 14,000-pounds-of-thrust Pratt & Whitney Canada (PWC) PW812D high-efficiency engines, and it will feature an all-new EASy III flight deck with enhanced-vision technology for low-visibility operations. The new wing is designed to mitigate turbulence and is equipped with flaperons, leading-edge slats, and trailing edge flaps, which enable lower speed and steeper airport approaches. All aerodynamic control surfaces are linked to a next-generation, computerized, fly-by-wire flight-control system.

As impressive as all this is, Dassault’s plan to automate 6X maintenance is even more so. The airframer will use the Falcon Broadcast data-sharing system paired with artificial intelligence to enable analysts to anticipate the aircraft’s maintenance needs before customers call with problems.

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Cessna 408 SkyCourier

Price: $5.5 million

Status: certification expected in 2020

This unpressurized Cessna turboprop twin can be configured for up to 19 passengers or all-cargo operations. Textron Aviation unveiled the model in late 2017 and has visions of the high-wing, all-aluminum aircraft becoming its highest-volume twin turboprop, which could well happen: the airframer already has landed a 100-aircraft commitment (orders and options) from FedEx.

The SkyCourier features a pair of 1,100-shp Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-65SC engines, Garmin G1000 avionics, fixed landing gear, and a large 87-inch cargo door that can swallow LD3 shipping containers. Textron unveiled a full-size passenger cabin mockup of the aircraft last year. The no-frills cabin is almost a perfect 70-inch square with a rubberized floor, small overhead bins, and a netted rear cabin area for passenger luggage.

The aircraft, which has a range of 900 nautical miles, can climb to 25,000 feet with supplemental pilot/passenger oxygen and has a relatively slow top speed of 200 knots. A prototype aircraft should fly later this year.

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Epic Aircraft E1000

Price: $3.25 million

Status: deliveries expected to begin by end of 2019

This all-composite, six-seat $3.25 million turboprop single has a top speed of 333 knots and a range of 1,650 nautical miles (full fuel with 1,100-pound payload). Power comes from a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6-67A engine (derated to 1,200 shaft horsepower), and production aircraft will feature the three-screen Garmin G1000 NXi glass-panel avionics. The sculpted cockpit and the cabin both take the latest automotive styling cues and offer all the modern conveniences, including USB ports for carry-on electronics. Entry is via a rear airstair door, up a center aisle through the facing club-four passenger seat array. The 15-foot-long cabin offers more space than a twin-engine King Air C90.

The E1000 is expected to deliver fuel burns of 60 gallons per hour at cruise speeds of 300 knots down low, and 40 gallons per hour at 300 knots up at 34,000 feet. Time to climb to maximum altitude is just 15 minutes. The E1000 is projected to need just 1,600 feet of runway for takeoff.

The first of 87 customer aircraft on order are already on the assembly line at Epic’s 300,000-square-foot factory in Bend, Oregon. Initial production will be one airplane per month, with the goal to eventually accelerate to one per week.

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Cessna Denali

Price: $4.8 million

Status: deliveries expected to begin by 2021

Textron Aviation’s Cessna Denali is a new-design, pressurized, single-engine turboprop that is single-pilot capable and can seat six to 10 passengers. The Denali’s flat-floor cabin is 16 feet, nine inches long—the same as the cabin in Cessna’s durably selling but unpressurized and slower Grand Caravan EX turboprop utility single; the other cabin dimensions are nearly identical, too: 58 inches high and 63 inches wide for the Denali and 54 inches high and 64 inches wide for the Grand Caravan.

Textron expects the Denali to have a range of 1,600 nautical miles with four passengers, a maximum cruise speed of 285 knots, and a full-fuel payload of 1,100 pounds. The aircraft features a 53-by-59-inch rear cargo door (slightly larger than the one on the Pilatus PC-12) and a digital pressurization system that maintains a 6,130-foot cabin to 31,000 feet.

Options include an externally serviceable belted lavatory with pocket-door enclosure in the aft of the cabin. The aircraft is powered by the new GE Catalyst engine with full authority digital engine control (fadec) and features Garmin G3000 avionics. GE estimates that the engine could be 15 to 20 percent more efficient than comparable models. And its manufacture employs 3D printing, which cuts its weight, improves reliability, and reduces production costs. The initial engine time-between-overhaul interval will be 4,000 hours.

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Gulfstream G700 

Price: $75 million 

Status: certification expected in 2022

In October, Gulfstream officially unveiled its answer to Bombardier’s new 7,500-nautical-mile-range Global bizjet. The G700 will have a top speed of Mach 0.925 and the same range as the Global and will accommodate 14 to 19 passengers. It stretches the fuselage of Gulfstream’s flagship G650ER by 10 feet and adds more windows, fully berthable single executive passenger seats, an integrated cabin sound system with in-wall transducers, and an extra living zone for a total of five. You won’t have to rely on catering, because the galley, with a 10-foot-long countertop, is large enough for a chef to prepare fresh meals. 

The G700 features a full fly-by-wire Symmetry flight deck with sidestick controls, new curved winglets, and new Rolls-Royce Pearl 700 engines that blow 8 percent more thrust, burn 3.5 percent less fuel, and weigh less than the engines on the G650ER. The new engines will meet or exceed Stage 5 noise standards and produce nitrous-oxide emissions that are projected to be 35 percent below new, more rigorous international standards known as CAEP/6. The engines are connected to a new onboard health-monitoring system designed to produce 100 percent dispatch reliability. 

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Pilatus PC-12NGX

Price: $5.37 million (with executive cabin) 

Status: certification expected before the end of 2019, with deliveries beginning in second quarter of 2020

Pilatus took the wraps off its seven- to nine-passenger PC-12 NGX single-engine turboprop in late 2019. The third iteration of the popular aircraft (1,730 deliveries since 1996) features important updates, including single-lever power control, optional autothrottle, a more powerful Pratt & Whitney Canada engine with longer overhaul intervals (5,000 hours), restyled single-executive seats, and larger cabin windows. Top cruising speed bumps up to 290 knots. The engine can be operated in a low-prop-speed mode that reduces cabin noise without adversely impacting performance. 

The new avionics are built around the Honeywell Epic 2.0 system and include a new touchscreen controller and many standard safety features, such as emergency descent mode pilot-defined visual approaches; high-resolution 2D airport moving maps; Honeywell’s SmartLanding and SmartRunway awareness systems; 3D intelligent audio with ai traffic control playback and Bluetooth interface; electronic checklists linked to crew alerting system messages; and worldwide graphical weather.

Pilatus expects direct hourly operating costs to be at least 9 percent lower for the NGX than for previous models. Customers will have the option of enrolling in the company’s nose-to-tail CrystalCare maintenance program. 

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Piper M600 SLS 

Price: $2.994 million 

Status: deliveries to begin before the end of 2019

This four- to five-passenger aircraft features an upgraded interior, Garmin’s G3000 glass-panel avionics with autothrottle, and Piper’s new Halo Safety System. In the event of pilot incapacitation, Halo either automatically activates or allows a passenger to engage it, then finds the nearest suitable airport, flies the approach to that airport, lowers landing gear and flaps, lands, stops, and shuts down the engine. 

The SLS also includes Piper’s upgraded EXP interior and a five-year membership in the company’s Ultimate Care Program, which covers all scheduled maintenance and inspections. 

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Note: All images except Bombardier Global are artists' renderings.