Last ever Lear jet to roll off Bombardier line...

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TheGreenGoblin
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Last ever Lear jet to roll off Bombardier line...

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Feb 12, 2021 8:59 am

The last ever Learjet will be built in 2021, its manufacturer, Bombardier, has announced, signalling the end for an aircraft that was once shorthand for the luxury private jet travel of the super-rich.

Sales of new Learjets have dwindled as ever-wealthier customers have started to demand even bigger, more comfortable private planes to carry them further around the world.

The Learjet, the creation of the US inventor Bill Lear, was modelled on a Swiss fighter aircraft and allowed up to eight people to travel in comparative luxury – although not to stand upright in the jet’s small cabin.

About 3,000 planes have been built since the first Learjet 23 flew in 1963. Bombardier acquired the Learjet company in 1990 but has announced it will discontinue the model to focus on its other business jet models, the Global and Challenger series.

Eric Martel, the chief executive of the Canadian manufacturer, told analysts that the decision had been made as part of a cost-cutting rplan designed to save $400m (£290m) a year by 2023, including the loss of 1,600 jobs.

“Passengers all over the world love to fly this exceptional aircraft and count on its unmatched performance and reliability. However, given the increasingly challenging market dynamics, we have made this difficult decision to end Learjet production,” he said.


Bombardier said it would continue to support and maintain existing Learjets, and would offer upgrades to avionics and interiors at the Learjet factory in Wichita in the US after the production line closes.

The company delivered almost 20% fewer business jets in 2020, down to 114 aircraft. While private jet travel has fared better than commercial airlines during the coronavirus pandemic, the price of larger private jets on the secondhand market has dropped, making it ever harder for the firm to sell a new $10m-$14m Learjet.

The Learjet’s six-decade run will come to an end just before that of a slightly younger, equally famous and substantially larger American model, the Boeing 747. Boeing announced last year that production of its jumbo jet would cease in 2022, with airlines such as British Airways retiring the plane owing to vanishing demand for long-haul flights.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... rdier-says
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Re: Last ever Lear jet to roll off Bombardier line...

#2 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Feb 12, 2021 9:27 am

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Re: Last ever Learjet to roll off Bombardier line...

#3 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Feb 12, 2021 10:27 am

Does anybody remember chuks's ongoing debate with some poster at TOP about the other poster's experience of the Leerjet? Pure comedy gold as chuks didn't suffer fools or charlatans gladly. =))
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Re: Last ever Lear jet to roll off Bombardier line...

#4 Post by tango15 » Fri Feb 12, 2021 10:32 am

Sales of new Learjets have dwindled as ever-wealthier customers have started to demand even bigger, more comfortable private planes to carry them further around the world.
Once when passing through the States, we were asked to do a demo with the 125 to some corporate god or other, I think it was in Memphis. The brief was that the company owned a Lear and were known to be interested in trading up to a mid-size aircraft. The guy came on board and headed straight for the 'bathroom'. My colleague and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. He re-appeared about 30 seconds later, took a cursory look around the cabin and flight deck and said, "Yeah, I'm gonna have one of these.' We had a chat about the merits of the 125 over the Lear and he said, "Well the biggest advantage for me is that I won't have to take a dump in a drawer no more."

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Re: Last ever Lear jet to roll off Bombardier line...

#5 Post by Ex-Ascot » Fri Feb 12, 2021 11:16 am

Give me one of these any day.

'Yes, Madam, I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.' Sir Winston Churchill.

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Re: Last ever Lear jet to roll off Bombardier line...

#6 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Feb 12, 2021 11:45 am

I would plump for the Falcon 900...

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Re: Last ever Lear jet to roll off Bombardier line...

#7 Post by G-CPTN » Fri Feb 12, 2021 11:52 am

Bill Lear was a truly inventive man, and pioneered many ideas (including the bis-jet and the 8-track cartridge).

William Powell Lear (June 26, 1902 – May 14, 1978)

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Re: Last ever Lear jet to roll off Bombardier line...

#8 Post by CharlieOneSix » Fri Feb 12, 2021 4:27 pm

Ex-Ascot wrote:
Fri Feb 12, 2021 11:16 am
Give me one of these any day.

In the mid/late 70's we were contracted to fly the Rolls Royce Bolkow 105 helicopter for the Company. I was idly sitting around the crewroom between trips at the RR aviation facility at EMA. The Chief Test Pilot, Cliff Rogers, came in and asked if I'd like a quick trip in the Gulfstream 2 as he needed to practice his display on behalf of Gulfstream somewhere in Germany, I forget where. I sat in one of the sideway facing passenger seats and I'm sure Cliff thought he was flying the RR Spitfire. Through the opposite passenger window I could be persuaded I saw blades of grass part due to wingtip vortices as we whistled across EMA low level in a tight turn. An amazing display!
The helicopter pilots' mantra: If it hasn't gone wrong then it's just about to...
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Re: Last ever Lear jet to roll off Bombardier line...

#9 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Feb 13, 2021 1:20 pm

The story of the design of the Learjet is interesting...
Learjet was one of the first companies to manufacture a private, luxury aircraft. Lear's preliminary design was based upon an experimental American military aircraft known as the Marvel, substituting fuselage-mounted turbojet engines for ducted fan turboshaft engines. However, that preliminary design was abandoned and the final Learjet design was instead adapted from an abortive 1950s Swiss ground-attack fighter aircraft, the FFA P-16.

The basic structure of the Swiss P-16 aircraft was seen by Bill Lear and his team as a good starting point to the development of a business jet, and formed the Swiss American Aircraft Corporation, located in Altenrhein, Switzerland and staffed with design engineers from Switzerland, Germany and Britain. The aircraft was originally intended to be called the SAAC-23. The wing with its distinctive tip fuel tanks and landing gear of the first Learjets were little changed from those used by the fighter prototypes. Although building the first jet started in Switzerland, the tooling for building the aircraft was moved to Wichita, Kansas, in 1962. Bill Jr stated that it took too long to get anything done in Switzerland despite the cheaper labor costs. LearJet was in a temporary office which opened in September 1962 while the plant at Wichita's airport was under construction. On February 7, 1963 assembly of the first Learjet began. The next year, the company was renamed the Lear Jet Corporation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learjet

Learjet and the Learfan

p16_01.jpg
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Re: Last ever Lear jet to roll off Bombardier line...

#10 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Feb 13, 2021 1:33 pm

Though you remain
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You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
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