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More potential Lear 85 delays?

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johnsonrod, I'm curious as to why you think the Lear 85 "will be a real winner." The 85 offers nearly the same specs as the Challenger 300, but in a smaller cabin. And with Bombardier heavily discounting CL300s as the 350 comes online, the price delta between the $18 million Lear 85 and the CL300 is pretty narrow. Not to mention that the CL300 is already certified and that Lear 85 approval is at least two years away. I truly don't understand why Bombardier doesn't cancel the Lear 85 and instead offer a de-contented CL 300–let's call it the CL250–at the Lear 85's $18 million price tag.

And if Kenn wants a midsize aircraft, wouldn't the Legacy 500 be a better choice over the Learjet 85? The Legacy 500 will be certified in the next few days, too.

I'm guessing that Kenn knew the Learjet 85 program was a mess and could never be certified anywhere close to Bombardier's timetable. IMO, Kenn knew he could dangle a big Lear 85 order in front of Bombardier to get more favorable terms in the Flexjet deal and then be able to contractually cancel these orders when the certification terms aren't met. I predict you'll never see a Lear 85 on property at Flex or Flight Options.
 
The learjets are still the best small jets ever built

Its too bad most people would prefer to ride in a slow SUV type airplane in todays world

Speed used to be king. Now people prefer the bigger slow SUV
 
johnsonrod, I'm curious as to why you think the Lear 85 "will be a real winner." The 85 offers nearly the same specs as the Challenger 300, but in a smaller cabin. And with Bombardier heavily discounting CL300s as the 350 comes online, the price delta between the $18 million Lear 85 and the CL300 is pretty narrow. Not to mention that the CL300 is already certified and that Lear 85 approval is at least two years away. I truly don't understand why Bombardier doesn't cancel the Lear 85 and instead offer a de-contented CL 300?let's call it the CL250?at the Lear 85's $18 million price tag.

And if Kenn wants a midsize aircraft, wouldn't the Legacy 500 be a better choice over the Learjet 85? The Legacy 500 will be certified in the next few days, too.

I'm guessing that Kenn knew the Learjet 85 program was a mess and could never be certified anywhere close to Bombardier's timetable. IMO, Kenn knew he could dangle a big Lear 85 order in front of Bombardier to get more favorable terms in the Flexjet deal and then be able to contractually cancel these orders when the certification terms aren't met. I predict you'll never see a Lear 85 on property at Flex or Flight Options.

I don't disagree with you. It's all relative - for a Lear, the 85 seems impressive but its performance and price is close to that of a CL300. So, you make a good point. I am betting Ken is getting the Lear 85 at a big discount with the volume launch order but I could be wrong. I also think Bombardier is blowing these sales opportunities given its frequent development fumbling. Bombardier could generate more excitement in the airplane if it could keep to its development schedule.

I drive an ERJ and Embraer is all I really know professionally. I have been an advocate for the Legacy 500 for quite some time and am surprised that it hasn't been ordered yet in decent numbers given its "lowish" price point for that performance and the existing relationships established at both Netjets (Phenoms) and FLOPS (Legacy & Phenoms). No doubt price becomes the determining factor...
 
johnsonrod, midsize market has taken a hit over the past few years and I think a lot of potential Legacy 500 buyers were scared off a bit by the fly-by-wire problems that cropped up early in the program. Now that this market segment is improving and Embraer is on the cusp of getting certification, it's likely that we'll see a swell of orders coming in for this airplane and its 450 sibling.

rajflyboy, when have the fractionals ever routinely operated aircraft at their max speeds? They fly at LRC for two main reasons: lower DOCs and more billable hours for clients. Flying at LRC is a win-win for the fractionals; flying at max cruise on the other hand is a lose-lose for them (higher costs and lower billable hours). The Citation Xs at NetJets or Flight Options have probably only hit Mach 0.92 once -- on a post-production test flight. Speed is a great selling point, but fractional shareowners will never see those speeds due to the higher operational costs. But cabin size can't be altered, so owners can't ever get short-changed on cabin size, unless they agree to be downgraded to a smaller aircraft, which they are compensated for with a reduction in billable hours.
 
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From what I have read, I think the LR85 will be a real winner, but talk about biting off more than you could chew... Bombardier sounds incompetent. Wonder what KR thinks about even more potential delays?

Will give him more time before he starts canceling orders. He's never been much of a grower of companies. Look at Options. How many 4 to 10 plane fleets have we had. He gets some then after a handful he fizzles out.
 
johnsonrod, midsize market has taken a hit over the past few years and I think a lot of potential Legacy 500 buyers were scared off a bit by the fly-by-wire problems that cropped up early in the program. Now that this market segment is improving and Embraer is on the cusp of getting certification, it's likely that we'll see a swell of orders coming in for this airplane and its 450 sibling.

rajflyboy, when have the fractionals ever routinely operated aircraft at their max speeds? They fly at LRC for two main reasons: lower DOCs and more billable hours for clients. Flying at LRC is a win-win for the fractionals; flying at max cruise on the other hand is a lose-lose for them (higher costs and lower billable hours). The Citation Xs at NetJets or Flight Options have probably only hit Mach 0.92 once -- on a post-production test flight. Speed is a great selling point, but fractional shareowners will never see those speeds due to the higher operational costs. But cabin size can't be altered, so owners can't ever get short-changed on cabin size, unless they agree to be downgraded to a smaller aircraft, which they are compensated for with a reduction in billable hours.

Flying at LRC?

We only fly at LRC on legs that it will allow us to go nonstop instead of making a fuel stop. We don't fly Mmo, but we fly pretty close to it.

We do fly slower on empty legs since it is all obout DOC on empty legs.

I have a good friend who is a X Capt at NJ. They fly .92 quite a bit.
 
Options X's are flown as: X owner - MCT-what ever speed it gives you, repo flight/or upgraded owner - .82-for the upgraded owner, .82 is still faster than what they would have been flying.
 
rajflyboy, when have the fractionals ever routinely operated aircraft at their max speeds? They fly at LRC for two main reasons: lower DOCs and more billable hours for clients. Flying at LRC is a win-win for the fractionals; flying at max cruise on the other hand is a lose-lose for them (higher costs and lower billable hours). The Citation Xs at NetJets or Flight Options have probably only hit Mach 0.92 once -- on a post-production test flight. Speed is a great selling point, but fractional shareowners will never see those speeds due to the higher operational costs. But cabin size can't be altered, so owners can't ever get short-changed on cabin size, unless they agree to be downgraded to a smaller aircraft, which they are compensated for with a reduction in billable hours.

Uh, hate to break it you, but at NJ we fly all pax legs at max speed, with the exception of trying to cover a large distance that simply can't be done at max speed.

Empty legs of long enough duration are planned at something slower than max.

I fly the X. We may or may not hit .92 mach on any pax leg depending on weight, temp, and altitude. But we always try for it. We set the power levers in max continuous and let the plane settle in where it may. I do lots and lots of flights between .89 and .92.

I'm 99% certain our other fleets fly all our pax (share owners and jet cards) at their max speeds too.

I'm certain our clients enjoy our onboard amenities (when they're working), but the bottom line is they are climbing aboard our aircraft to actually go somewhere, and prefer to get there as fast as their aircraft can take them.

The X is classified as a super-midsize aircraft. But it has the smallest cabin of any aircraft in that category. So for the money, why was it our hottest selling aircraft for a bunch if years? Easy, speed. That's why people buy into that aircraft, and flying it at anything less than max (when possible) is doing them a disservice.
 
You are forgetting about maintenance costs? Flying fast does save money for most operators unless you have some sweet warranty deal

Duh

Again we are showing some who are very inexperienced in this business
 
Thanks for the clarification on how NetJets operates aircraft re: high-speed cruise. But you're not likely to see that practiced at Flight Options.

Regarding top speed, the Challenger 300 and Learjet 85 share the same top speed of 470 knots. LRC is 1 knot faster in the Learjet 85, at 459 knots. So you're not really losing any speed with the larger cabin in the Challenger 300 versus the smaller one in the Learjet 85. Other than a price delta of about $2 million--or $125,000 per 1/16th share--where's the compelling argument for fractional owners opting for the Learjet 85 over a Challenger 300? I'm not seeing it...
 
Thanks for the clarification on how NetJets operates aircraft re: high-speed cruise. But you're not likely to see that practiced at Flight Options.

Slowtation Capt corrected you once, maybe you missed it. Options X owners get max continuous thrust in cruise.
 
Slowtation Capt corrected you once, maybe you missed it. Options X owners get max continuous thrust in cruise.

OK, I missed that. Now can someone please answer my question of why the nowhere close to certified Learjet 85 is better than the long-certified Challenger 300, especially when there is no real speed advantage to the Learjet 85?
 
OK, I missed that. Now can someone please answer my question of why the nowhere close to certified Learjet 85 is better than the long-certified Challenger 300, especially when there is no real speed advantage to the Learjet 85?

The price delta is $5M.
 

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