Bombardier’s Global 8000 jet offers near-supersonic speed and access to remote airports
Flagship aircraft, with unique flexible wing that ensures comfortable cabin experience over 14,800km flight, goes into service this year
Combining near-supersonic speed across vast distances with convenience and comfort is the ultimate challenge for private jet makers. But Bombardier has combined blue-sky thinking and big ambitions to design the Global 8000 – its flagship business aircraft, which will set new benchmarks when it goes into service in the second half of this year.
The Global 8000 will follow on from the record-breaking success of the Canadian jet maker’s Global 7500, which first flew business passengers in 2018, to become the world’s fastest and longest-range purpose-built civilian aircraft in service. It will be able to transport up to 19 passengers per flight and reach destinations faster and further than ever before.
The jet will have an impressive range of 8,000 nautical miles (14,816km) and a top speed of Mach 0.94 (1,152km/h) – just short of the speed of sound – although it broke the sound barrier while flying at Mach 1.015 during test flights in 2021. It will become the fastest civilian aircraft since the Concorde.
“The Global 8000 was designed with a mindset of delivering our clients the ultimate, no-compromise aircraft,” Emmanuel Bornand, Bombardier’s vice-president of international sales, says. “There was a time in aviation when you had to make trade-offs – choosing between using smaller, more convenient airports, speed and range, or a more pleasant cabin experience versus faster flights on more turbulent wings.
“In the case of the Global 8000, you get it all. Bringing the best range, speed and ability to go to smaller airports with a four-zone cabin makes this aircraft unique.”
The company, which has 5,100 of its jets now in service, has installed a range of ultra-modern features inside the Global 8000, including Nuage seats – the first zero-gravity position business jet seats, which can help reduce lower back pressure and neck strain while improving circulation.
The jet also houses four distinct living spaces, a crew rest area and two well-furnished toilets. The aircraft’s Principal Suite features a full-sized bed and optional shower, while Bombardier’s Pur Air system offers passengers the ability to choose between using outside air or recirculating cabin air for quicker climate control. All of this comes while benefiting from HEPA (high efficiency particulate arresting) filter technology, which captures up to 99.99 per cent of particles including viruses.
No compromise was made when it came to providing cutting-edge technology for the Global 8000, Stephen McCullough, Bombardier’s senior vice-president of engineering and product development, says. “We looked at the important things to customers, which typically are range, speed and comfort, and said, ‘OK, what can we do?’.”
Bornand says the pressurised jet’s internal cabin altitude is maintained below 884 metres (2,900 feet) when flying at 12,497 metres – the lowest cabin altitude in its class, which helps to reduce passenger fatigue.
McCullough says the cabin altitude will make passengers feel as if they are in a skyscraper, rather than climbing a mountain, which will help to leave them more refreshed when they land.
He says the aircraft’s curve-shaped Smooth Flex Wing has been engineered like “two wings in one” – a high-speed wing, which offers unequalled range and speed, and a high-lift wing providing low-speed agility – which helps to dampen turbulence and maintain its optimum all-weather performance.
The Global 8000 is being built at Bombardier’s facilities in Canada, the United States and Mexico; the company also has service centres in Tianjin, northern China and in Singapore, as well as a parts depot and authorised service facility in Hong Kong.
Bornand says the aircraft’s design allows people to travel with additional family members or business partners in comfort, supporting Asian market trends.
He says many Chinese buyers pay close attention to specific details in the interiors of the cabins, including the trend of opting to use lighter coloured wood veneer tones as well as aircraft configurations with higher seating.
The aircraft’s impressive range means that it can be used so cities can now easily connect with far-off destinations, such as flying non-stop between Hong Kong and New York, Dubai and Miami or Riyadh and Los Angeles.
“You can also go from New York to London at speeds that haven’t been experienced by a civilian since the days of Concorde,” McCullough says.
Bornand says Concorde has been an inspiration for Bombardier’s designers, even though the retired supersonic airliner always needed to use large and long runways. In contrast, the Global 8000 will not have to operate from the world’s busiest airports, which will save time for business passengers, he says.
In wet conditions, the Global 8000 jet’s unique performance will allow it to land at 1,900 more airports worldwide than its closest competitor. In dry conditions, that difference rises to 2,050, opening a lot of new choices for operators.
In 2020, Bombardier, which is working to reduce its carbon emissions by up to 50 per cent, became the first maker of business jets to release an Environmental Product Declaration for the 7500. The document provides details about an aircraft’s environmental footprint over its life cycle.
Bornand says: “We have really pushed this development to meet the world getting smaller by increasing the aircraft’s range to open up new routes.”
Bombardier has also received strong interest for the platform considering its name starts with the number eight. Chinese buyers often also request serial numbers with an “eight” in them, as the number, pronounced ba in Mandarin, is believed to be the luckiest one in China because its sound is similar to the word fa, which is used in phrases linked with wealth, such as facai, meaning well-off.
Bombardier realises that when reaching for the sky while designing their business jets, even the little details matter.