Learjet is a manufacturer of business jets for civilian and military use. It was founded in the late 1950s by William Powell Lear as Swiss American Aviation Corporation. Learjet is now a subsidiary of Bombardier and marketed as the "Bombardier Learjet Family".

The Learjet started life as an abortive Swiss ground-attack fighter aircraft, the FFA P-16. Development started in 1952 and prototypes were ordered the next year. The first prototypes flew in 1955 and construction and testing continued until 1958 when an order for 100 was placed. This was reversed soon after due to a crash of the third prototype. Two additional prototypes were finished, the last in 1960, but the project was ended at this point.

The basic structure of this aircraft was seen by Bill Lear and his team as a good starting point to the development of a business jet, which 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. The tooling for building the aircraft was purchased and moved to Wichita, Kansas, in 1962. 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.

William (Bill) Powell Lear (June 26, 1902 – May 14, 1978) was an American inventor and businessman. He is best known for founding the Lear Jet Corporation, a manufacturer of business jets. He also invented the first car radio and developed the 8-track cartridge, an audio tape system which was widely used in the 1960s and 1970s.

Lear was born on June 26, 1902 in Hannibal, Missouri to Ruben Marion Lear and Gertrude Elizabeth Powell Lear. Ruben was a man who had "success in inverse proportion to effort", so Lear's mother left him; mother and son stayed with aunt Gussie Bornhouser in Dubuque, Iowa. Later Otto Kirmse took them in and was a step-father to Bill Lear. The family relocated to Chicago where Lear attended Kershaw Grammar School. On Sundays, young Lear attended the Moody Bible Institute. "From listening to Paul Rader, of the Moody Tabernacle, he learned grammar and how to speak. He found out how to meet people, how to shake hands, and what to say when he did so... He learned about hypocrisy, too" and ceased any further church affiliation.

Clay Lacy (born August 14, 1932) is the founder and chief executive officer of Clay Lacy Aviation, established in 1968 as the first executive jet charter company in the Western United States. His professional career includes serving as airline captain, military aviator, experimental test pilot, air race champion, world record-setter, aerial cinematographer and business aviation entrepreneur. Lacy has flown more than 300 aircraft types, logged more than 50,000 flight hours and accumulated more hours flying turbine aircraft than any other pilot.

Growing up in the farmland of Wichita, Kansas during the Great Depression, Lacy developed an early fascination with flight. He learned how to build model airplanes at age five and created his first gasoline-powered flying model at age eight. At age 12, Lacy piloted his first aircraft at Cannonball Airport, built on his grandmother’s farm about three miles outside the city limits of Wichita, where he worked in exchange for flying time. In 1948, at age 16, he earned a flight instructor rating.