High Flying Luxury (The Rich and Famous Private (Business) Jet) - Learjet

• published: 01 Nov 2014
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Learjet is an American 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. Since 1990 Learjet has been a subsidiary of Bombardier and is marketed as the "Bombardier Learjet Family". Learjet was one of the first companies to manufacture a private, luxury aircraft. In the 1940s, with World War II still fresh in the public's mind, Lear chose to base his first jet on an American military aircraft known as the Marvel. Learjet is an American company that started off in Wichita, Kansas, which has over 3200 employees. Wichita, Kansas was not the only candidate for the location of Lear’s project. Grand Rapids, Michigan and Ohio were also both locations that were being considered. Kansas had something that the other two states did not. There were already a few other aircraft companies that were located in Kansas, which meant there were many more potential workers that would possess the skills that Lear needed to run his company in the design and manufacturing of the aircraft. If that was not enough incentive to choose Kansas as the primary location, Lear was offered an industrial revenue bond of 1.2 million US dollars. This would be known as the first historical industrial revenue bond offered by the city. To this day, the Learjet facility is still located in Wichita Kansas, and is currently getting ready to be renovated, by expanding the Flight Test Center and building a new center for delivery. The Learjet started life as 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. or at one time the 'Tina Jet'. 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. The original Learjet 23 was a six- to eight-seater and first flew on October 7, 1963, with the first production model being delivered in October 1964. Just over a month later, Lear Jet became a publicly owned corporation. Several derived models followed, with the Model 24 first flying on February 24, 1966 and the Model 25 first flying on August 12, 1966. On September 19 of the same year, the company was renamed Lear Jet Industries Inc. On April 10, 1967, Bill Lear's stock—he held approximately 60% of the company (US$ 27,000,000)—was acquired by the Gates Rubber Company of Denver, Colorado, United States, with Lear remaining on the board until April 2, 1969. In 1990, Bombardier Aerospace purchased the Learjet Corporation. The aircraft were then marketed as the "Bombardier Learjet Family". On October 10, 1990, the Learjet 60 mid-sized aircraft had its first flight, followed on October 7, 1995 by the Learjet 45. In October 2007 Bombardier Learjet launched a brand new aircraft program, the Learjet 85. It was the first FAR Part-25 all-composite business aircraft. On October 7, 2008, Bombardier celebrated Learjet's historic 45th anniversary of the first flight ever by a Learjet. As a way to commemorate this, Bombardier Business aircraft (a division of Bombardier Inc.) decided to launch the Year of Learjet campaign, a year-long celebration to honor Learjet's contribution as a pioneer to the private business jet industry. One of the most memorable events to mark this celebration occurred at the Farnborough Air Show, when Formula One racing driver Lewis Hamilton raced a Learjet and won.