What's Old is New
I sold my 1/2 ton truck a few months ago and have been shopping for an F150. Whether you buy a 1998 or a 2025, other than a few cosmetic, tech, and engine changes, its still called an F150 and by looking at it, you can probably guess that its an F150.
The way new airplane developments work is a bit different. They get new technology, new engines, and maybe some updated cosmetics or accessories, and they'll take on an entirely different name. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're a fundamentally different airplane.
Clean Sheet Designs
When an aircraft is designed from the ground up, its called a "clean sheet design" which, as the name implies, means they pulled out a clean sheet of paper and started drawing. You might know that the Boeing 787 was technically a clean sheet design (although it drew off of institutional knowledge of how to build an airplane), and has unique challenges from a certification standpoint with the FAA. They take significant R&D resources when developing them, and often times take several years (in HondaJet's case, 12 years) before their first delivery.
A clean sheet design is a fundamentally novel platform, and requires a new Type Certificate. They typically involve one, if not all, of:
- Fuselage Cross-Section: A change in cabin width and height
- Wing Planform: A completely new aerodynamic shape, structural design, or sweep angle
- Primary Flight Control Systems: A transition to a fundamentally different control architecture, such as moving from traditional cables/hydraulics to full fly-by-wire (FBW) systems.
The 3 Eras of Clean Sheet Designs
I've divided up clean sheet designs into 25 year chunks to illustrate the foundation of modern aircraft.
Era 1: The Pioneers (1950-1975)
The foundation of all business jets. You can still find remnants from the designs in today's business jets. You may even recognize a few names on this list. (A note: the Gulfstream I was a turboprop so we left it off this list... turboprops are another article for another time).
Known for innovative designs and some of the first purpose built private jets, these are the grand-daddy's. I don't think I would personally fly on any of these today, but to each their own.
Era 2: The Golden Age (1975-2000)
These aircraft are the foundation of the current fleet. Development times were fast, and competition was strong. You've probably flown on an aircraft that at least begins with the name of one of these lists.
Era 3: The Modern Era
These are the aircraft that are likely still in production at least closest to their original form. Most of these (if you're into this newsletter you're into planes) you've heard of or flown on.
Shoutout to the Dassault Falcon 10X, if it ever delivers, will be revolutionary. It is a big TBD.
Iterative Design, the Secret Sauce
You're probably wondering why this is not a comprehensive list of every business jet you've ever flown on. That's because all other aircraft common names are iterations and evolutions on these core clean sheet design. Remember the definition of a clean sheet design? An iterative design (a derivative) relies on the core structural integrity and the Type Certificate of the existing platforms. The derivitaves may include some combo of:
- NEO (New Engine Option) Concept: Replacing older turbofans with new, quieter, and more fuel-efficient engines
- Structural Stretching: Modifying the fuselage length
- Aerodynamic Refinement: Adding components like winglets
- Avionics Refresh: Upgrading the cockpit and electronics systems for new and improved versions
It's all about ROI - Return on Innovation!
The reason manufacturers choose this over clean sheet designs is to maximize ROI for the intense R&D costs. Today, that number is in the Billions. It's estimated break even is 500-1000 units. With only 800-900 total aircraft delivered, it makes a lot more financial sense to have these variants.
Private Aviation's Naming Problem
Unlike airlines (See: 737, 737-300, 737-700, 737-Max, etc.), sometimes business jets will change the name entirely with the underlying type certificate staying intact. Cessna is notorious for this. They love to change names.
Here's a few examples of Textron being funny with names.
Finally, they figured it out with the CitationJet (CJ) series.
Many of the other manufacturers are cleaner with their naming convention. Cessna stands alone for the funny naming of the iterations of their clean sheet designs. For instance, Embraer just slaps letters on the end of their new models (Phenom 300E, Phenom 100EX, etc.) and as they evolve, I wouldn't imagine it being confusing.
The Future of Clean Sheet Design
With the disaster of the Boeing 737 MAX, the landscape for certification and requirements has increased delays in clean sheet design certification. The longer the delays, the longer the R&D costs are not returning a profit, so manufacturers could look at that as a deterrent for putting out novel designs.
Even many of today's clean sheet designs are really iterations on existing airframes, but have enough new technology in them to be qualified as a clean sheet design. For instance, the G800 fuselage is the same length as the G650, but there's enough modifications for it to be its own clean sheet.
My crystal ball says that we'll continue to have more permutations on existing models, as the manufacturers continue to push the limit on the existing airframes. There's some interesting concepts coming out (See: Phantom 3500) but the reality is they're a long way off, and I'm not sure investor capital (or in a few of these companies, public markets) is patient enough to see them all the way through.
I hope you found this history of clean sheet designs interesting. Let me know what you want me to write about next (if you reply to this email, it comes to my inbox).
Until next week,
Preston Holland
P.s. Forward this to a friend who has one of the Citation variants that has a weird naming convention. They'll learn something new, and then ask them to come pick you up and take you to dinner a few states away. It'll be a win-win.
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