A short briefing every morning: what’s new in the world of private jets, plus an aircraft, a priced route, a fact and a story from the archive.
The Phenom 100EX is the third generation of Embraer's entry-level jet, adding the Phenom 300E's Bossa Nova-inspired interior, a runway overrun awareness system and a larger baggage door to the 100EV platform. It retains the oval-cross-section cabin that is the roomiest among very light jets, with a 1,178 nm range and 406 kt cruise. Range 1,178 nm, 4 seats, about $5,500,000 new and roughly $1,150 an hour in fuel and maintenance.
Full profile →Bill Gates has described private flying as his 'guilty pleasure' and has been reported to own two Gulfstream G650ERs while funding sustainable-fuel and carbon-capture companies to offset it. (Simple Flying; Gates interviews)
More numbers →5,854 nautical miles, about 13h 30m in a large jet, roughly $176,268–$275,293 one-way for four — about $56,445 a seat.
Price this route →The Cessna Citation X entered service in 1996 as the fastest civil aircraft short of Concorde, cruising at Mach 0.92 on swept wings and Rolls-Royce AE 3007 engines. Golfer Arnold Palmer, a longtime Cessna customer, took the first delivery. It won the 1996 Collier Trophy, and the later Citation X+ nudged the maximum to Mach 0.935. Its swept 37-degree wing and area-ruled fuselage were airliner technology in a ten-seat package, and the type stayed in production until 2018.
The full timeline →Ford flies his own 2009 Citation Sovereign and has crossed the Atlantic in a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop via Greenland and Iceland. His collection also includes a 1929 Waco biplane and an Aviat Husky, and he has volunteered for search-and-rescue flights with his helicopter.
The story →LEGEND — A true-in-1964 boast that became a myth by repetition. The Learjet 23 climbed at nearly 7,000 ft/min and could reach 40,000 ft in about seven minutes — genuinely quicker than several 1950s fighters, including the F-86 Sabre that Bill Lear's publicity liked to mention. Against a contemporary F-4 Phantom it was hopeless, and against anything since it isn't a contest. The story survives because the Learjet was built from a fighter design and behaved like one.
The evidence →