BOMBARDIER

Project Update: Global 8000 – Bombardier’s Mach 1 masterpiece

Bombardier invited guests to its European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition booth for a special event on 23 May 2022. A stage and big screen promised a major announcement, while there were celebratory drinks and a singer even before the countdown to revelation began.

The movie that followed was silent thanks to an audio-visual gremlin, but Bombardier chose to try again. With sound, its announcement rang out loud. Not only had the Global 8000 arrived but, represented by the modified fifth Global 7500 flight test vehicle (FTV5), it had exceeded Mach 1. It was the fastest commercial aircraft since Concorde.

At no point did the OEM suggest its aircraft was supersonic, merely that its performance was sufficiently high for testing to take it beyond Mach 1. Many guests inevitably came away discussing Bombardier’s ‘supersonic bizjet’, perhaps not fully appreciating that the company has created a machine of stunning performance. Capable of reaching Mach 0.94, it will also fly 9,200 miles (14,800km) at Mach 0.85. Surprisingly, there is no external difference between the Global 7500 and 8000. Remarkably, Bombardier is offering the Global 8000 as a new build jet, or by retrofit from the earlier model.

Service entry is expected in 2025 as trials continue beyond the envelope expansion work that saw the sustainable aviation-fuelled FTV5, an aircraft known internally as the “Masterpiece” and originally employed as the Global 7500 entry into service validation aircraft, repeatedly achieve Mach 1.015 in May 2021. Bombardier’s Stephen McCullough, vice president of engineering, provided a program update during the National Business Aviation Association Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition in Orlando during October 2022.