Autoblog

How did you put 50K on it in less than 2 years, and why would it be out of warranty already?

↓↑report

50k in two years isnt that hard. i put 65k on my car in two years

↓↑report

Wait, do those passenger seats recline?
Also what's the cruising range?

↓↑report

range is 1100 to 1400 miles. http://world.honda.com/HondaJet/Performance/Range/

↓↑report

What they neglected to tell you is that this jet is something like 30% more efficient than anything else in its class. That's a huge leap for a class of vehicle that is so thoroughly engineered.

↓↑report

nice cliche, original comment....way to contribute to the discussion.

↓↑report

Yep, traveling faster uses more energy, which contributes to global warming if you're burning fossil fuels. But there's a hell of a lot more energy wasted by all those V8s and V6 cars out there that could have 120HP 4-cylinder engines than there are by the small number of private jets. So, want to fix the problem? Take the first step yourself.

Cameron:
Most of improvement in plane efficiency lately comes from new engines, which are making huge strides right now, with another one (geared compressor fans) right on the horizon. I doubt Honda makes their own jet engines, so probably a good portion of this increase in efficiency is attributable more to Honda's engine supplier than to Honda. Small jets in particular have typically used ancient, 60s era old military designs for their jet engines, most are even turbojet (not turbofan) engines. At the lower outputs of these smaller engines, the efficiency just wasn't a big concern in the past. But it is now.

↓↑report

wow, Honda does have input to their engines, seemingly a lot of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Honda_HF120

If you click on the link in there to the Hondajet, you'll find out more about the engine development than you do on the HF120 page.

↓↑report

LS2LS7,

As a blatant and obvious lover of all things made in Mexico and China then partially assembled in a barely staffed mid-west factory (i.e. "domestic" cars), you failed to miss that Honda's real part in this project was the engines themselves. They have been in development for years on the engines alone knowing that they could achieve higher efficiency and lower noise. You have it backwards; Honda IS the engine supplier and engineering support on aerodynamics while another company builds the airframe, interior and avionics.

In fact, the well known aircraft manufacturer Piper is the partner that builds the airframe and Honda supplies the revolutionary engines.

Please, everyone, speak with facts and not opinions so you don't look this foolish talking out your rear.

↓↑report

RMc:
As I mentioned in my link before you got done with your lengthy insult to everything American, the engine supplier is GE/Honda. Note GE is an American company and shares in the credit. I'm really sorry to have to mention that in front of you, because it clearly pains you to hear that an American company had anything to do with it.

If making turbofan in a small size with two spools that has a higher bypass ratio than previous engines in that range (esp. no-bypass turbojets) is revolutionary, then yeah, Honda has revolutionized jet engines. I personally would have said the companies developing geared turbofans and three spool designs right now were the real innovators, as opposed to two spool designs that originated in the 80s, but no, it's Honda I guess.

↓↑report

LS2/LS7:
Honda actually r&d the engines and airframes. The other guys (Piper, GE, etc) were brought in as production partners after Honda first flew the prototype in 2003, and decided to proceed with mass production. This for the most part was started and driven by a single individual Honda engineer who kept the project alive. There was a great article on page a1 in WSJ 2-3 years ago.

↓↑report

LS2LS7:

GE had nothing to do with the initial development. Honda brought them in as a partner because they had no experience developing a supply train or a marketing strategy for Jets. The Honda engine is a good fit for GE because they have nothing in it's size/weight/efficiency/thrust class. They too wanted a fast way to enter the market that Williams and P&WC currently dominate.

This isn't the same kind of partnership that GE/SNECMA have in the CFM56.

↓↑report

It's a supply chain, not train. And GE doesn't market jets, they make jet engines.

Regardless, Honda took technologies already in use in other size engines and brought them to this size engine. Along the way, GE got involved, at least in the manufacturing and possibly in the development for long-term reliability (which requires a lot of testing equipment).

Saying Honda's jet engine is revolutionary is quite a stretch. If GE, P&W or even Rolls (do the make small engines?) had been asked to create an engine for this plane, there's no reason to think the results would have been markedly different.

↓↑report

LS2LS7:
ok...your insistence on a subject that may not be your strongest suit is getting quite entertaining. If you don't think GE is an AIRCRAFT marketer, in addition to all the other engineering disciplines that they own, maybe you should suggest that they spin off GECAS. And yes, GECAS is more than just 'leasing' as you know it. Also, 777NG/GE90/GECAS/GE Cap combo is one of the most powerful airplane marketing machine known to date. Ask the Airbus folks. None of this is too relevant to the discussion, just as your statement "GE doesn't market jets, they make jet engines" is not as relevant, and wrong is many ways than one.
Also, saying "If GE, P&W or even Rolls (do the make small engines?) had been asked to create an engine for this plane, there's no reason to think the results would have been markedly different." is akin to arriving at the same conclusion if Jack Northrop has been asked to design the first airplane instead of the Wright brothers...no one asked them to do it, but they did it. No one asked Honda to do it, but they did it. In this industry, where even a 2% overall improvements is a leap, this is revolutionary. One of the reasons they can achieve that is because they did EVERYTHING R&D-wise from the ground up (except for the avionics, maybe) before partnering with other companies for volume production. This allows them to focus on improvement details big (e.g. engines unique placement) and small (e.g. specific paint on specific part of the airframe to optimize laminar flow). Hardly any other company has accomplished this feat.

↓↑report

"matt" does have a point: air travel is the most inefficient form of travel.

↓↑report