Resources on Lear Jet Charter

Lear Jet Charter

Lear Jet

Lear Jet was a company which produced business jets for civilian and military use. It was founded in 1960 by William Powell Lear Jr. as Swiss American Aviation Corporation. The company was formed to manufacture an executive twin-engined high speed jet to be known as the Learjet 23 (SAAC-23). The starting point for what became the very symbol of the "biz jet" started life as an abortive attempt by a Swiss aircraft company to build a new ground-attack fighter aircraft, the FFA P-16 of 1955. Although this effort proved unsuccessful and by 1960 efforts to produce the warplane had ceased, the basic structure of this aircraft was seen by Bill Lear and his team as a good starting point to the development of a business jet. In fact, the wing (with the distinctive tip tanks) and landing gear of the first Learjets were little changed from those used by the Swiss warplane prototypes. The tooling for building the aircraft was purchased and moved to Wichita, Kansas, United States, in 1962.

In 1987, the Gates Learjet Corporation was acquired by Integrated Acquisition, Inc. and the next year the name was changed to Learjet Corporation. By January 1989 all production had been moved from the Tucson facility back to Wichita. The next year, 1990, Bombardier Aerospace purchased the Learjet Corporation. Later models of Learjet aircraft generally have a greater range and capacity and are produced by Bombardier and marketed as the "Bombardier Learjet Family". These have a swept back wing rather than the straighter wing with prominent fuel tanks on their extremities that characterised the early models, being reminiscent of the Lockheed T-33 military trainer. These later variants bear the model numbers 45 and upwards and are far quieter.

Excerpt from "Lear Jet." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 22 Oct 2006, 00:07 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 30 Oct 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lear_Jet&oldid=82906148

Air Charter

The term Air Charter is a catch all phrase that refers to the renting of an entire aircraft vs. individual aircraft seats. While the Airlines specialize in selling transportation by the seat, air charter companies focus on small groups for specialized itineraries, urgent / time sensitive freight or cargo, air ambulance and any other form of ad hoc air transportation.

Generally speaking, air charter is also known as air taxi, executive charter, jet charter and more broadly as private aviation. In the United States air charter / air taxi is governed by Part 135 of the FARs (the Federal Aviation Regulations), unlike the larger scheduled airlines, which are governed by more stringent standards of Part 121 of the FARs, which are regulations designed for scheduled air carriers.

It is believed that over 70% of the private air charter in the world is within the United States, the largest market for private aviation globally.
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Beginning in the late 1990's the air charter / air taxi interest moved into main stream media and discussion with the growth and advent of several key factors:

• Very Light Jets or VLJs popularized the concept of small affordable jets that would bring the capital carrying cost of aircraft down enough so that many more could be sold and operated. Eclipse Aviation is perhaps one of the most well known new aircraft brands, although other companies including Adam Aircraft, Cessna, Honda, and Embraer have designed or built VLJ's of their own. While the air taxi debate is concerned with whether these aircraft will actually contribute to change, the mere discussion, media coverage and excitement over new technology is bringing more and more attention to the concept of ad hoc air transportation.
• Internet Communication: Because air charter was never part of the major GDS or travel distribution systems, it could not reach wider audiences. With the advent of the Internet, distribution of information regarding the availability of aircraft, placement, pricing etc., became more available to the increased broker and buyer community.
• Problems: Growing dissatisfaction with the scheduled airlines over security and congestion related delays. While not all airline passengers could afford alternatives, the upper echelons of airline passengers sought was to stop flying commercially or exploring corporate aviation, fractional or air charter.
• Alternatives: Air Charter and its cousin Fractional Ownership popularized the notion of private aircraft use and ownership. Fractional aircraft ownerships growth led to the advent of a distinct set of regulations in the United States designed specifically to regulate fractionally owned aircraft companies. These new regulations are spelled out clearly in Part 91 Subpart K and bring fractional aircraft operations into line with existing air charter regulations, making fractional ownership into simply another flavor of ad hoc air transportation.

Aircraft manufacturers, such as Eclipse Aviation and Adam Aircraft Industries, and others maintain that the construction of cheaper, smaller and faster jets will enable inexpensive point-to-point private aviation, creating a new industry. Others maintain that these new aircraft will lower the barriers to ownership enabling more wealthy individuals to own jet aircraft, but will not result in their wide adoption for commercial applications. Critics argue that basic economics, demographics, industry inertia and operational constraints will automatically limit the birth of an air taxi industry.

Excerpt of "Air charter." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 16 Oct 2006, 01:35 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 25 Oct 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Air_charter&oldid=81701852

More airports available with chartered aircraft

With chartered aircraft you have access to many more airports than with scheduled flights, often much closer to your destination. For example in Europe, there are over 2000 airports, but only 10% are reached by scheduled airlines. Private charter reaches all of them.