LEAR JET HISTORY

For many people, the name Learjet is a generic term to cover any and all business jets, largely due to the public relations skill of Bill Lear, and James R. Greenwood, who successfully headed the company's public relations department for many years.

The name comes from Missouri native William Powell. Lear - a prolific inventor whose achievements included the first successful car radio, the first eight-track stereo tape system, navigational radio systems and direction finders for civil and military aircraft.

Bill Lear formed the Radio Wire and Coil Company in 1922, created Motorola Corporation and founded Lear Inc., which later merged with the Siegler Corp in the 1950s. - Lear Inc. became known for its conversions of Lockheed Loadstars to executive Learstar configuration.

In 1959, Bill Lear embarked on his most famous development - the Learjet. He had sold out his interest in Lear Siegler. for $ 12.5 million and "retired" to Switzerland where he conceived the design of a small jet business aircraft and set up the Swiss American Aircraft Corporation. Much of the SAAC-23 At the urgining of Bill Lear Jr, his son, the Learjet design was based on the single-seat FFA P-16 (P-1604) fighter-bomber which had been flown in prototype form by the Flug und Fahrzeugwerke A.G. in April 1955. (Five P-16s were built before the project was discontinued.)

Lear moved back to the United States in 1962 to set up development and production of his Learjet and settled on Wichita, Kansas as the base for operations. In October 1963, the prototype Learjet Model 23 made its first flight Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport. This aircraft crashed during testing in the following June but, nevertheless, the type certificate under FAR. Part 23 was granted on July 31st 1964. Lear Jet Corporation quickly put the Model 23 into production and, with a price lower than the competing aircraft, it was an immediate success.

However, it did gain a reputation for being very demanding for the average pilot and much of the later Learjet development concentrated on improvement to the low-speed handling characteristics of the type following an initial rash of accidents.

The Model 23 was replace by the Model 24 in 1966. This was a considerably modified development to meet FAR. Part 25 certification requirements. It was soon joined on the production line by the stretched Model 25 with a maximum on ten seats - still powered by General Electric CJ610 engines.

Both were offered in alternative long-range versions with reduced passenger capacity. Bill Lear also designed the Model 40 Lear Liner seating 28 passengers and using the same jet engines adopted by Grumman for the Gulfstream II, but this project was discontinued as financial pressures increased.

In 1966, the name of the company was changed to Lear Jet Industries and on April 10th 1967, the Gates Rubber Company brought a controlling interest. The Learjet was undoubtedly successful, but enormous operating losses had built up.

The 1966 acquisition of Brantly Helicopters and the subsequent development cost of the Gates Twinjet Helicopter (an aircraft of Sikorsky S-76 size) only served to fuel the financial crisis.

On April 2nd 1969, Bill Lear resigned as Chairman of the Board. He went on to develop the LearAvia steam powered car, the Learstar 600 (later to become the Canadair Challenger) and the revolutionary Learfan - before his death on May 14th 1978.

Gates renamed the company Gates Learjet Corporation and, in 1969, sold Brantly to Aeronautical Research and Development Corporation.

Increasing pressure from the environmentalist lobby and competition from the Cessna Citation now prompted the company to refit the Learjet with turbofan engines. This resulted in the Models 35 and 36 - both based on the Model 25 with a small fuselage stretch and a pair of Garrett TFE731 engines.

Following the previous formula, the Model 35 was a short-range aircraft and the Model 36 was its long-range sister. In practice, the Model 35 outsold the Model 36 by two-to-one because the five-hour endurance of the long-range model was more than most customers required.

The next major development for the Learjet was the introduction of the "longhorn" wing - first tested on a Model 25, N266GL (c/n 25-064) and a model 24, N682LJ (c/n 24B-218). The NASA-designed supercritical wing was fitted with winglets and the tips - and as a consequence all fuel had to internally housed due to the deletion of the wingtip tanks.

First production aircraft to be fitted with the winglets were the Models 28 and 29 - respectively short and long range variants. Very few were built - largely because they were still powered by the CJ610 turbojet engine, a power plant soon to be phased out.

The Longhorn wing was mainly intended for the new, larger, Model 54/55/56 series of Learjets. With the same wing attach points as the Model 20 and 30 series, these aircraft were designed to meet customer requirements for a larger Learjet cabin. They were scaled up versions of the previous types with a stand-up cabin capable of carrying up to ten passengers in addition to two crew.

Most orders were for the mid-range Model 55 - and the Model 54 and 56 designations were later abandoned. The final version was the Model 55C introduced in 1988 with "delta fins" mounted on the lower rear fuselage to improve low-speed handling but this model has now been replaced in production by the Model 60.

Also introduced at the same time was the Model 31 which is a Model 35 with delta fins and the Longhorn wing, aimed at users stepping up into jet aircraft for the first time. Learjets latest aircraft is the completely new Model 45, which was announced in September 1992, falling between the Model 31 and the Model 60, and features a new wing and a larger fuselage than the Model 31.

The Model 45 made its first flight on October 7th 1995 exactly 32 years after the first Learjet took to the skies.

Learjets have been delivered to a number of governmental operators and have been used for target towing, high altitude mapping and photography.

Foreign air forces that have bought Learjets, include Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Mexico, Peru and Yugoslavia. The U.S. Air Force has acquired Learjet 35As, designated C-21A, for personnel transport, communications, medical evacuation and high priority cargo duties, replacing obsolescent T-39A Sabreliners.

International records achieved by Learjets include the first round-the-world flight by a business jet (which included this writer as part of the four man crew), a standard production Model 24 traveled 22,993 miles in 50 hours 20 minutes flying time, with a total elapsed time of 65 hours, 4 minutes. The crew included Hank Beaird, John Lear (Bill's son), John Zimmerman and Rick King.

Zimmerman's role was to take care of all required paperwork activity and all photos at each of the 18 stops. The Model 24 Learjet was the first unit in the series (N427LJ) and made the flight May 23-26, 1966.

A number of special conversions have been carried out on Learjets, particularly the Dee Howard XR modification which includes a new swept wing center section, wing leading edge, and engine pylons so as to improve high speed performance, increase useful load and give longer range.

In 1976, Gates Learjet relocated a significant part of its production in Tucson while continuing with some completion, service and marketing functions in Wichita. With the slow-down in the business jet market, Learjet sales fell and Gates came under pressure over the financial position.

In August 1987 Gates announced that it would sell its 64.8% interest in Gates Learjet to Integrated Acquisitions Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Integrated Resources Inc., of New York. This led to the moving of most production from Tucson back to Wichita.

In mid-1989 a financial crisis in its property business forced Integrated Resources to seek buyers for Learjet once again. On June 29th 1990, it was acquired by the Canadian company, Bombardier Inc. and the name was changed to Learjet Inc., a division of Bombardier.

According to the records of AvDataInc, Wichita, KS the world Learjet operational fleet at beginning of July 2001 was: