Buying Private Jet In Asia – Different Types of Business Jets


In the present day of flying private jets, there are lots of choices of products out there. To find one that may meet your needs to purchase, charter or just to aw, can also be overwhelming.

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(Dassault Falcon 8X Interior)

By Sonny Souvannavong Pilot & Author sonny@vonnjets.com

With the advancement of aviation for over one hundred years since the Wright Brothers took their first flight, the aviation industry has certainly evolved to one of the safest, convenient, and luxurious ways to go from destination to destination; and can easily cover our planet in just a few stops.

(Embraer Legacy 500 Vientiane, Lao P.D.R.)

The best way to understand private jets (in aviation industry it is mainly called business jets) there are basically four ranges of business jets. These are light jets, mid size/range jets, large jets and VIP jets. But to make things simpler in common terms, it would best to use distance as a way to categorize them. These categories are short range for light jets, mid range for mid size/range jets, long range for large jets, and VIP jets.

(Embraer 1000E Lineage Interior)

The way we can categorize this is the distance of these business jets that can take you and your guests. In essence, for short-range jets it would be 3,000 kilometers or less; mid range 3,000-7000 kilometers, long range 7,000-15,000 kilometers. Though the VIP jets which is super luxurious jets including Boeing Business Jets (BBJ), Airbus Corporate Jets (ACJ), Embraer Lineage with range of the same or longer then the long-range jets.

(Embraer Lineage 1000E Interior)

Now since we got that over and let’s talk about the good stuff, the jets themselves. This is certainly the exciting part as the manufacture continuously gets better each year with advancement of technology, performance, safety and certainly comfort. There are basically seven companies out there that have a stronghold position as the business jet companies to know. These companies are Gulfstream, Bombadier, Embraer, Dassault, Textron (aka Cessna), Boeing and Airbus. Though in each company there are sub-companies or brands, which the company acquired over time including Hawker, Beechcraft, Learjets, and others. Worthy of mention, there is a fairly recent development of new category, which is VLJ or Very Light Jets. VLJ has a range of 1,500 kilometer or less based on payload.

(Embraer Lineage 1000 E Interior)

These aircrafts are meant for mainly pilot owner aircraft or simply a step up from a twin piston engine aircrafts to hop around short distances. These VLJ companies include HondaJets, Eclipse, Cirrus and others. VLJ will be discussed in length in future articles.

(Cessna M2 Exterior)

There are many excellent business jets in the industry. Many are still in production and many no longer in production. In this article we will discuss only of the business jets that are in production. We will discuss non-production jets in future articles.

(Mid Size Business Jets Range Map)

With that said, here are the categories of business jets and the jets themselves:

(Gulfstream G650ER Exterior)

Short-range business jets:

o Embraer Phenom 100EV, Phenom 300E

o Cessna M2, CJ3+, CJ4

(Embraer Phenom 300E Exterior)

Mid-range business jets:
o Embraer Legacy 450, Legacy 500, Praetor 500, Praetor 600, and Legacy 650
o Gulfstream G280 and G500
o Bombardier Challenger 350, Challenger 650, Learjet 700 and Learjet 750
o Dassault Falcon 2000S, 2000LXS, 900LX,

(Bombardier Challenger 350 Exterior)

In the long-range business jets:

o Dassault Falcon 7X and 8X

o Bombadier Global Express 5000, 6000, and 7500

o Gulfstream G500, G600, and G650

(Global Express 6000 Exterior)

VIP business jets:
o Embraer Lineage 1000E
o Airbus ACJ319neo, ACJ320neo, ACJ330neo, ACJ350 XWB
o Boeing BBJ7, BBJ8, BBJ9; BBJ787, BBJ777X and BBJ747-8

(Embraer Lineage 1000E Exterior)

Well, that is a lot of information for one article. We’ll dive into each aircraft individually later and many of these aircrafts will take more then one article.

(Boeing BBJ787 Interior)

Aviation is certainly an exciting industry but can be quite a handful to comprehend. Though I hope this paints a summarized picture of what kind of business jets are out there and how to categorize them. In this categorical way, one can simply match their mission to the category of business jets that are out there. Alright until then, safe flying, enjoy you travel, and clear for take off.

(Dassault Falcon 8X Exterior)

To learn more about business jets, please stay tune!

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