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Update – Canadair Challenger
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The Canadair Challenger programme has to go down in history as one of the most successful civil aviation marketing projects of all time. Even before the first prototype had taken to the air orders had been received for more than 130 and at the time of writing the order book extended past airframe number two hundred.
The original idea for the project stems from the late Bill Lear, father of not only the legendary Learjet family but also the all-composite Learavia Learfan. The design was later developed to its current form by Canadair who, having been taken under the financial umbrella of the Canadian government were looking for a development programme to put the company back into the international aerospace arena. They certainly succeeded and along with DeHavilland Canada could teach Australia a lot about getting the aviation industry into top gear.
The Challenger comes in two primary versions, the standard Challenger and the extended-fuselage Challenger E. The standard version features a cabin of 28’2″ in length and 8’2″ in width which is the widest bizjet cabin in existence short of refurbished 737s and DC-9s. The standard aircraft offers a choice of powerplants led by the ALF502, a high by-pass modular configured turbofan of 7,500Ib TO thrust or the General Electric CF34-1A turbofan of 9,140Ib thrust at takeoff. The GE engine also powers the Challenger E which is nine feet longer than the standard aircraft and features a cabin of 37 feet in length. The primary application of the GE-powered standard fuselage Challenger is where the aircraft is regularly operated in a hot and high environment or from relatively short strips. In fuel burn per hour, there is very little between the two engines as both feature the latest state-of-the-art technology reducing fuel wastage and noise to an absolute minimum when compared with corporate jets designed in the sixties.
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