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Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier has burdened the world previously with the CRJ series of short-haul jets, which I slam my head on the ceilings of every time I board. However, in recent years, the company has transitioned from building commercial airliners to private jets (after all, that’s where the money is nowadays) and the company announced earlier this week that it has built a truly superlative plane with its newest entry to the Global Express line. The newly unveiled Global 8000 is the fastest private jet currently on the market, with a top speed of Mach .94.
The Global Express line was officially launched in the late 90s, although it was sold out years in advance of its actual release in the previous boom of the dot-com economy bubble. It has seen a variety of versions created for longer range and higher speeds, but this newest variant—the Global 8000—boasts the most superlatives yet, with 300 more miles of range, a .02 Mach higher speed, and a staggering 18,920 pounds of thrust from its twin GE turbofan engines (over 4,000 pounds of thrust more than the 100-passenger carrying Bombardier CRJ 1000). It takes its name from its range (up to 8,000 nautical miles in a single flight, weather and loading weight permitting) and is faster than any currently used commercial airliner. In testing, the Global 8000 actually broke the sound barrier at a speed of Mach 1.015.
All this speed comes with comfort, too; the Global 8000 offers a variety of cabin configurations that include a full kitchenette and sleeping quarters with a private restroom with a full shower, an optional 40-inch 4K TV with surround sound in the “entertainment suite,” and “zero-gravity” lounge chairs. And if all of this sounds appealing, it clocks in at a mere $78 million dollars, with an average cost-to-fly of approximately $2.4 million per year (assuming 400 hours of flying time). In the meantime, the rest of us can keep puttering along at only 82 percent of the speed of sound in our cramped CRJs, but at the very least this will be a nice addition to my lottery-win-buy list.
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