Honda Tests New Aircraft Concept

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Honda Aircraft Company introduced its new HondaJet 2600 business jet concept at the 2021 NBAA Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (NBAA-BACE) on Monday. According to the company, the concept—including a full-size mock-up—is on display to “collect customer feedback and validate market demand.” The aircraft will feature Honda’s over-the-wing engine mount (OTWEM) configuration, natural laminar flow (NLF) technology on the wings and nose and a carbon composite fuselage.

“Over the past five years, we introduced the HondaJet Elite, then the Elite S, to further enhance the original HondaJet design,” said Honda Aircraft Company President and CEO Michimasa Fujino. “Now, we are validating market demand as we unveil a new aircraft concept in a different segment from the original HondaJet. With the HondaJet 2600 Concept, which enables efficient transcontinental flight, offers new level of cabin comfort and capacity, and dramatically reduces CO2 emissions, we are introducing a new generation of business jets.”

The HondaJet 2600 is expected to have a range of 2,625 nautical miles, high speed cruise of 450 knots and maximum cruise altitude of 47,000 feet. Designed for single-pilot operation, the aircraft will include systems such as autothrottle and autobrake, an advanced steering augmentation system (ASAS) and runway overrun awareness and alerting system (ROAAS). It will come equipped with a customized avionics suite based on the Garmin G3000 and offer three types of modular, customizable cabin configurations.

Kate O'Connor
Kate O’Connor works as AVweb's Editor-in-Chief. She is a private pilot, certificated aircraft dispatcher, and graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

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10 COMMENTS

  1. Honda builds exceptional products. But why spend this kind of money to do a market survey? Any eco friendly light jet with a range of 2,600nm is a no brainer. I suspect Honda knows this already. If this jet hits the market with delays similar to the original Honda Jet, all of us will be room temperature for the debut….. plus today’s market survey will be meaningless to the market of 2031. I would rather be buying the first fully autonomous passenger carrying drone, built by Honda, in 2031.

    God bless.

    • Certainly this would be the **only** SP jet that can make it easily from SFO to Hawaii (and no, I don’t count the SJ-30).

  2. I would like to know what they will use for power; I don’t believe that the GE Honda HF120 will put out much more than the ~2K lbf it does now, and I don’t think Honda will use four (JetStar!)
    And Honda now knows what it costs to certify a new engine and a new airplane. (I was assigned to the HF120 project for a number of years.)

    • The Honda was a decent little jet. And those engines were just cute. Did the job though.

      I always thought a bigger version would’ve been a better option from the start. Hopefully this one of actually fast though. 420ktas was a scam unless you were down low not going anywhere. It’s a mach .66 airplane most of the time. Which is painfully slow.

      Otherwise a great design.

      • You obviously fly for a living and most likely as PIC of mid-size the large jets most likely from manufacturers like Gulfstream, Cessna, Embraer, etc. 420ktas is painfully slow? Highly doubt that most readers would agree with that. I would think that most of the customers that Honda is trying to entice place RANGE decisively over speed. The cruise speed and altitude bumps are negligible, but if they can achieve that 2625 mile range then that’s a huge win for Honda hopefully results in sales.

        • The market for the current HondaJet (and TBM) is owner-operators that own a business, have time to get a type rating, fly it themself SP, and can get their accountant to file the IRS bonus depreciation rebate. 🙂

          So they’re really looking for a step-up from a Cirrus, not a jump to a reall airliner where they would get too far behind the plane.

          However, when you’re talking enough range to get to Hawaii from SFO or LAX, it would be nice to fly faster. But maybe that’s not in the cards for an owner-operator.

  3. If it takes Honda anywhere near as much time to do this one as it did for the first one, it will be just another yawn when it finally arrives.

    • I followed the HondaJet development since back in the day.

      It’s taken a while, but has been steady progress and an investment over $1 billion. I think the project survived the death of its champion in Japan too. Sales are respectable.

      It’s very rare for a mfg. to certify both a new airframe and an engine variant.

      There were about a dozen VLJ entries, and maybe a handful are still standing 20 years later.

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