HondaJet - a winged sports sedan

hello theater sky here and we didn't have something light and pretty for a while our today's hero is the brainchild of an eminent japanese car maker and an example of its expansion into the world of aviation quite a successful example introducing a small business jet with a big set of interesting features the ha-420 hondajet surprisingly the history of this very fresh aircraft started back in the 1980s the japanese industrial giant honda began looking at the prospect of entering the aviation market a hot topic at the time everything was done carefully a small unit of only a few engineers under the leadership of michi masa fujino investigated various concepts of light aircraft mainly business aviation from the very beginning the focus was set on the widespread use of composites technology which was already being mastered in honda's ground business as well as on various promising designs that could help their brainchild jump a little higher than the players that already were on the market the first public research result was the honda mh02 an unusual machine an almost entirely composite aircraft with a high forward swept wing and two jet engines mounted on pylons on the top kind of an explosive mix of hanzajet and some brainchild of the soviet bdf design bureau it may seem like an overkill but the mh02 was more of a flying lab and no one really intended to put it into serial production the plane was lifted under the air in 1993 flown for several years and sent into retirement in 1997 having received the necessary data the aviators revised the design preferring less avant-garde options but not abandoning the exotics entirely it was then that fuji not drawn a napkin what we are going to run around today in the year 2000 the american division of honda built a small research facility at the airport in greensboro north carolina the answer to the question why a japanese aircraft should be made in america is quite simple it is easier and more profitable the usa already has infrastructure many partners are local and the main sales market is also here finally by 2003 the result of this long and painstaking work showed itself the first prototype took to the sky oddly enough while the aviators worked their bosses argued even with a very real plane in hand honda was not sure about the prospects of initiating a full-fledged program and even the first flight was not public the official release took place at the 2005 air venture oshkosh air show the unusual plane became the highlight of the program and attracted a lot of attention which finally convinced the chiefs of the automaker that their guys had created something really worthwhile the green light was given in 2006 when honda registered its 100 subsidiary the honda aircraft company in the united states its rightful father michimasa fujino took the chair as president and ceo and our hero the ha420 hondajet aircraft became its first brainchild afterwards the work went more confidently a large-scale test program went in parallel with an equally large-scale program for establishing production and maintenance services at the time of its founding honda aircraft was in fact a hangar near the airport and a team of 30 engineers now it is a huge campus with research and production sites and a staff of more than 1200 people by 2015 when the series had already been established the hondajet received its type certificate from the faa and was ready to go to customers the plane received the easa certificate in 2016 and curiously the certificate of the japanese aviation authorities only in 2018 the homeland demands turned out to be the most severe meanwhile the aircraft is actively developing in 2018 the company introduced the hondajet elite model the elite has received upgraded mechanization onboard equipment an additional fuel tank and a number of aerodynamic improvements that increase flight performance comfort and weight a little not without that at the same time having created an updated model the company did not forget about the base one some minor improvements that do not require major alterations came to it this is how the advanced performance modification group or the apmg package appeared clients can upgrade the aircraft they already have with a small boost in performance it will become almost elite okay enough stories let's take a look at the plane itself the honda jet is quite a classic modern light business jet mostly length of about 13 meters 43 feet wingspan of just over 12 meters 40 feet height of four and a half meters 15 feet the maximum takeoff weight is only about 4.8 tons 10 and 700 pounds it is quite miniature comparing in class with aircraft such as the embraer phantom 100 cessna citation mustang or m2 a big bonus of the airplane that the aviators are very proud of is the natural laminar flow of a significant part of the airframe this is achieved both by a rather complex design and by the materials used the fuselage is almost entirely made of composite materials considering that honda aviators have been playing with carbon plastics since the 1980s this is a completely natural result which allowed not only to reduce weight but also to pump up the aerodynamics the tail is cruciform the horizontal stabilizer is raised high but it does not reach the tip of the fin this solution is not as popular as the good old tea tale but it is quite worked out the hondajet is a low wing monoplane in general they decided not to go crazy with its look in general it is curious that with a fully composite fuselage the wing is predominantly metal to ensure its laminar flow hondo has worked hard on production the upper surface of the wing is not an assembly of parts but one solid panel it also has some hefty winglets which are joined by aerodynamic ridges installed nearby mechanization is quite simple ailerons and extended flaps which by the way are not interrupted by pylons but go all the way to the fuselage the requirement for laminar flow around the wing made it impossible to install spoilers and aerodynamic brakes here as is usually done but the engineers cheated with them and installed a couple of small flaps on the tail there are no engines here so it's alright however i should note the mileage after landing a little over 900 meters 3000 feet which to be honest is quite a lot but again the honda jet does not really claim to be an stol or an off-road aircraft [Music] the landing gear is classic tricycle with an electronically controlled front steering wheel each leg is equipped with one wheel and remains fairly short this allowed the engineers to lower the plane and simplify loading and unloading getting inside is no more difficult than jumping into some average suv although of course its door has its own air stair well it's time to look at the most interesting part of the aircraft which immediately catches the eye the power plant the honda jet is powered by a pair of hf-120 turbofan engines built by ge honda aero engines a joint venture between general electric and honda the engine was being finalized for a long time but it was worth it the applied solutions allowed it to be well optimized in terms of noise as well as the economy and emissions the motor is very miniature and the take-off thrust is about 9.1 kilonewtons 2050 pounds force the most unusual part two engines are mounted on pylons above the wing question lightweight business jet with a low wing put two engines in the tail and the job is done what is this for the scheme of lifting the engines higher is of course used but in special cases and the honda jet is not a special transport or amphibious vehicle is it all about the visual style on the one hand we can't say that honda is entering the market for the first time and should create something special and not just another lightweight jet on the other hand well it is unlikely the deviators would get so carried away with design that they would begin to sacrifice performance the best explanation would be a description of the advantages that in the case of our hero give him significant bonuses the engines in pylons do not have a direct rigid connection with the fuselage which reduces the noise level in a cabin reduces quite significantly at the same time the location from above reduces the noise level on the ground which makes it possible to remove restrictions on flights to airports for example located in cities flexibility in business aviation is super important and the risk of sucking in foreign debris from the runway is almost zero by the way the scheme has already been used before on the vfw 614 aircraft created in germany back in the 1970s the plane did not become an epic success but it was not bad at all the problem with such a design is somewhat impaired aerodynamics after all the pylons in the upper half plane of the wing are not helping at crew speed but here comes the work of the japanese honda spent a tremendous amount of time on research using the most advanced technologies the aircraft received rather large pylons with very complex shapes aerodynamics and weight balance as perfect as possible we can say that the vfw 614 scheme is good meat while the hondajet scheme is kobe beef coupled with laminar surfaces and the overall design the result is impressive the aircraft can keep its maximum cruising speed at around 422 knots 782 kilometers per hour its ceiling is around 13 100 meters 43 000 feet and the range is 2 660 kilometers 1437 miles with four passengers very good for aircraft of this class this design gives one more bonus which in this case can be considered the most important to find out what it is let's get on the plane okay so this is an advantage the honda jazz cabin is compact 1.52 meters or 5 feet wide and 1.47 meters 4.83 feet high more or less like with anyone else in front near the entrance to the plane there's a place in which as an option you can put a chair or a small storage with a kitchen water coffee and other such trifles the main space of the cabin is occupied by four seats separated by two folding tables this part contains six windows three on each side as well as an emergency exit now about the third dimension parameter the length of the honda jet cabin 5.43 meters 17.8 feet for this class of aircraft it is a lot more than a meter longer than the cabins of its counterparts this increase made it possible to increase passenger space providing seating space for eight people on board and install a full-fledged lavatory in the tail which only the larger models can boast off how right the power plant is moved from the tail to the wing freeing up additional space here this alone is enough to recognize such an exotic scheme as a good idea the quality of decoration and style are of course on the level all modern features like controlling multimedia from the phone are also there it would be strange if the new japanese plane lagged behind in this there's also a place for luggage two compartments are responsible for the bags the main one in the tail behind the cabin with 1.6 cubic meters 57 cubic feet and the small one in front with 0.25 cubic meters 9 cubic feet now we climb into the cockpit when creating the aircraft honda tried to simplify operation as much as possible and they definitely achieved success in this control is widely automated many of the functions that pilots do in other machines here are performing themselves why the plane in fact is launched by pressing a button like a car at this level it will hardly surprise anyone that the honda jet is certified for one man piloting for modern light aircraft this seems to be an obvious requirement the core of all this beauty is the garmin 3000 avionics system the top of its class the interface is represented by three large displays and a couple of small touch panels on a pedestal touchscreens are actively appearing in cockpits in front of the pilots in the cockpit are classic yokes according to the statements of people who had the opportunity to play with all this one can come to the conclusion that by giving comfort to the passengers the engineers certainly did not offend the pilot if the phantom 100 is a practical car and the citation mustang is a kind of sports car then the honda jet is something like a charged sedan which will give both comfort to the passenger and joy to the driver at the time of completion of certification in the usa in 2015 20 planes were being assembled at the plant and the capacity is calculated at around 60 units per year with the potential to expand to 80. the figure is quite ambitious but attainable given that the hondajet has quickly won the love of customers so far the peak was in 2017 when 43 units were delivered by the beginning of 2021 more than 170 aircraft were delivered and this is despite the fact that their price tag is rather vicious exceeding 5 million dollars despite the fact that the main market is north america deliveries are already quite actively carried out to other countries firstly in europe and asia honda aircraft already has more than 15 authorized dealers in different countries and an evolving maintenance system well the honda has definitely become a very successful aviation debut for the japanese company and has seriously rattled the industry so ichiro honda would have been proud this is where we can complete the story like and subscribe to the channel and if you want to watch the videos early get exclusive content or just support the channel consider visiting our patreon page fast flights and soft landings to you [Music] you

Channel: Skyships Eng

Views: 546,420

Rating: 4.909153 out of 5

Keywords: hondajet, honda, ha-420, honda ha-420, honda plane, hondajet elite, hondajet apmg, honda aircraft

Id: r-Oo9yn-bEk

Length: 15min 43sec (943 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 08 2021