Bombardier’s Global 8000 Breaks the Sound Barrier in Testing- With a YouTube Video to Prove It!
Bombardier’s Global 8000 program went supersonic during a recent test flight. It’s not the first time a transport subsonic jet has accomplished the feat. It is though the first time that a manufacturer posted a YouTube video of it happening.
The Latest and Greatest
The Global 8000 program is Bombardier’s new flagship private jet program built on the success of the 7500 which itself was an outgrowth of the highly successful Global 6000. The 8000 is intended to be faster and have longer range than the 7500. It features upgraded and more efficient GE Passport engines and a host of internal upgrades to make the already luxurious cabin even better. Most notably, the jet is designed to be the fastest business jet out there with a cruise speed of Mach .94, just under the speed of sound.
Long Legs
At a slightly slower speed, the jet has an 8,000 NM range, allowing non-stop service to almost any major destination on Earth. Only the fabled London to Sydney non-stop flight (which Qantas is tackling with Project Sunrise) is out of range of this new jet. The Global 8000 is expected to enter service in 2025. It will hold the title as the fastest passenger jet since the Concorde retired back in 2003.
If Normal Cruise is M.94, You Better Know What Mach 1.015 Feels Like!
The Global 8000 is designed for a top cruise speed of Mach .94 at 41,000 feet with up to 19 passengers. That’s just six-one hundredths below Mach one. While it would be unusual to exceed that speed, it is possible in an emergency descent to accidentally approach or exceed the speed of sound. The full flight test program accounts for this possibility.
Hitting Mach 1 by Accident…Sort of
On a recent flight test in a 7500 (serving as a test vehicle for the 8000 program), the crew intentionally put the test aircraft into a shallow dive. This provides insights into the aircraft’s behavior in the event that the placarded never exceed speed is surpassed. In the video below, you can see the test pilots gently push the nose forward. A small ‘burble’ of the wings are visible in the video as the jet slips into a full supersonic flight regime with a chase aircraft in the background. The jet accelerated to Mach 1.015 before the test pilots then recovered to a subsonic speed with seemingly little affair.
Other Larger Passenger Jets Went Faster Than Mach 1.0
While the Concorde’s Mach 2+ speed is well known, other airliners like the Boeing 747 and the DC-8 have also passed the once forbidden sound barrier with the pilots living to tell about it. Two commonly known stories of larger airliners are known to have accomplished the both prestigious and somewhat dubious feat.
Hitting Mach 1 by Accident…For Real!
An Evergreen International 747 did it by accident during an unusual attitude caused by faulty equipment back in 1991. That Boeing was thought to have gone well over Mach 1 in the dive and subsequent recovery. A DC-8 also flew faster than the speed of sound during testing over Edwards AFB back in 1961. Smithsonian did a great interview with one of the engineers from that flight.