Jalopnik
Is there a business Honda's not in? Back in 2003, Honda came up with plans for a new experimental compact business jet equipped with Honda-developed HF118 jet engines. Now, after three years of tinkering with it, they've now set up a way to sell the little bastards. They've signed an alliance with Florida-based we have a Piper down Aircraft, Inc, for sales and marketing support and now it looks like Honda's goal of taking to the skies is ready to take flight. All we know is it never bodes well for a company doing well in auto sales to suddenly decide to shovel money by crook and by foot into the money pit that is aircraft development. Good to see that other companies can head down the same shit-hole taken by luminaries such as SAAB.
Honda jumps into jet market [Freep]
Related:
Line 'Em Up! Round I Of The Official Car Pundit Drinking Game [internal]
Comments
It's looks like Sputnik; spherical but pointy at parts.
Just wait. Something tells me they're going to make a mint with this thing. The very light jet market is on fire right now (more millionaires exist than ever before), and the industry is making huge advances in technology (composite construction, glass cockpits, super high-efficiency engines). If Honda nails this, it will do well.
The Mitsubishi MU2 is a very highly regarded private plane. About 15 years ago Porshe partnered up with Mooney and created a Porsche powered airplane. It went like stink, but pilots couldn't get used to a single throttle control (rather than throttle and mixture) and the project died on the vine.
For all those pundits hollering "revolutionary engine placement": http://www.vfw614.de/
Hey, the Gripen rules... so what if it means I have to endure the onslaught of a Opel-93 and a Chevy-97x purportedly "born of jets"!
(http://www.saabmuseum.com/ursaab/index.html)
The downfall of this thing is that it's $1.5 million more expensive than its competitors.
I bet in the new future it's going to be flown by the ASIMO robot, and then the next thing you know it'll be The Matrix all over again.
It doesn't look like sputnik at all, at least not sputnik 1. Sputnik 1 was a tiny metal sphere with 4 metal antennae...
I would imagine putting the engine there, while reducing aerodynamic drag, would put a ton of undue torsion onto the wing structure. With all the forces the wing takes already... does it really need more torsion?
Not the same shithole, SAAB started out building airplanes & then got into cars (Svenska Aeroplan A.B. or something). That doesn't make the 'born from jets' bullshit sound any better, though.
What's the engine code? Will it fit in a CRX?
It just needs a sticker of Calvin peeing on a Lear Jet logo.
also, peeps, bmw make old plane parts 2, maybe not hole plane but parts, also rols roise
We have no choice in whether this goes ahead or not: The Pentablet will decide for us, and then make the millionaires among us buy it using a mind control chemical in the Colonel's chicken that makes us crave it fortnightly.
ya smarrtass
Honda doesn't make houses, I'm guessing.
But they will, some day. Toyota does now.
When my mom bought her first Civic in '78, I didn't imagine I'd ever see a three million dollar Honda. Jeez.
Nissan makes houses as well. I see dozens of those Armadas driving around.
Let's also not forget Rolls engines are in a solid chunk of military iron worldwide...
Start a discussion:
Login with your username and password below. Or comment on this post via email.
Forgot your username or password? New User?