Airports and the Newest Generation of General Aviation Aircraft, Volume 1: Forecast (2009)

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3A primary goal of ACRP Project 10-04 is to produce 5- and 10-yr fleet forecasts for next-generation small general aviation (GA) aircraft. The baseline year is 2007, thus producing fore- casts for the years 2012 and 2017. A key related requirement is to assess how the use of these aircraft will impact airports across the United States. There are two major potential market segments for use of such aircraft that have been widely discussed in the industry: (1)traditionalGAuse,includingprivate,personal,andcorporate demand (including fractional ownership) that is governed by FAA Part 91 regulations, and (2) commercial charter or air taxi use under FAA Part 135, as exhibited both by traditional char- ter services where one essentially rents an entire aircraft for a specific trip or for a specific amount of time, and new “per-seat” services. The per-seat model in particular has garnered much interest, with some analysts predicting that such services have the potential to dramatically expand the demand for and use of very light jets (VLJs) and other next-generation small aircraft. It is very important to assess the potential for these seg- ments separately. In the traditional GA market, it is believed that sales of VLJ aircraft will, for the most part, displace sales of other aircraft including high-end pistons, turboprops, and light jets. So even though ultimately there may be a significant VLJ fleet that is used for traditional GA purposes, growth in overall airport operations will not vary much from historical averages observed over the past several years. On the other hand, if the air taxi market develops into a significant seg- ment, it may have a much larger impact on GA airport oper- ations since much of the activity represent new small aircraft activity (displacing commercial air service and automobile trips). These issues are discussed in more detail below. Aircraft Coverage An initial determination was made to limit the aircraft covered to those weighing less than 12,500 lbs and to focus on those with advanced, modern avionics systems. While most of the attention in public discussions of such aircraft has focused on new VLJ designs, the present analysis brack- ets the VLJ segment on both ends and includes existing designs both at the low end (i.e., smaller piston aircraft such as the Cirrus SR-22, the Cessna/Columbia 350 and 400, the Diamond DA42 Twin Star, and the Mooney M20 series) and at the upper end (i.e., the “light jet” category up to 12,500 lbs that includes the Cessna CJ1 and CJ2 and the Hawker Beechcraft Premier 1A). This report often refers to the “VLJ market,” which is meant to include the larger market at both ends. Within the VLJ segment, the primary focus is on the following twin-engine models that began actual pro- duction by the end of 2008: • Eclipse 500, • Cessna Citation Mustang, and • Embraer Phenom1 100. HondaJet is another twin-engine program whose prospects appear viable within the next few years; current plans call for first deliveries in 2010. In addition, there are a number of single-engine VLJ models currently under development, the most prominent of which are the Diamond D-Jet, Eclipse 400, Piper Jet, and Cirrus SJ50. Prospects for these programs are less certain although the D-Jet is further along than the other programs. After modifying the engine design in 2008, Diamond’s current plans call for first deliveries in mid-2009. It should also be noted that two companies with VLJ pro- grams were liquidated in 2008—Adam Aircraft (which was developing the A700 twin-engine VLJ) and ATG (which was developing a two-seat military trainer-style jet called the Javelin). C H A P T E R 1 Overview 1The Embraer “executive jet” program also includes the Phenom 300, which is a larger version of the 100 series. Its projected size and weight are well above the 12,500 lb limit that prescribes the bounds of the current analysis.

Geographic Coverage The forecast is limited to fleets covering aircraft activity in the lower 48 states. In addition, only public-use airports are considered. To further limit the number of airports that must be analyzed, only those airports with jet fuel availability and at least one 3,000-ft lighted runway are included. While this potentially excludes some small airports that could accom- modate modern piston aircraft such as the Cirrus SR-22, it includes the most heavily used airports that make up about 85% of total GA operations across the United States. Review of Existing GA and Air Taxi Markets According to FAA data for 2006, the current active U.S. fleet certified for GA use under Part 91 or On-Demand use under Part 135 totals about 222,000 aircraft. A breakout by primary use and aircraft type is shown in Table 2. This analy- sis of small next-generation aircraft focuses on potential addi- tions to the shaded areas in Table 2 from small next-generation aircraft. It is difficult to assess activity in terms of hours flown by use category because many aircraft are used in different cate- gories at different times. The FAA has published average activity estimates by aircraft type, as shown in Table 3. In gen- eral, it is expected that financial considerations would cause the air taxi category to exhibit higher than average utilization rates across all aircraft types. The forecasting effort undertaken here treats the private/ corporate/fractional market and the charter/air taxi market separately, and two separate forecasts have been produced. 4 Piston Turboprop Jet Other Total GA (Part 91) Personal / Business / Corporate 28,3677,3503091,45719,251Other On-Demand (Part 135) 7,6391,2822,4261,2722,659Air Taxi 1,7141,14363152356Other 222,21340,02810,3798,064163,742Total Aircraft Type Primary Use 184,49330,2537,5815,183141,476 Table 2. Active U.S. fleet in 2006. Piston Turboprop Jet 101 Aircraft Type 393268 Table 3. Estimated average hours flown in 2006.