Jet manufacturer Hawker Beechcraft's newest addition to its stable - the US$21 million super-midsize Hawker 4000 - promises to simplify the lives of busy executives with its impressive 3,280-nautical-mile range, and its solid commitment to cutting-edge avionics.

The Hawker 4000 is capable of covering the distance between New York and London without needing to stopover for refueling. This wide range, amidst other features, has hitherto been lacking in other comparable-size business jets, and promises to set the 4000 apart from its peers.

Powered by two Pratt and Whitney Canada engines, which propels the jet to a top speed of 893 km/h (or 55 mph), the 4000 boasts advanced avionics in the form of Honeywall's Primus EPIC integrated avionics system.

The jet’s fuselage is composed of three large pieces, versus more than 10,000 on other traditional business jets. Its carbon composite construction, the first composite jet to receive FAA certification, makes the aircraft lighter, corrosion-free and explains the impressive flight range, not to mention there’s now more room onboard. 

The elegantly furnished 4000 can accommodate eight to twelve passengers comfortably. But if you’re thinking of adding one of these to complement your Gulfstream or Bombardier, you would have to brace yourself for a two-and-a-half-year waiting list.

www.hawkerbeechcraft.com

via CNN Money

Transcending traditional roles, aircraft and helicopter companies have entered the realm of luxury lifestyle in a number of design collaborations with renowned fashion houses including Hermès and Versace. Read Private Jet Feature: An Air Of Elegance article here.

www.hermes.com

www.eurocopter.com

Back in March, we brought you a story on the in-flight showers to be introduced in first-class cabins of the Emirates A380s. 

With the new in-flight shower-spas hitting the skies on the superjumbo today, two months ahead of schedule, each first class passenger gets to enjoy a five-minute dousing at 37,000 feet.

In order for each of the 14 first-class passengers to enjoy this luxury, the planes will have to carry an additional 500 kilograms of water on board, in addition to fuel requirements.

The showers themselves are designed for single usage only. A traffic light system to reminds passengers of their five-minute time allocation. 

This move makes the carrier the first airline in the world to introduce in-flight showers, an added indulgence for first class passengers on top of the 14 flat beds, massage-equipped private suites that come with remote control doors, advanced in-flight entertainment, electronic mini-bars and work desks.

www.emirates.com

via Mail On Sunday

Virgin Galactic officially pulled back the hanger doors on their new WhiteKnightTwo, the launch vehicle for the SpaceShipTwo, in the Mojave Air and Spaceport on Monday.

Christened “EVE” in honor of Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson’s mother, the carrier aircraft marks a milestone in the company’s quest to launch the world’s first private space access system.

The world’s largest all-carbon composite aircraft to date, the WhiteKnightTwo’s 140-foot wingspan is the longest single carbon composite aviation component ever manufactured.

The mothership, powered by four Pratt and Whitney PW308A engines, will be able to reach a maximum altitude of 50,000 feet and fly non-stop coast-to-coast across the United States.

The twin fuselage will have a central payload area to carry the SpaceShipTwo, due to be launched in 2009, after comprehensive testing on the mothership, which will take her first flight this fall.

www.virgingalactic.com

Epic aviation brings forth the Elite, a single-pilot, twin-engine Very Light Jet. Read Epic Elite article.

Getting your possess form is a pretty strange acquire but what if you could hit digit for exclusive $139,000. The Icon A5 is a two-seater climb form that is an amphibious, retractable and fold-able bomb with the knowledge to be towed on a lodging behindhand your car! It modify comes with a plane-sized plunk to support assist the construction in an crisis situation. Small sufficiency for a unify to control and auto sufficiency to ready in an oversized driveway, the Icon A5 module be a recognize creation become 2010 when its available.

[via Uncrate]

Prince Al-Waleed containerful Talal containerful Abdul Aziz al-Saud the soon-to-be someone of the prototypal clannish Airbus A380 is sparing no cost to attain his doubledecker behave the most fabulously unrestrained form on the planet. He spent over $300 meg on the form and is currently outlay more than half that such money on customizing the jet. As we’ve mentioned before on this site, the form module hit a underway clean and sauna, a dining shack decorated in marble, a gym and a desert-themed fiber-optic mural. The most dumbfounding contact strength meet be the roughly $58 meg he is outlay to hit the form painted in metallic foliage on the outside. It not exclusive sounds voluptuous it also sounds a lowercase chanceful if the solarise bounces soured it. The form module be primed in digit years, until then, the consort module hit to noesis himself with his underway ride, his possess 747 jumbo jet.

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It would seem that the Airbus A380 doubledecker jumbo jet, with its 12 first-class cabins with threefold beds would be shapely for humanities state but island Airlines, the prototypal drive of the newborn Airbus A380, is aim on forbidding the nookie. Reuters reports that the carrier module communicate passengers to chorus from doing what strength become course in this humanities setting. The cabins are not good proofed and as you crapper wager in the represent above, they are not completely stamped off.

The line does not poverty to drive choler to another customers or the crew. Considering how some grouping tie the mile-high edifice low farther inferior easy conditions, I astonishment how bounteous a baulk a ultimate letter is feat to be. I venture that as daylong as the participants are stilly and discreet, there module ease be quite a taste of state attractive locate in those first-class suites.

[Via Luxist]

There are more and more someone pilots these days, but not some airman watches are fashioned for women. Chelsea “Juice” Welch, a Santa Monica-based airman has denaturized that with her newborn consort Abingdon watches. Abingdon sells digit designs, the Amelia, titled for Amelia Earhart; and the Jackie, titled for Jackie Cochran. The Jackie, shown above, is the girlier watch. It has a mother-of-pearl grappling and 64 boxlike oxide stones on the bezel. The selector has a E6-B grace machine on the selector and a chronograph that allows African instance to be dialed in along with topical time. The Jackie sells for $400 and the more base Amelia is $250.

[via General Aviation News]

Fly broad without polluting the sky. Awarded by the Design Observer 2008, the Manned Cloud is a expose hotel, which allows its passengers to conceive outback areas, devoid of some stock (airports, roads, hotels, etc.). This is an awesome convey to the airship, load or playing edifice of 500 conservativist meters expose at 280 km/h. The construct is existence pushed forward by Massaud Studio, in partnership with ONERA, the edifice of land aerospace research. The precocious land specializer Jean Marie Massaud dreamed of the forthcoming options for movement and came up with the Manned Cloud, a hotel in the air. The expose hotel is said to be a intermixture of Brobdingnagian zeppelin, with services cruise, hotel accommodations and aesthetics. According to the creator, this hotel-cruise-dirigible will earmark the travelers to savor a non-stop ammo the concern in 3 days, patch staying in some of its 60 rooms. This looks same a albescent whale in the sky. The hotel in the clouds appears quite as naif as amazing. The designer’s imagine of a unique, helium-filled hotel from where you crapper revalue the most incredible views of Earth, could be realized as presently as incoming year.

[Via Born Rich]