Though my focus is usually on airlines, I do occasionally dive into the world of aircraft manufacturing. And there is no manufacturer I find more fun to follow than JetZero. Sure, it helps that the company is based right here in Long Beach, but it’s a large aircraft concept that has promise, something I can’t say about much else outside of Boeing and Airbus. Recently, the company held its annual media day, and I was there to see what’s new. The answer? Surprisingly little.
When airlines put on media days, they are always focused on making sure there’s some flash. They need to make news, announce new routes or aircraft configurations or… something that’ll get coverage. Visuals? Oh yeah, they need those too. But JetZero? None of that. Oh there could have been some good visuals, but photography is strictly forbidden. Even beyond that, I had to put a cover on my phone camera when I entered the facility. At least they did provide some renderings which you’ll see below.
Instead of announcing something new and exciting, JetZero announced nothing except that it is meeting milestones and moving forward on time and under budget. As someone who doesn’t cover manufacturers as much, I had to turn to those who do to confirm that this mundane presentation was actually a good thing. Indeed, people seemed to agree.
JetZero met its goals last year, and it even had a pleasant surprise. It was moved from the AIR-600 certification group at the FAA which is more for innovation and experimental aircraft to AIR-500 which is for Part 25 aircraft meant for Part 121 airlines. That’s where you find Boeing, and it’s a big deal for JetZero to be categorized that way as it prepares to apply for its type certificate.
The company set forth four main goals for this year.
- It will do a Series C funding round that will exceed the recent $195 million Series B round
- It will open its first office building and begin manufacturing testing at the new North Carolina factory
- It will submit its type certification application to the feds
- It will finish building the Jet1 demonstrator aircraft in partnership with the US military
These are all pretty big milestones in their own right, but I want to focus on that last one. See, JetZero is going down two parallel paths right now. First, it continues to work on its Z4 commercial aircraft which will fit in the middle of the market between the largest B737/A321 and the smallest widebody, refining the design and preparing to apply for the type certificate. Second, it is actively building the Jet1 demontrator which was part of a military contract to prove that this entire blended wing concept works. (Think, B-2 stealth bomber on serious steroids.)
When I heard they were building a demonstrator, I figured this was something like Boom building an irrelevant small aircraft with different engines and no real relation to the production aircraft. That is not what’s happening here. They already have Pathfinder remote control aircraft to help test a variety of things including wind tunnel performance and more. The Jet1 demonstrator is an enormous aircraft that is nearly the size of the Z4. Let me try to help frame this. Here is what the Z4 was going to look like as of last year.
Image via JetZero
There are no updated renders yet, but we do have a new look at the Jet1 demonstrator, now with a fancy v-tail and cool little engine fins on top. (This design change will allow takeoff with one engine out. It’s a safety change that will help the Z4 get certified.)
Image via JetZero
The problem with this rendering is that it doesn’t really show the scale. It also doesn’t help explain just how far along things are in the process. So, to show us that this wasn’t just some paper dream, they rolled up a 40-year old Saab 340A to the hangar where media day was being held and flew us out to Mojave. There, Scaled Composites is building the demonstrator right now.
If you thought JetZero was strict on photographs, well, think again. I’m pretty sure the PR person out there at Scaled was thinking about tackling people if they even touched their phones. I wish I could show you photos of the two assembled cockpit sections (one for testing, the other for flight) or the massive join where those sections will be affixed to the blended wing, but all I have is some pre-approved images directly from JetZero that aren’t as recent. Here is one of the cockpits not ready for primetime:
Image via JetZero
What you can’t see here is that this airplane will take up the entire hangar. It was hard to fathom how big this airplane will be before seeing the early build in person. But now? It’s even harder to believe. It is not very long, but it is incredibly wide. I cannot wait to see this fly. I’ll put this image to try to help give you a sense of scale, but it still doesn’t do it justice. If the cockpit sits where that bulbous structure is, the wing will stretch almost all the way to the far wall.
Image via JetZero
The demonstrator will just have a pressurized cockpit section. Everything behind is just to show the characteristics of blended wing flying. When the testing is done, JetZero will get to keep the airframe to use for other testing purposes, but then it can focus manufacturing efforts in North Carolina on the Z4.
Right now, the Z4 progress is focused on some of the known bottlenecks in manufacturing. Apparently landing gear has a really long lead-time and is remarkably complicated, so that is well underway. Structures are also in progress, and engine selection is being reviewed. And yes, seats have started to be settled on, knowing how hard it has been to get those certified and flying.
I hate that I can only describe this and not show photos, but the amount of progress in the last year is encouraging. In-service dates are pegged in the early-2030s. That sounds quick, but as CEO Tom O’Leary said on stage, he is in the business of the “art of the possible.” This is possible if everything goes as hoped, but of course it might extend further out. That seems reasonable to me.
I look forward to doing this again next year, and I hope it is again a boring presentation simply repeating the same story over and over again.
