Honda Aircraft arrives at this year’s EBACE show amid the unveiling of its new Echelon light commercial jet, a 2,625 nm (4,862 km) diversity aircraft that it says will outperform other light jets and be attractive to charter operators.
Major adjustments are already underway at the company’s headquarters and production campus on the grounds of Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina.
There, staff freed up area for Echelon’s long-term rendezvous at the same facility where Honda Aircraft assembles its HA-420 HondaJet, the very smooth aircraft on which Echelon largely relies, designated HA-480.
Meanwhile, on campus, the company has erected huge metal test benches to perform large-scale structural and formula checks. Other teams expand and verify Echelon parts and coordinate certification efforts with the Federal Aviation Administration.
“We’re in transition,” Miguel Armenta, senior director of manufacturing and manufacturing meetings at Honda Aircraft, said in April as he walked through the final Greensboro assembly site, which long hosted the HA-420 meeting.
Armenta exits into a strip of empty space on the north side of the building. The HA-420 line previously occupied this location, but staff began consolidating HA-420 production on the south side of the building to create space for the Echelon line. .
“We’re going to bring in a clean-up crew. We will remove all the old markings [on the ground] and put the new markings [for the Echelon] on the ground,” Armenta explains.
He insists that the 260,000-square-foot (24,200 m²) structure is large enough for either line, noting that the company recently removed computer workstations from the floor and moved them to a newly constructed mezzanine overlooking production activity.
Honda Aircraft plans to begin assembling the first set of aluminum wings for the Echelon early next year; paintings that will be made at the same Greensboro plant where the wings of the HA-420 are manufactured.
Honda Aircraft introduced the Echelon soft jet concept in 2021, calling the aircraft 2600 at the time. The company embarked on progress last June and has spent the last year quietly advancing program work to achieve its goals. Soft testing is expected to begin in 2026 and certification is planned for the end of 2028.
The Echelon is in every sense an evolution of Honda Aircraft’s only other aircraft, the seven-passenger HA-420, which has a diversity and strength of 1,550 nm (2,870 km) thanks to its two 2,050 lb (9. 1 kN) engines. GE Honda Aero Engine HF engines. The company’s founder and former CEO, Michimasa Fujino, spearheaded the HA-420 in the late 1990s. Honda Aircraft has delivered more than 250 examples to date.
Now led by CEO Hideto Yamasaki, who took over in 2022, Honda Aircraft is on the verge of unlocking its next business opportunity and sees Echelon as key.
The new aircraft will have many similarities to the HA-420, adding the same exclusive engines over the wings and cockpits that almost have Garmin G3000-based avionics.
Echelon will be particularly larger than its sibling, with a capacity of 10 passengers (with pilot), a wingspan of 17. 3 m (56. 7 ft) and a duration of 17. 6 m. The HA-420, by comparison, has a wingspan of 12. 1 m and a duration of thirteen m.
The new aircraft will have a maximum cruise speed of 450 kt (833 km/h) and a service ceiling of 47,000 feet, compared to the HA-420’s figures of 422 kt and 43,000 feet, respectively. The 2,625 nm diversity of the Echelon with 4 passengers allow for transcontinental flights to the United States, the company says.
“2,600 nautical miles is not even something that people can expect right now from the light jet category,” said Amod Kelkar, director of advertising for Honda Aircraft.
He predicts significant sales potential, especially among current owners of the HA-420. But, most importantly, Echelon is opening up Honda Aircraft to controls for fleet operators such as aircraft and condo rental companies, Kelkar adds. Honda Aircraft has sold HA-420s to a single fleet operator, U. S. -based Volato. In the U. S. , however, those companies prefer larger aircraft and tend to place large orders.
Unsurprisingly, Kelkar says the U. S. is the one offering the most sales promises. He also sees the Middle East (where Echelons could simply incorporate key business hubs), Southeast Asia, and possibly China as markets for Echelon.
Honda Aircraft has already obtained letters of intent to order Echelons from about 410 potential customers, adding fleet operators who would most likely order planes, Kelkar said. “Even though [we had] a 30 to 40% conversion rate. . . That’s huge.
There are no company orders yet on Honda Aircraft’s books because the advertising value of the Echelon remains uncertain. Kelkar plans to consolidate it in 2025, following a critical design review expected to be completed this year. He refuses to specify conceivable production rates of the Echelon. Honda Aircraft produces about two HA-420s per month.
Despite the similarities, the Echelon and HA-420 will have some differences in the hood.
While GKN Aerospace produces the carbon-fiber fuselage for the HA-420 in North Carolina, Honda Aircraft turned to Wichita’s Spirit AeroSystems to produce the same design for the Echelon. The plan calls for Spirit to build the designs in Kinston, North Carolina, where it will produce composite parts of the Airbus A350 fuselage.
But uncertainty arose this year when Boeing expressed interest in acquiring Spirit to improve the quality of the 737 fuselages made through Spirit. Whether the deal will go through remains to be seen, with analysts suspecting it can only move forward if Spirit sells its business. with Airbus.
This situation may force Spirit to produce the Echelon’s fuselage elsewhere, in the U. S. or abroad, Kelkar said, downplaying the concerns. He added that Honda Aircraft will not seek an airframe supplier and remains “very unwavering with Spirit. “
“I don’t have any main doubts or concerns, because the projects they’re discussing are good for us,” Kelkar says. “We don’t move as far as where they’re building our airframe, as long as it’s built exactly to our specifications and delivered on time. “
Spirit has begun sourcing equipment for production and Honda Aircraft plans to get the first Echelon airframe in August 2025, Kelkar said. “Our entire chain now starts with its first production cycle. “
In another change, the GE Honda Aero Engines joint venture will not get Echelon’s turbofan engines. Instead, the planes will get two FJ44-4C turbofan engines manufactured through Michigan-based Williams International. FJ44s are commercially available as engines that force other soft engines. jets, adding the Cessna Citation CJ3, CJ4 and Pilatus PC-24. Honda Aircraft turned to Williams because neither devising a new engine nor scaling the HF-120 to meet Echelon’s wishes proved practical.
Echelon will bring Honda Aircraft to the light aircraft market, subjecting it to competition from the CJ, PC-24 and Embraer Phenom 300. These competitors have a diversity of around 2,000 nm, so Echelon will have an advantage, Kelkar says, adding that the jet will also compete to some extent with the midsize jet segment.
It also notes that the Echelon will require 20% less fuel than other light jets and 40% less than midsize jets, thanks to its lightweight carbon-fiber fuselage and unique over-wing engine configuration, which maximizes laminar airflow around the aircraft, reducing drag.
“The transit point between laminar and turbulent [air] is found much later on wing surfaces, resulting in less fuel [burning]. . . less drag, less friction,” says Kelkar. Echelon will have “probably the most productive natural lamellar wing ever designed. “
Honda Aircraft is making slow progress in its certification campaign. Its goal is for the FAA to validate the Echelon as a derivative of the HA-420 under a modified type certificate. It will also be approved for single-pilot operations, like its little brother, and will share a non-unusual pilot score with the smallest. aircraft.
These approvals serve to secure orders from existing HA-420 owners.
But getting the certifications (and doing it on time) won’t be easy, especially as the FAA took a closer look at certification plans after the 737 Max crisis, forcing brands like Boeing and Gulfstream to delay their programs. What’s more, Honda Aircraft itself is no stranger to certification delays: The HA-420 has experienced repeated setbacks and earned FAA certification in 2015, 12 years after its first flight.
But Kelkar is confident. Lessons from the HA-420 experience have Honda-ready jets for Echelon, and the similarities to smaller jets changed the type-certificate route, he says. “The idea is that the rider’s experience deserves to be almost exactly the same. “
He says Honda Aircraft used common sense in checking its intentions with the FAA to make sure the company was willing and able to carry out the plan. Earlier this year, about 40 Honda Aircraft workers attended an interim assembly of the FAA’s Type Certification Committee in Atlanta. where they presented a detailed review of the Echelon to about 35 to 40 FAA participants, offering “system-by-system” updates and discussing the design review process, Kelkar adds.
In addition, more than a year ago, Honda Aircraft sought the recommendation of the National Institute of Aeronautical Research (NIAR), a non-profit department at Wichita State University that specializes in aircraft progression and certification. The NIAR advised that Honda Aircraft perform “as many [checks] as imaginable at [the] formula integration control center,” Kelkar says. “We try to use this technique as much as we can imagine. . . So our flight control program starts with very few unknowns about the design of the aircraft. “
The Echelon poses no threat to Honda Aircraft, which is looking to stem losses. Parent company Honda’s aircraft and aircraft engine business lost 32. 9 billion yen ($210 million) in the fiscal year that ended in March.
But leaders see Echelon as a central component of the change under new CEO Yamasaki. While the founding CEO, Fujino, is an engineer by training, Yamasaki has a strong background in business. He joined Honda in 1985 and worked primarily in the automotive department before becoming director of the aircraft manufacturer.
Engineers at Honda Aircraft in Greensboro and at the progression facility are also actively involved in Echelon’s work.
There, in a fabric lab, staff prototype Echelon components, recently adding a wing-fuselage fastener. They do this with “load-frame” machines, adding four capable of exerting a load of 22,000 pounds (9,979 kg) and one capable of applying 55,000 pounds, says Brad Thompson, senior director of structural engineering at Honda Aircraft.
The team also uses environmental chambers to subject parts to incredibly high, cold temperatures and maximum humidity, situations that affect the integrity of the composites more than the metal.
“Environmental chambers are especially mandatory for composites,” Thompson says. “We’re going to soak them in moisture and warm them up, and they’ll be a lot weaker when they absorb all of that. “
Installing R
The company recently built the first of two planned large metal platforms; each will include mobile structural testing by Echelon.
The team will use the first device for static structural testing. “We have to bend the wings, the fuselage, the tail, every single one of them, once,” Thompson says. The team will have to demonstrate, for example, that Echelon’s wings can cope with the “maximum load,” explained as 150% of the “load limit,” which is the highest load the wings are likely to support.
Large-scale fatigue tests will follow, which involve subjecting the airframes to thousands of simulated flights, performed by pressurizing the fuselages and about 90 actuators to move the structures in a way that mimics the flight stages, Thompson says. Approximately 2,000 sensors attached to the mobile phone will measure the movement.
“[We’re going to] lean up over the wings, down over the fuselage” and rotate the fuselage “pushing sideways on the vertical tail,” Thompson says. “Everything the plane can see in flight, we have to test. “”.
Fatigue testing continues long after certification; The number of simulated flights shall exceed the actual number of flights in the fleet. Further fatigue testing for composite and metallic materials is required by the regulations.
Honda Aircraft used a test bench for the fatigue testing of the HA-420, forcing it to move from composite testing to steel testing. As a result, this program lasted seven years and encompassed 100,000 simulated flights, more than five times the promised life cycle of the HA-420, Thompson says.
But his team will use two platforms for Echelon fatigue testing: the platform used first for static testing will later take care of steel fatigue testing, while another platform (to be built in a few years’ time) will be used for composite fatigue testing. The two platforms are expected to enable Honda Aircraft to complete the Echelon fatigue testing program within three and a half to four years, Thompson said.
One of the most complex aircraft progression jobs is ensuring that an aircraft’s systems are properly integrated. To get it right, Honda Aircraft has invested in the creation of a new integration test facility (ITF) for Echelon within its R.
“We do a lot of things to fully test the systems,” says Michael Hodgson, Honda’s ITF senior engineer. “Anything that has an electrical component, we’ll check it here. “
Hodgson is referring to a new ‘integration control platform’ – an expanded design at the heart of the ITF. One end of the platform is an HA-420 cab; Honda Aircraft will soon install another HA-420 cab at the other end.
The cockpits will be a complete representation of Echelon’s cockpit, a component of an incredibly complex combination of hardware, software and real aircraft factors designed to simulate how Echelon’s various systems will function and interact in flight. The cockpits of the HA-420 are ideal for the task because, in addition to being slightly shorter than the cabin of the Echelon, they are identical.
The cockpits will feature Echelon avionics and will be connected to Echelon’s actual control modules and the aircraft’s main systems, some of which are already connected to platforms below the control platform. These come with a “landing gear control bed” to assess timing. landing gear and a “flap and spoiler control bed. . . “used to validate the actuation, loading, and timing of flaps and spoilers,” says Hodgson.
In addition, an “engine dynamics” simulator, already supplied through Williams, will power the network, and actuators located under the platform will supply “return forces” to the cockpit controls, giving pilots the impression that the planes are flying. , the concept is that pilots and engineers will check Echelon’s systems on the ground as if the plane were flying.
“We have a complete, high-fidelity real-time simulator that takes all this data, integrates it, and puts it into a streamlined style so that it flies like the HondaJet 480,” Hodgson says.
He expects the team to begin integration testing, likely starting with engine testing, this year. By the end of the year or early 2025, the team aims to complete its first simulated flight of Echelon within the ITF.
“Then we’ll start with genuine integration testing. . . and we’ll start testing all the systems,” Hodgson says.
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