Free Republic

The private jet industry is highly competitive, one in which companies will utilize any advantage to maintain existing clients while also luring in new ones. Which makes the fact that Cirrus — a Duluth, Minn.-based aviation company — has come out with the world's most affordable private jet something that will turn heads in the industry. After roughly a decade of development, Cirrus is beginning to deliver their first batch of SF50 Vision Jets to the more than 600 customers who were the first to purchase them (the inaugural plane arrived in Switzerland around mid-May of this year). The company...

Why is Russia's new supersonic biz-jet concept painted camouflage? Russia's Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI) -- think NASA's Langley Research Centre -- is working on a new supersonic business jet. (See here for Russian-language news release issued earlier today.) Sukhoi and Tupolev of course have been working on this idea for decades, of course, but this one will be a little different. It's supposed to fly quietly enough that it can operate over populated areas, unlike the supersonic Concorde, for instance. That's all very interesting in a Bond-villain-plot-vehicle-way, but that's not why we're posting on this blog. We'd really just like...

Gulfstream Aerospace, a maker of business-jet aircraft, announced Monday that it is expanding operations in Georgia by adding more than 1,000 jobs and investing at least $500 million. Gulfstream's seven-year plan calls for expanding its jet production and maintenance facilities at the Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport and renovating several existing facilities on its main Savannah campus. New positions will include production engineering and support technician jobs, the company announced. It is Gulfstream's second major expansion on Georgia's Atlantic coast in half a decade.

Vern Raburn has this habit of finding the next big thing — way too soon. In 1976, he opened the third computer store in Los Angeles, years before PCs came to the masses. Struck with the computer bug, he headed to Albuquerque, N.M., where he joined up with some guys who wanted to sell software. That happened to be Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and Raburn was one of the first employees at Microsoft (a partner in MSNBC). But he bailed when Gates shipped the company north to Redmond, Wash., and moved on. So what is he doing back in...