Video: World’s fastest private jet will soon be built in Mississauga

The world’s fastest private jet will soon be rolling off the production line in Mississauga.

Bombardier’s new flagship Global 8000 aircraft, set to launch in 2025, will be built at the Montreal-based company’s new $500-million state-of-the-art business jet manufacturing plant on schedule to open this summer at Pearson Airport in Mississauga.

At $78 million apiece and with room for 19 passengers, the Global 8000 will whisk passengers around the world at a speed approaching the speed of sound and greater than that of any other private jet currently in the skies.

The Global 8000 will fly at a top operating speed of Mach .94 (about 1,160 km/h). Mach 1, the speed of sound, translates to 1,234 km/h.

During a test flight in May 2021 observed by a NASA-operated Boeing F-18 fighter, the new Bombardier private jet broke the sound barrier when it recorded a speed of Mach 1.015, or 1,243 km/h (see video bottom of story).

Featuring a range of 14,816 kilometres, the Global 8000 will also take passengers farther than any other business jet once it takes to the air.

A nonstop flight from Dubai to Houston, or Singapore to Los Angeles, or London to Perth is no problem for this aircraft, its builders say. Additionally, because of its unique takeoff and landing capabilities, the Global 8000 can take off from and land safely at smaller airstrips that will get passengers closer to their destination.

“The Global 8000 private jet is the flagship for a new era where the fastest speed, the longest range and the smoothest ride converge in a single business aircraft with proven reliability and the healthiest, best-connected cabin in the industry,” Bombardier officials said in an online description of the new jet.

The Cessna Citation X+ is the fastest private jet currently in the skies today (Mach .935), but it will be relegated to second-fastest once the Bombardier Global 8000 is in the air in 2025. (Photo: Cessna)

Online aviation firm Simple Flying recently listed the five fastest private jets in the world.

On the heels of Bombardier’s Global 8000, in second place, is the Cessna Citation X+, which operates at Mach .935 (1,115 km/h).

Tied for a third-place speed of Mach .925 are Bombardier’s Global 7500, six Gulfstream jets and the Dassault Falcon 10X .

Completing the top five are the Cessna Citation X (Mach .92) and the Dassault Falcon 7X and 8X (Mach .90).

By comparison, the fastest commercial aircraft, the Boeing 777-200LR and the Airbus A380, take passengers around the globe at a maximum speed of Mach .85, or 1,047 km/h.

Bombardier’s 770,000-sq.-ft. Global Manufacturing Centre, the largest standalone structure to be built at Pearson Airport in the last 20 years, according to airport officials, is slated to open by late summer and will replace the current final assembly plant located in Downsview. 

That facility was built in the 1960s and today houses some 2,000 workers. All of those employees will be brought along to the new Pearson plant, which company officials said earlier will significantly reduce Bombardier’s industrial and environmental footprint in the area.