The Boeing Business Jet 2 is an evolution of the BBJ family, providing a 25% increase in cabin volume and 100% increase in cargo volume compared to the BBJ1. The aircraft’s long-range capability allows direct non-stop flight from New York to London, Moscow or Dubai or London to Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Singapore or Tokyo.
The Boeing Company and the General Electric Company announced the formation of a joint venture company, Boeing Business Jets, on 2nd July 1996. The joint venture initiative was set up in response to the market demand for larger higher-capability business aircraft with a range of more than 6,000 miles.
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The delivery of the first Boeing business jet was in October 1998 and more than 154 were ordered as of July 2011 (including BBJ, BBJ2, BBJ C and BBJ3), with more than 138 BBJ aircraft delivered worldwide. The BBJ accumulated more than 90,000 flight hours. The BBJ2 business jet was announced in October 1999 and the first was delivered in March 2001. 13 BBJ2 were delivered.
The aircraft is in service with government and corporate customers including Abu Dhabi Amiri Flight and the government of Belarus.
The BBJ is based on the 737-700 airliner and the BBJ2 on the 737-800. In November 2005, Boeing unveiled the BBJ3, based on the 737-900ER. BBJ3 has 35% more cabin space than the BBJ and 11% more cabin space than the BBJ 2. It has a maximum range of 10,140km.
BBJ3 was officially launched in October 2006, with orders from two undisclosed customers. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certified BBJ3 in April 2007 and April 2008 respectively. Work on the first BBJ3 began in May 2008 and was completed in August 2008.
Air China received the maiden BBJ 737-700 IGW aircraft from Boeing in May 2011.
The aircraft are manufactured at the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group manufacturing facilities at Renton in Washington, US. The customer selects an interior design company and completion centre for the installation of the interior fitting. Boeing Business Jets transfer the aircraft in a ‘green condition’, unpainted and without the interior fittings, to the completion centre where the interiors are installed and painting is completed.
BBJ2 construction
The BBJ2 is derived from the 737-800 airframe design, which provides improved performance in terms of higher range and speed, lower noise levels and lower emissions than previous members of the Boeing 737 family.
The fuselage is of fail-safe aluminium structure. The aluminium alloy wings and the tail plane are of dual path fail safe two-spar structure. The wings have Aviation Partners blended winglets to provide reduced air turbulence, therefore increasing fuel mileage, range and altitude capability.
Weight saving was achieved through the use of composite materials, with graphite, Kevlar and carbon reinforced plastics for the ailerons, elevators and rudder. The spoilers, airbrake panels and the trailing edges of the slats and flaps incorporate aluminium honeycomb sections.
Cabin and flight deck
The cabin’s 1,004ft² floor area (over 93m²) can seat up to 78 passengers in addition to an executive lounge and private suite.
The interior configuration could typically include an executive office, conference rooms, private offices and bedrooms.
In addition to staff or family sleeping or seating areas, personal environments can be created, for example, with a living room, dining room, a master bedroom and bathroom, or two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The interior designer works within an interior completion allowance of 7,030kg.
Built-in airstairs give self-sufficiency at airports with reduced ground support. The cargo holds are easily loaded, with a maximum cargo volume of 34.7m³.
The flight deck accommodates the pilot and co-pilot and incorporates many features of the Boeing 737-800. The glass cockpit has a Rockwell Collins Flight Dynamics HGS-4000 head-up display and six Honeywell flat-panel liquid crystal flight displays. The HGS-4000 has improved low visibility take-off guidance, runway deceleration cueing and advanced display features. Smiths Industries developed and supplied the dual flight management computers.
The communications systems include Rockwell Collins triple VHF and dual HF communications and a Coltech selective calling system (SelCal).
The Rockwell Collins Series 90 avionics system is integrated with a dual automatic direction finding (ADF), TCAS II traffic alert and collision avoidance system, plus a predictive windshear unit.
The navigation suite includes dual Rockwell Collins navigation multimode receivers, incorporating a global positioning system (GPS), instrument landing system (ILS) and a VHF omni-directional radio range navigation aid with data from the distance measuring equipment (VOR/DME). The aircraft is equipped with a Honeywell (formerly AlliedSignal) enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS) and an airborne navigation data recorder (ANDR), digital flight data acquisition unit (DAFU) and a quick access recorder supplied by Teledyne.
The aircraft’s 120-minute cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR) were supplied by L-3 Communications.
In January 2007, Boeing and Rockwell Collins announced the development of an enhanced vision system (EVS) for the BBJ. The EVS features multiwavelength infrared sensors from Max-Viz and is displayed on the HGS-4000 HUD. Certification of the EVS on the BBJ and Air National Guard C-40 was achieved in October 2010.
BBJ2 engines
The aircraft has two CFM56-7B27 turbofan engines developed by CFM International, a company jointly formed by General Electric of the USA and Snecma of France. The engines are rated at 27,300lb thrust. The wing tanks hold 26,025l of fuel. Three to seven auxiliary tanks by PATS, Inc. based in Georgetown, Delaware, provide additional fuel to bring the total maximum fuel capacity to 39,531l.
With maximum fuel and a lower baggage hold cargo volume of 800ft³ the range is 5,500 nautical miles.
The BBJ2 is capable of 180-minutes extended-range, twin-engine operations (ETOPS) providing access to faster, more direct and shorter routes, for example over Arctic or Himalayan areas.
Landing gear
The aircraft has hydraulically operated retractable landing gear in a tricycle configuration.
The twin nose wheels retract forward and the main units retract inwards. The main landing gear wells have no doors but instead the wheels form the wheel well seals that are visible on the underside of the fuselage towards the trailing edge of the wing.
The landing gear is equipped with oleo-pneumatic shock absorbers supplied by Boeing and either Honeywell or Goodrich heavy duty wheel brakes.
