Carbon fiber gets bigger footprint

Manufacturers strive for the Holy Grail of composites manufacturing: consistency and repeatability.

It's not every day that an aerospace manufacturer with a worldwide reputation for globe-spanning business jets turns to a company best known for gliders to build its next turbofan-powered plane, but that was the case in early 2008 when Canada's Bombardier contracted with Switzerland's Grob Aerospace to build the first three prototypes of the eight-passenger Learjet 85.

That decision seemed even more unlikely when Bombardier announced that the Learjet 85 structure would be built from composite materials-making it the first all-composite business jet designed for type certification under FAR Part 25. (The first all-composite business aircraft was the Beechcraft Starship, but that was a turboprop.) Few companies, however, are more experienced using aerospace composites than Grob, which has been around since 1971.