The HondaJet

Report

For my assignment I have been following with high regards for the past 14 weeks the development and creation of what will soon be the most talked about innovation in aircraft manufacture to date. The future of air-transport as we know it will soon change, less waste in fossil fuels, less pollution, more mileage for your money, the possibilities of this project are ground-breaking. What I have discovered over these past months has been a great experience and a strong learning curve in how the technology around us is constantly evolving to become far greater than yesterday and today.

Background

The Honda HA-420 HondaJet has been in development from 1997 and is expected to fully launch globally in 2010, showcasing the innovation of aircraft manufacture.

The purpose of its creation is not only to improve the style and design of the standard business jet but also instead make it an environmentally friendly and cost friendly creation that will replace all existing models. Achieving this goal would prove vastly beneficial; its innovative design has been accustomed to a level of efficiency that future aircraft projects should follow. Honda’s plan from the start was to create a new model business jet, which would use less far less fuel to travel to it’s locations and use far less environmentally un-friendly materials and components in doing so. In achieve this they began with an innovative over the wing-designed engine, previously only seen on a Fokker VFW-614 back in the 1980’s. Compiled with current lightweight composite materials throughout the body and heavily reinforced layers of aluminium material covering for the wings. The combination of the these capabilities, help establish a strong aerodynamic structure for the HondaJet and reinforce the force the achieving the goals set

Objective

Honda’s appeal to the environment and reducing global effects of current generation automobiles has shone through its decades manufacturing, dealing them with honourable awards in engineering. There aim of constant improvement on all of their fields of work from F1 Racing, Motorcycles to their current aim of producing low-cost Honda-Hybrids. However their main focus has been on reducing costs of production, general reduction on fuel consumption, reducing and minimising the effect on the environment. To do this they began analysing the market as it is and began work on the HondaJet project.

From my own research into this I discovered the key areas of high-level improvement that the HondaJet is developing into and innovating in, the first research was on the Speed of which the new model can perform at. Using officially gathered information and recordings from Internet resources I compiled a simple to understand graph showing the major improvement in this area from the HondaJet.

Graph 1

However what this actual means and proves is more convincing. Being able to travel faster is one thing but the HondaJet achieves this at a lower cost and fuel consumption, which on the environment is a massive development key feature. Relating to the cost I began research on if the HondaJet is actually financially beneficial. Being able to a lot more than anything else on the market, it would be expected to cost a lot more than the current competition so I researched on how much more it would cost.

Graph 2

The results from this were very surprising, the HondaJet is actually analysed to cost far less than any of its competition. So with a model that is not only greater in performance and costs less, there is nothing preventing the HondaJet from succeeding. If it succeeds it will mean the other companies models will not be used in high demand any further, this achieved makes the HondaJet the single running business Jet and so the global impact in reduction from waste fuels and cost will be a grand figure in lowering the effect on the environment.

Effects

The above analysis is all well and good, for the majority and does achieve the goals set out to achieve. However this is not one of Honda’s strongest lines in development, the Honda Civic Hydrogen powered cars is one of the top line developments in industry today. The HondaJet is basing a lot of its structural content on duplicating what it has on the ground into the sky, most of which I am happy to say it is achieving. Though at present a lot of what is being said is mainly predictions and from analysis, which until actually testing in the real world isn’t much to go on.

The real question though with the project as are many others is “Do we need this?”

On a positive note, yes we do. The current line of models are to say the least highly expensive to maintain and produce high volumes of waste and effects our environment greatly. The HondaJet has proved in its analysis that it indeed will improve but not only that, but innovate the way aircrafts of the future will be made. This alone is reassuring enough that the Honda Team are truly setting out to achieve a lot more than originally in view. The competition to this project is non-existent. The business Jet industry had already reached it’s milestones before in the last decade with only upgraded models on the market that didn’t provide much improvements to reducing the effects to our global environment from waste fossil fuels to pollution.

Global Perspective

The most encouraging analysis from this project has been the encouragement by other technology-advanced companies towards the development of the HondaJet. Many rival companies to Honda have done nothing but praise for it’s innovation and like myself agree that it’s design structure and overall layout makes grounds in industry that no other aircraft has. This in view the global response as a whole to the project from it’s international unveiling in early 2005 was a success, with much of the feedback again stating it’s innovations in engineering and changing the world we live in. Though most of the public has no true idea of it’s existing now, in the coming year’s ahead the marketing of the HondaJet will widen the field and the experience that Honda are trying to provide here and achieve for our environment will be clearer globally.

Financially the HondaJet is set to me a success, at 3.2 Million overall costing and production compared to the other models, this has shown vast, not only improvement but lowered the cost to below all closest models. Production is set to begin in 2009 with all details of final sales costs and media to be revealed more clearly then, so at this point I can not detail this information much further other than speculation.

Ending Comments

The HondaJet has been a great topic to study, understanding it’s development, analysing sketches and watching construction has helped a lot to understand why Honda are doing this and what they are hoping to achieve. In my own view towards it’s predicted impact and change on the environment, it shows that Honda have set a high barrier to achieve goals set but on paper are very much achieving this. The impact though on the environment will be beneficially I believe, and I hope Honda’s plan of action helps other companies understand this to improve costs and waste on our global environment, which we have abused for decades and continue to today.

Companies like Honda are doing what they can to change the world we live in. The way of life has caused the steady decline of our planet and the world we live in today we be heavily worse tomorrow. But the companies like Honda are doing what they can to prevent and slow down the effects on our planet. So today it maybe a business Jet, but tomorrow it could be a larger aircrafts and to eventually cut down the cost and waste to towards our environment so later generations can truly live in.

My hope from the end of the HondaJet project is that more people take notice of the innovation and help to fight the cause of preventing and reducing the waste we produce on our planet.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hondajet - History & Development key points

https://hondajet.honda.com - Design & Manufacturing details

http://www.jetsales.com/mesinger/types/types.html - Figures from Aircrafts

http://www.avbuyer.com/ - Cost of competition products