Friends in High Places: HondaJet’s New Engines to Power Legacy Cessna Business Jets

GE engineers helped inventor and aircraft designer Bill Lear create the business jet market in the 1960s, when they converted a fighter jet engine into propulsion for the first Learjet. But the company has been largely absent from the space since.

Bill Lear’s Learjet used GE’s J85 jet engines originally developed for Northrop F-5 fighter jets. Image credit: National Museum of  USAF