Aircraft Makeover: Certifiably As Good As New - By Kevin O'Leary, Business Aviation - Forbes

Reminiscent of buying an Oldsmobile Cutlass and dropping in a 455 Rocket engine (the third and largest variant of Oldsmobile’s big-block V-8 engines), Cleveland, OH-based Nextant Aerospace is bringing new life to the venerable Hawker 400 – an enormously popular light jet with a great cabin. Newly conceived as the Nextant 400XT, the old aircraft received a total top-to-bottom makeover remarkably boosting performance, capability and functionality. That places it squarely in a competitive arena with some of the newest light jets on the market.

This is an airplane that I know well. My experience with the Beechjet 400A/Hawker 400 started in 1996 at the Hawker Beechcraft factory as a trade analyst determining values of incoming aircraft.  At two fractional companies, I sold hundreds of Beechjet fractional shares. Then in 2006, my company, Jet Advisors®, studied improving the aircraft by using blended winglets and removing thrust reversers to save weight & drag. Nextant, however, has taken their aerodynamic testing much further.

Read more here:   http://www.forbes.com/sites/businessaviation/2012/10/15/aircraft-makeover-certifiably-as-good-as-new/