The Honda Aircraft HA-420 light jet is commonly known as the HondaJet. HA-420 is the official model name for the aircraft. The HondaJet name is the marketing name of the aircraft. The official and marketing name setup is very common among commercial and business aircraft. The HA-420 name is mostly used by aviation regulators, like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to identify the aircraft in regulatory operations. It is likely that Honda decided on the “HA-420” model name by using "HA" for Honda Aircraft and 420 for the model number.
Above photo of the Honda Aircraft HA-420 light jet by Markus Eigenheer on Flickr and Wikimedia Commons. Photo enhansed by FlyRadius and relesed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Background and History of the Aircraft
The Honda HA-420 jet was first developed by the Honda Motor Co., Ltd in the late 1990s. In December 2003, the company started flight testing the HA-420 in Greensboro, North Carolina. Starting on July 25th, 2006 the Honda started accepting orders for their new aircraft. To handle the production and sale of the aircraft, Honda Motor Co., Ltd created the Honda Aircraft Company, which is a United States subsidiary of the company, in August of 2006.
The HA-420 program stalled after 2006 as the Honda Aircraft Company would have to deal with the Great Recession in 2007 and problems with building the aircraft. In 2013 Honda Aircraft’s engine company partnership, GE Honda Aero Engines finally received certification of the HA-420 engine, the HF120. During the year of 2015, Honda was able to bring the aircraft to the finish line by achieving certification of the jet on December 9th, 2015. On December 23rd, 2015 Honda Aircraft delivered the first HA-420 jet to customers at its Greensboro, North Carolina headquarters, just in time for the Holiday season.
Quick Review of The Aircraft
The Honda HA-420 is a light jet that can carry up to 6 passengers with one pilot. The aircraft was built by Honda to help develop a low cost jet that would be comfortable to fly in.
Avionics
Honda Aircraft originally selected the Garmin G1000 avionics suite to be the avionics system for the jet. As the HA-420 aircraft program was delayed for a long time, Garmin ended up developing a new avionics system, the G3000. Honda then changed the avionics system to the G3000 system as a result. The aircraft is powered by the Garmin G3000 avionics suite which is an advanced all-in-one, touchscreen avionics system.
Engine
The aircraft is powered by two GE Honda Aero Engines HF120-H1A engines that are mounted over the wings of the aircraft. This is a unique setup that had not been used on a business jet. The engines produce a maximum of 2037 pound of thrust each.
More information on the jet can be found on the other pages that are found in the HondaJet article menu. All of the HondaJet articles apply to the HA-420 as they are the same aircraft. Specifications, Dimensions, and futher background and history information can be found on those pages.
