End Of An Era-The Last Learjet Has Been Built

A friend of mine flew one of the first 23s that came out. He said they were way ahead of their time for what they were designed for and that Bill Lear had a lot of good ideas.. They had a lousy safety record at first. The cabin was cramped and it had a fairly short range.
His company replaced the Lear with a GulfStream and everybody was happier.

 

Just too bad the rest of Bombardier didn't shut down too. They can't survive without constant bailouts from the Canadian Government. Huge money pit.

 

Lear isn’t the only victim. Canadair and DeHavilland-Canada were solid when they were independent companies. Bombardier made a mess of both of those too. Bombardier is just a pipeline to the Laurentiens for government cash. At least that outfit in Victoria bought up a most of the DHC Type Certificates and licences. You can buy a brand new Beaver from those guys if you want.

 

If you go back far enough into the C-Series program you’ll probably find blueprints that say Dash-9 on them. That was a De Havilland aircraft that was well into development when Bombardier bought them. Development costs put DHC in a bit of a corner and Bombardier jumped on it with a fresh bag of taxpayer cash from the Feds and the Province of Onterrible for a partner. I don’t know how they managed to #### that up like they did. Must be a French thing. They sold De Havilland off later but it was little more than a shell company at that point.

 

I’d keep the ATV & Side x Side divisions. They are decent.

 

End Of An Era-The Last Learjet Has Been Built

 

I was under the understanding that BRP broke away from Bombardier almost 2 decades ago. I don't know if they're even considered a division of Bombardier anymore. The stock ticker for BRP is DOO, so maybe they're a part of Ski-Doo now?