Media Invited to See Innovative Light Jet at NASA Langley

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Jul 07, 2016, 02:48 ET

HAMPTON, Va., July 7, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Langley Research Center will host a rare flying visitor July 12, when a newly designed, advanced light jet flies into the Hampton, Virginia, laboratory.

The HondaJet, created by a company better known for cars, motorcycles and lawn mowers, is one of a relatively new class of airplanes called light jets, designed to carry four to seven passengers and be fast, safe, reliable and able to use very small airports.

Light jets were developed in part with the help of research done more than 10 years ago by NASA's Advanced General Aviation Transportation Experiments alliance and its follow-on, the Small Aircraft Transportation System project, both led out of NASA Langley. Those public-private partnerships advanced affordable new technologies, operating capabilities and industry standards, design guidelines, and certification for next-generation single pilot, near all-weather light airplanes.

U.S. media are invited to see the HondaJet and speak with its designer, Honda Aircraft President and CEO Michimasa Fujino at 12 p.m., July 12. They should contact Kathy Barnstorff at (757) 864-9886 or [email protected] for credentials by 5 p.m. EDT Monday, July 11. Media need to arrive at the NASA Langley gate located at 2 Langley Blvd. no later than 11:45 a.m. for the Tuesday, July 12, event.

Fujino is coming to NASA Langley to give an afternoon Colloquium talk. Plus the HondaJet will be the subject of a Sigma series presentation at 7:30 p.m. at the Virginia Air and Space Center.

Fujino and the HondaJet are no strangers to the Hampton area. Honda Aircraft Company, which is headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, contracted with NASA Langley to use one of its transonic wind tunnels during the jet's research and development phase. Honda used a 1/9th-scale model of the jet for tests in the National Transonic Facility. Honda engineers used the data to assess high-speed flight performance for the HondaJet's new concept configuration, the over-the-wing engine mount.

The light jet has a unique design, which incorporates advanced technologies and concepts that reduce drag and decrease fuel consumption. Those include the engines mounted above the wings, a natural laminar flow wing and a composite fuselage. It also features a NASA Langley innovation – upturned wing tips known as winglets that also help reduce drag and increase fuel efficiency.

For more information about the NASA Langley Colloquium and Sigma lectures, go to:

http://colloqsigma.larc.nasa.gov/

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SOURCE NASA