When Honda Aircraft flew its prototype HondaJet on December 3, 2003, it achieved a significant step in aviation history, and it wasn’t just that it was almost exactly 100 years after the Wright Brothers first took to the skies. The first flight of the HondaJet represented a truly new clean-sheet very light jet design by Honda’s new aviation division, and it was powered by turbofan engines designed and manufactured by Honda’s own engineering team.
While there were engines in the required power range already available, to get the maximum efficiency and meet Honda Aircraft’s ambitious design goals, it was necessary to create a modern new engine.
It is a given in this industry that designing and producing a new jet powered by new engines is a huge risk, but Honda Aircraft and its founder Michimasa Fujino were willing to take that risk and prove to the world that his unique over-the-wing engine mount design performed better than traditional business jets of similar sizes. And indeed this proved to be true, both in early wind-tunnel testing, and once the prototype HondaJet and its Honda-built HF118 engines took to the skies.
