Corporate Jets:

AAD2006 will long be remembered for the large number of corporate jets on display. The attending figure made up the largest exhibition of static aircraft at any AAD thus far. Reason? As more and more companies both locally and internationally use South Africa as a spring board for ventures into Africa the services offered by commercial airlines are not always viable. This is due to the vast area and in most cases the company concern is not located close to a city which is serviced by the airliners. Some have pointed out it takes them around two weeks to visit their operations in Africa and with their own aircraft this could be reduced to a maximum of three days. A great pleasure to most was the attendance of Dassault with their impressive Falcon 900EX EASy jet which is fitted with a HUD for the pilot in an addition to the all glass cockpit. Although they did not expect to sell any of the EASy jets due to affordability, the interest was certainly there. Many of the jets like the Bombardier Global 5000, the Raytheon Hawker 850XP, Cessna Citation CJ2+ and Embraer Legacy 600 made their public debut in Africa or at AAD. The Global 5000 was on 14 day African tour to showcase the type to potential customers. However the Bombardier Learjet 60 which is locally represented by Execujet caused a sensation amongst the attendees to the show.  On Thursday 21 September 2006 a Learjet 60 took off from Ysterplaat for a new time over distance record between Cape Town and Johannesburg. Climbing to 37 000 feet for the attempt the record was set at 2 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds and verified utilising two independent GPS systems. There was no landing in Johannesburg, as it was a turn around flight.  

Falcon 900 EASy	Falcon 900 EASy
Record breaker Learjet 60	Citation
Bombardier Challenger 300	Bombardier Global 5000
Raytheon Hawker 850