The Bombardier Learjet 60 midsize jet has set a world speed record in its class, flying Jeddah-Dubai non-stop, in 1 hour, 59 minutes. The flight is fully sanctioned by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI). Air traffic controllers in Jeddah and Dubai clocked the official take off and arrival times, which they will submit to the National Aeronautic Association (NAA), according to official procedure, in order to validate the record flight. Once validated, the NAA will submit the record to the FAI in Paris, France, for international ratification.

This is the second Learjet 60 aircraft record in just over four months. On September 21, 2006, another Learjet 60 jet flew Cape Town-Johannesburg, round trip, in two hours, 59 minutes. To date, the high performance jet has accumulated 13 world speed records over nine routes in five countries.

“The jet performed superbly as expected,” said captain James Sizemore, of ExecuJet Middle East, the aircraft’s operator.
“We took off from Jeddah at 10h00, local time, and quickly climbed to 41,000 feet (12,497 m) to avoid turbulence and traffic. The aircraft handled beautifully throughout the flight and the time easily establishes a new benchmark for this trip.”

In customer service since July 2001, the Learjet 60 aircraft, owned by ExecuJet Aviation Group, cruised at Mach 0.81 throughout the flight, until it clocked-in with the Dubai International Airport tower at 13 h49min, confirming its impressive time and speed. The Learjet 60 aircraft landed just in time to co-star in a photo opportunity with Learjet 60 XR Middle Eastern launch customer Saudi businessman Ghassan Tabbah Shalabi, president of Inma Arabia Investment of Dubai, United Arab Emirates.