https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan
https://www.flyingmag.com/pilot-reports ... -lear-fan/

Watching how the turboprop singles and light jets have been developed makes me wonder
what if the LearFan were revisited and updated for today.

How would the real world performance, cabin room or problems compare? Especially with lighter modern electronics and avionics.

Could it be developed as a single engine today to compete with the TBM / Fury/Merdian/ Denali types. PC-12 is bigger cabin so not quite a comparison but maybe.

Or stick with the original twin PT6 plan? Old performance projections seem to blow right past any of the light jets and the smaller turboprop twins.

Empty weight seems light, Is the airframe tube / cabin unusually small in real life?

“Cabin measurements of the Lear Fan are about the same as those of a 90 Series King Air,”

Agree with your guess that as a single it would be more acceptable today than back then. Sounds like the gearbox was its Achilles heel, that wouldn’t be necessary as a single.

I remember that airplane well.
That was an interesting time for bizjets in aviation.

This one made the cover of Flying magazine.
Lots of push behind it,
But it never came to fruition.

Can you name it?

Peregrine something, right?

Yep, the Gulfstream Peregrine.

It was missing the oval windows. That must have been the problem...

An old friend of mine was an engineer on the Learfan and he has some great stories about blowing up fuselages for certification testing.

All turboprop engines have gearboxes, it's not really rocket science at that level to build one that's reliable. They're troublesome in piston engines because they have to build them cheaply. A PT6 gearbox costs as much as a whole IO-520, which makes it, in my opinion anyway, much easier to build something very solid.

From his telling of the tale, the fuselage testing required on the LearFan was a trial run for what the FAA did to Beech on the Starship. Lear died and the company eventually gave up before being able to certify a composite airframe. Beech nearly bankrupted themselves actually getting the job done.

At the end of the day, Cirrus, Boeing, and Airbus all owe a debt to Lear and Beech for the pioneering composite fuselage work. I doubt any of those would have had the dedication to get through the trials Lear and Beech had to go through.

Just imagine the Starship, if it had been able to be built with the same knowledge and certification standards for composites, that we have today.........a plane well ahead of its time. Fat, dumb, and hap......ok, maybe not happy or dumb......but it did end up fat! LOL.

The LearFan....wow....never knew that existed until today. A single would be cool as all get out.

What a genius and visionary Bill Lear was. My first year (2000) as a crew member at the Reno Races included this memorable evening….Moya Lear (his widow) invited the racers and crew to her home on the Truckee River for dinner and drinks. Walking thru the home and office where he did so much of his work, was like visiting your uncles place who just happened to be one of the greatest aeronautical designers of all time. It was such a warm, welcoming and delightful evening and so very, very kind of her to invite us all.

I remember waaay back in the day 60 Minutes did a segment on the Lear Fan. First test flight on Dec 32, to get into the funding window. Really not much was healthy about it afterwards.

Amazing thing about Bill Lear is he was about much more than airplanes. Might have been his biggest weakness too.

If I'm not mistaken, the Windecker Eagle homebuilt was the first composite aircraft ever finished and Rutan and later all the military/airline producers owe a lot to that. If it wasn't for small experimental/EAA producers like Windecker, we would not be where we are today. Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing etc, they all owe a huge debt to that grassroots GA movement - and I've been a proud EAA member since day one because of that.

I don't have the patience to build a kit plane necessarily, but I support the organization. More innovation has come out of EAA members than anything else in aviation.

I had an engineering supervisor at Cessna who had previously worked on the Learfan.

One problem with configurations like this is that there are failure modes that can take out both engines. ISTR the special conditions for the Learfan were rather extensive.

Not quite. While the Eagle was the first composite (fiberglass) airplane to be certified by the FAA, composite gliders had been flown in Germany as early as 1957.

Crew: Two (pilot and copilot)
Capacity: Six passengers
Length: 40 ft 7 in (12.37 m)
Wingspan: 39 ft 4 in (11.99 m)
Height: 12 ft 2 in (3.71 m)
Wing area: 162.9 sq ft (15.13 m2)
Aspect ratio: 9.5
Empty weight: 4,100 lb (1,860 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 7,350 lb (3,334 kg)
Powerplant: 2 × Pratt & Whitney (Canada) PT6B-35F turboprops, 650 shp (480 kW) each
Performance

Maximum speed: 450 mph (720 km/h, 390 kn) at 25,000 feet (7,600 m)
Cruise speed: 322 mph (518 km/h, 280 kn) at 40,000 feet (12,000 m) economy cruise
Stall speed: 88 mph (142 km/h, 76 kn) with flaps down and power off
Range: 1,783 mi (2,869 km, 1,549 nmi)
Service ceiling: 41,000 ft (12,000 m)
Rate of climb: 3,450 ft/min (17.5 m/s)

FL410 would be something with a turboprop. I just can't believe the empty weight figure.
Gross weight seems more likely as an empty weight with 4100 useful load?

I remember seeing the LearFan mockup at Reading Air Show.

I spent some time talking with John Lear (son of Bill). I told him I though it would be hard sell to corporations with a single prop. Yes, it was two engines, but I can see the bean counter asking what happens is the prop falls off.

But today is a different world. It might just be the answer.