Celera 500L, a revolutionary private aircraft?

The Celera 500L is an experimental high performance business aircraft with the aim to drastically reduce costs of private jet operations.

Development

Development of this experimental aircraft began already before 2017. It has been publicly announced in August 2020, and already 31 test flights have been performed.

Design

The Celera 500L is a monoplane with a five blade propeller. This medium business jet has the shape of an egg in order that air flow resistance drops to a minimum.

Due to laminar flow which can be described as the smooth, uninterrupted flow of air over the wings and other parts of the aircraft while in flight the aircraft will consume less fuel than its competitors. Turbulence is created when the smooth flow of air is interrupted over the aircraft’s wing, creating a loss of lift while adding drag.

Celera 500L in number

The jet will have space for 6 people, with an hourly operating cost of $238, compared to the $2,100 of modern aircraft.

While cruising speed (390knots) and range (4500miles) are similar to current modern medium business class jets, the required fuel will drop significantly.

Bottom Line

These are hard times to introduce new aircraft types. However, this project looks very promising, and if the numbers Otto Aviation presented will come to reality, it could be very likely that we will see a lot of the Celera 500L in the sky in the future.