Hawker 800

The Hawker 800 is a mid-size twinjet corporate aircraft, the 800 series development of the British Aerospace 125 business jet. The British Aerospace board sanctioned the improvement programme in April 1981 and the new aircraft was ready for its first test flight by May 1983. Compared with the 700 series it has a redesigned cockpit windscreen, a modified rear fuselage fairing, a glass cockpit, more powerful Garrett TFE731-5R-1H engines and wingtip devices to reduce drag. Raytheon, which had bought Beech Aircraft Corporation in 1980, acquired BAe Corporate Jets in 1994 and sold its aircraft manufacturing business to Hawker Beechcraft in 2007, so the type was assembled in Wichita, Kansas, from fuselage sections, wings and control surfaces built in the United Kingdom. The 800XP, 850XP, 900XP and 750 followed, and Japan uses a search and rescue version as the U-125A. After the 2013 bankruptcy of Hawker Beechcraft, the surviving company, Beechcraft, discontinued its business jets, including the 800 series.