When is a corporate jet not a corporate jet? When perhaps the design has started life as a corporate jet before being developed to produce a regional-jetliner before then being converted for use as, er, a corporate jet. Such a design is the Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ), which was engineered from the 1970s' Challenger corporate-jet: 30 years on, it is becoming the "platform" of choice for further development as a business-jet with a much-longer cabin and the option of longer legs to provide 3,000 nautical-mile range (according to load).

The CRJ recently has been chosen as the basis for several conversions that aim to find a market among high-net-worth individuals or companies seeking a $20 million alternative to dedicated craft such as large Gulfstreams or Bombardier's own Global range. A number of these CRJ-based projects have been represented at this week's European Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva, Switzerland. Also being marketed were corporate-aircraft conversions of other small or short-haul, regional-jets such as the Dornier 328 Jet offered by 328 Support Services and the Fokker Models 28, 70, and 100 being promoted by Fokker Services.

At a time when high fuel prices and reduced demand have seen many CRJs put out to grass (if only because operators have moved to higher-capacity 70- or 90-passenger RJs), the Bombardier product's well-proved, airliner-standard airframe, engines, and multiple-redundancy systems have attracted several competing but essentially similar conversions. Stimulating development has been the increased value-for-money available in second-hand airframes, and growing lead-time required for corporate-jet orders, along with their increasingly high prices.

Ironically, Bombardier itself had seen the potential application as a company aircraft in the mid-1990s but later noted that the high demand for regional jets, airframes could not be spared for alternative completion as corporate-jets.

Originally conceived as the 14-passenger LearStar 600 by entrepreneur Bill Lear, famously the inventor of an autopilot and the eight-track tape deck, as well as designer of the eponymous Learjet, the design was obtained by Canadair in 1976. By lengthening the fuselage, the Montreal company turned the chunky design – previously dubbed "Fat Albert" – into the Challenger corporate-jet that first flew in 1978. Ten years later, Bombardier marked its purchase of Canadair by unveiling the 50-seat CRJ that later was stretched to 70 seats (and with re-design to 90 seats).

The CRJ found an immediate market and established the genre, notwithstanding one or two earlier exercises by other manufacturers. The new aircraft brought sex appeal to a sector otherwise serviced by turboprops. Its popularity overcame the turbofan engines' implicit higher operating costs that only came under scrutiny with the increased costs of fuel in this decade that, in turn, has led to a renaissance for the turboprop.

Expected handover this month of the first 15-seat Project Phoenix CRJ will introduce the most recent of several variations on the theme, most of which offer additional auxiliary tanks to increase fuel capacity and therefore aircraft range, usually to around 3,000 nautical miles. Leading the pack has been the ExecLiner program run by Ontario-based Flying Colours, with others being offered by Chatham Aviation, Field Aviation, MJET, and Tailwind Aviation.

Indeed, Flying Colours provides several of these conversions and is approved to fit long-range tanks and corporate-aircraft cabin interiors. The ExecLiner arose from a one-off exercise using an early CRJ Series 100 converted for corporate use in India.

Flying Colours had completed five such CRJ projects by this month and counted the initial Project Phoenix machine among six more that are in progress. Beyond these aircraft, the company expects to complete three more in 2010: two are earmarked as CRJ200 Grand Luxury Series for Maine Aviation (without auxiliary fuel provision) and the other for a second Phoenix customer. Two early aircraft were for yet another program, the Renaissance Series CRJ promoted by Jet Corp (that subsequently has been acquired by Flying Colours. Around 50% of Flying Colours conversions add a forward toilet to the CRJ cabin.

With Flying Colours providing a third-party engineering role, Project Phoenix acts as middleman finding aircraft for customers and placing maintenance and completion work with contractors. The first aircraft has slipped somewhat from perhaps optimistic aspirations, officials having said last November that the initial machine (U.S.-registered for an Asian customer) would be delivered in January. Project Phoenix is understood to have access until the end of this month to a stored CRJ that could become its second aircraft, for which an Egyptian customer has been announced.

Last year's EBACE event saw Tailwind Capital and Global Principal Finance unveil another CRJ200 conversion: the Hemisphere 200XR, developed with completion house PATS Aircraft, is being marketed by Action Aviation, which until recently had been a regional agent for the competing Phoenix program. About two months ago, MJet handed over the first of three CRJ conversions for Avmax Group: two 18-passenger corporate shuttles and 15-seat long-range variant. Finally, Comlux Completions USA has reconfigured a CRJ200 for corporate operations in China.

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