NBAA-BACE, the business aviation world's biggest annual gathering, wrapped October 20–22 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, with roughly 740 exhibitors packing the indoor hall and an outdoor static display at Henderson Executive Airport. Between new jets, new engines, and a regulatory milestone for electric air taxis, this was one of the more newsworthy editions in years. Here's what you missed if you fly, own, or just love business aircraft.
Gulfstream Is Ramping Up Production
Gulfstream used the show to signal just how strong demand has gotten. The company is eyeing a production rate of roughly 200 business jets a year, backed by a backlog that had reached $25 billion by midyear. That kind of order book is a good proxy for the health of the whole segment. Corporate flight departments and charter operators are buying.
Cessna Rolls Out the CJ4 Gen3
Textron Aviation showed off the first production example of the updated Citation CJ4 Gen3, a light jet that's long been a workhorse for owner-flown operators and small flight departments. The company says the refreshed model could enter service as soon as next year. The segment lives and dies on reliability and resale value, so a generational update to one of the best-selling light jets in the sky is going to reverberate through the market for quite some time.
SyberJet's Big Swing
The splashiest unveiling of the show came from SyberJet, which opened its order book with a full-scale mockup of the all-new SJ36. It’s a stretched, nine-seat, single-pilot light jet derived from the Sino Swearingen SJ30, rated for more than 3,000 nautical miles at up to Mach 0.88, with deliveries projected for 2032. Alongside it, the seven-seat SJ34 (successor to the FAA-certified SJ30-2) gets new engines and an interior shared with the SJ36, targeting 2029 deliveries.
The bigger story might be avionics. SyberJet is moving away from traditional suppliers to build its own system around six fully redundant 4K touchscreens and an AI assistant called Syber Pilot, which handles ATC clearances and taxi instructions in its first iteration. The company booked letters of intent for more than 50 SJ36s at the show and launched a 250-member "Passage One" program bundling launch pricing with maintenance, engine, fuel, and training coverage.
New Power Under the Cowling
Pratt & Whitney Canada unveiled the PT9, a clean-sheet engine in the 2,000-shp class that arrives at the show already holding type certification. That’s an unusual head start for an engine this new.
Across the Atlantic, Honda Aircraft got a regulatory win of its own. EASA validated the company's APMG S upgrade program, clearing European service centers to install the performance package on HondaJets registered there, matching an approval HondaJet owners in the U.S. already have.
The eVTOL Milestone Everyone Was Watching For
The most significant announcement at NBAA-BACE 2026 came from Washington. On October 21, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced that the FAA granted BETA Technologies a special airworthiness certificate allowing its Alia 250 eVTOL aircraft to carry passengers for market research flights, the first approval of its kind for an eVTOL manufacturer.
It's the latest step in a push that includes the DOT's first Advanced Air Mobility National Strategy, released last December, and the FAA's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program. Duffy also renewed the push for air traffic control modernization, noting Congress has approved $12.5 billion toward upgrades at more than 4,600 FAA sites, with another $30 billion requested. For an industry that's spent years watching electric air taxis stay firmly in the "someday" category, this is the clearest sign yet that someday is getting closer.
Dress the Part
Whether you were on the show floor in Las Vegas or just following along from the hangar, now's a good time to gear up. Our Pilot Humor collection has the Trust Me, I'm a Pilot Hat and the Jet Lag Is A Choice Hoodie for the next trip, and if you fly a tail number worth bragging about, a Custom Luggage Tag Set or an Engraved Beer Mug makes it personal. Want the full writeup on everything above? Back issues of Plane & Pilot are in stock. Browse the complete Apparel collection for more.
Written By- Matt Herr