Hawker 400XP

Where it came from

The aircraft began as a Japanese project. Mitsubishi flew the MU-300 Diamond on 29 August 1978 and had it certified on 6 November 1981, then sold the programme to Beech Aircraft in 1985 rather than fight for the American market from Nagoya. Beech certified it as the Beechjet 400 in May 1986, and in 1990 the 400A brought a glass cockpit, more range and the cabin still flying today. Raytheon bought the Hawker line in 1993 and eventually put that name on the Beechjet: the Hawker 400XP badge covers the final production run from 2003, adding a weight increase, thrust reversers, TCAS II and a nine-seat option.

The type's real volume came from a customer who never chartered it. The US Air Force took 180 T-1A Jayhawks between 1992 and 1997 to train tanker and transport crews, and Japan bought thirteen more. Across every badge more than 900 airframes were built — 92 as Mitsubishis, the rest by Beech and Raytheon.

Nothing replaced it. Production ended, Hawker Beechcraft filed for Chapter 11 in 2012, and the survivors moved onto charter fleets, where the 400XP became the cheap route to a wide light-jet cabin. Its Rockwell Collins Pro Line 4 flight deck is 1990s equipment: well supported, thoroughly proven, not modern.

Who charters a Hawker 400XP

Most 400XP trips are four to six people on a European leg of two hours or less, and the type is chosen on price. It is usually quoted against a Citation CJ2, and the two split cleanly. The Hawker is wider at 1.49 m against the CJ2's 1.47, which sounds trivial and is not — at these dimensions every centimetre is shoulder room — longer in the cabin, and about 15 km/h quicker in the cruise. The CJ2 flies further, burns less, and gets into airports the Hawker cannot.

Against a Phenom 300 the argument is simply money. The Phenom is better on range, payload, field performance and pressurisation, and its hourly rate says so. If the trip is short, the group is five, and both airports have a normal runway, the 400XP does the same job for less.

Runway and range — the honest limits

Start with the runway, because it is the type's defining weakness. The 400XP needs about 1,430 m to take off at maximum weight, and published balanced-field figures sit near 1,400 m — the longest requirement of anything in this class. Cannes-Mandelieu has 1,610 m of runway. London City has less, plus a 5.5° approach. Published landing figures for the type range from the 919 m in our table to about 1,530 m in the broker spec libraries, and that spread is exactly the problem. So we do not tell clients the 400XP will get into Cannes or London City. We ask the operator — that tail, that weight, that day — and pass the answer on unedited. Sion at 2,000 m is not in question; Samedan is out.

Range is the second limit. The published 2,400 km is a four-passenger figure. With seven aboard the aircraft has only a few hundred kilograms of payload left at full fuel, so a genuinely full cabin is a five-to-six-passenger aircraft once luggage is real, and the sector shortens with it. London to Athens or Marrakech needs a fuel stop with the cabin full.

What the cabin is really like

The cabin is 4.75 m long, 1.49 m wide and 1.45 m high, and the length figure includes the aft baggage area rather than the seating section alone — do not read it as half a metre more legroom than a CJ2. What you do get is the widest floor and the widest shoulder line in the light class, in a round cross-section that has aged better than the avionics behind it. Nobody stands up: 1.45 m means you move about stooped.

The usual charter layout is a four-seat club facing across a table, a pair or divan behind it, and the belted lavatory seat making seven. The lavatory is enclosed at the rear and not externally serviced. Baggage is about 1.50 m³, split between an external locker and an aft area inside the cabin — and that inner part you can reach in flight, which a CJ2 passenger cannot. Catering is loaded cold into a forward refreshment centre; there is no galley in any real sense.

The corridors it actually flies

Realistic block times with the cabin sold and no fuel stop: London–Nice about 1h 35m, London–Geneva about 1h 20m, Zurich–Nice about 1 hour, Geneva–Nice about 45 minutes, London–Ibiza about 2h 25m. The practical ceiling is around three hours, which covers the Alps, the Riviera and the Balearics comfortably and stops well short of Cyprus, Morocco or the Gulf.

The airports on those corridors are the ones that suit it. Nice, Geneva, Zurich, Ibiza and the London fields all have runway to spare, and the 400XP's speed advantage is real over a two-hour leg. Where the type stops working is the short-field end of the same map — the Côte d'Azur trip that wants Cannes rather than Nice, or a February week that wants Samedan rather than Zurich. If the itinerary contains one of those, we quote a different aircraft rather than argue about margins.

What moves the price

Charter starts from around €3,100 per flight hour. That sits close to a Citation CJ2's indicative rate rather than well below it, which surprises people who expect an out-of-production airframe to be the cheap option: the JT15D turbofans are an older generation and burn more per hour, and fuel is on your quote either way.

Positioning is usually the largest single line. Aircraft are not parked where you want them, so if the nearest 400XP is in Vienna and you leave from Luton, that empty leg is priced in — which is why a same-day return frequently costs less than two one-ways. Crew duty is next: an early departure with a late return can exceed what one crew may legally fly, and a second crew or a night stop changes the number. Then the calendar — Cannes in May, the Alps at half-term, August on the Riviera — and airport fees, which vary more than people expect.