Diploma in hand, Brian Foley left Syracuse University in 1980 and headed west to Renton, Washington, for his dream job as a flight test engineer for the first Boeing 757 commercial airliner.

We’d have to simulate failures,” recalled Foley, who earned his pilot’s license at 17. “We’d skid the tail along the ground during takeoff. Basically, you got to do everything you shouldn’t do. There were some white-knuckle moments for sure. I mean, wow!”

Foley, who spent a quarter-century at Boeing and Dassault Falcon Jet before becoming a New York-based aviation analyst, may have held one of the industry’s more glamorous posts, but flight tests are just one phase of the multibillion-dollar, decade-long process of taking an aircraft from concept to commercial flight.

“Going from sketchpad to commercial launch is a very expensive proposition, and it takes a whole lot of time,” Foley said. It also requires millions of components joined with sub-millimeter precision and Federal Aviation Administration oversight that could last years.

Certainly, the manufacturing, design, construction and certification of aircraft have matured since the Wright brothers attached a 12-horsepower engine to a frame made of wood, wire and muslin in 1903. The historic 12-second flight covered 120 feet — less than the wingspan of the aircraft destined to revolutionize global travel nearly 70 years later: the Boeing 747.

In 1966 Pan Am placed a historic $525 million order for 25 Boeing jumbo jets that would make air travel accessible to the masses. Joe Sutter, Boeing’s legendary chief engineer, known as the “Father of the 747,” presided over a team of 4,500 engineers, mechanics and administrators to deliver the world’s first widebody jumbo jet in record time. Collectively known as “The Incredibles,” the team took the 747 from concept to launch in less than five years — “and in a day of slide rules, no less,” Foley said.

Pan Am’s first Boeing 747 commercial flight took off on Jan. 22, 1970, traveling from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow Airport. It sported a distinctive hump on the upper deck to house the cockpit and additional passenger space, remaining in operation for 54 years.

Dubbed the “Queen of the Skies,” Boeing’s ambitious jumbo jet democratized global long-haul travel, fundamentally changing aircraft cabin design and revolutionizing how people and goods moved about the world. Just two years later, Boeing’s archrival Airbus countered with the A300, the world’s first twin-engine widebody airliner. Together, the pair of dueling jumbo jets heralded the Golden Age of air travel.

Such truncated timelines would be unheard of today. Nowadays, developing new aircraft takes more time, money and resources than ever before due to stricter federal regulations, unwieldy global supply chains and layers of internal red tape, according to Foley. Technology expedites certain processes but prolongs others, entailing “millions of lines of software code to optimize aircraft design that then need to be integrated into modern aircraft systems.”

“Creating an entirely new jetliner involves a massive multiphase engineering and regulatory timeline,” Foley said. The first two years are spent in the conceptual and preliminary design phase, defining mission capability, size, aerodynamics and engine choices. The next two to three years are devoted to developing a detailed design using computer-aided design to test virtual simulations before building physical prototypes. The resulting blueprint serves as the foundation for the manufacturing process.

Manufacturers may create as many as half a dozen prototypes to undergo different tests over thousands of hours in conjunction with the FAA. “On the ground you bend the wings literally until they break, just to double-check that it can handle the maximum loads,” Foley said. “Then you might simulate pressurization and landings that the airplane would see over years of continuous use.”

PHOTO: © BOMBARDIER

Commercial airliners carry hundreds of passengers, but even private jets that seat fewer than 20 require multidisciplinary design, supply chain coordination, certification and support, taking years to complete from concept to launch, said Scott Evans, director of flight operations, Gulfstream Aerospace.

“From beginning to end, we study human factors to figure out what the human–machine interface needs,” Evans said. “We have industrial designers who make our thoughts reality on screen down to the pixel. We have engineers designing for structural loads and increasing the differential pressure so that we can bring the cabin altitude down.”

The level of detail that goes into developing an ultra-long-range jet — such as Gulfstream’s recently launched flagship G700 and G800 or Bombardier’s Global 8000, for example — with an $80 million price tag is extreme. Engineers and designers must grapple with thousands of minute considerations, from making sure drawers close seamlessly to ensuring switches flip smoothly.

“It’s the smallest details that matter,” Evans said. “Each one plays into a collective experience, so it’ll be drawers. It’ll be lights. It’ll be shades. It’ll be seats, bulkheads, veneers, flooring. We’ll go fly 1,000-plus hours to test any aspect that you’re going to feel, touch or experience.”

In the world of private aviation, merely building and certifying a new model may seem like only half the battle. Gulfstream, Embraer and Bombardier have in-house design teams that can work with clients concurrent to their new build, but sometimes creating a bespoke cabin for a discerning client can extend the timeline by months or years.

PHOTO: © SAMI JO STUDIOS

“Planning, designing, ordering equipment — I try to be white-glove, advising the client in every aspect,” said Los Angeles-based private-jet designer Sarah Mespelt Larrañaga. She has delivered more than 100 aircraft from Gulfstream, Dassault, Bombardier, Boeing and Airbus to billionaire clients and corporate customers. “The whole process from A to Z could be around a year.”

One of Larrañaga’s highest-profile projects, Paris Hilton’s Gulfstream 450, entailed a full-scale interior refurbishment, from retrofitting its avionics equipment for a state-of-the-art entertainment system to incorporating sparkly pink carpeting, lighting and wallpaper throughout the cabin. For the exterior, Larrañaga worked with Pittsburgh-based paint manufacturer PPG to design a bespoke shade the company has since added to its catalogue as “Paris Pink.”

But one of the most vexing elements in any jet refurbishment hides beneath the cockpit floor, according to Larrañaga. Whether designing a Bombardier Challenger 300, Gulfstream G650 or, for her latest project, a Boeing 767, she finds more clients requesting Starlink for high-speed Internet and video meetings at 40,000 feet, a feat that may call for a new cabin management system, the centralized digital platform controlling the plane’s electronic functions.

Indeed, it’s a race to the top for private jet purveyors. Brazilian aerospace firm Embraer, which makes the world’s best-selling bizjet, the nine-passenger Phenom 300, launched its Praetor 600E earlier this year. The advanced, super- midsize business jet features a 42-inch 4K OLED “Smart Window” with a curved touchscreen display that controls video conferencing, entertainment streaming and real-time sky views.

Manufacturers also collaborate with fashion houses on one-off designs to stand out in a competitive luxury market. In June, Canadian business jet manufacturer Bombardier unveiled a collaboration with Elie Saab, a fashion designer best known for dressing Halle Berry, Céline Dion, Angelina Jolie and Beyoncé. The “haute couture” Global 8000 marked Saab’s first foray into aircraft design, complete with walk-in wardrobe, a five-seat divan sofa and an aviation-certified marble shower.