The College of Aeronautics performs an annual group project as a major part of its Aircraft Design MSc programme. Projects are chosen to be representative of current areas of interest and the programme carried out in a manner which is as close as possible to that of aircraft manufacturers.

The chosen projects alternate annually between civil and military types to give breadth to the course. It was decided that an executive jet would be a suitable subject for examination and a market study was performed. The small capacity end of the market was served by such aircraft as Learjets and medium capacity by BAe 125s and Citations. The top end of the market was of more interest because suitable aircraft could also perform other roles. The main reason for this was that market pressure for unrestricted headroom pointed towards larger diameter fuselages which could also be used for commuter aircraft.