Does it take the wind out of your sails when the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) announces a product upgrade on its production line right as you reveal your retrofit program? Not if you're Nextant Aerospace.

Hawker's 450, a re-engined Model 400 or what some of us would still call a Beechjet, seeks to address the same performance issues as the Nextant 400NXT.

Nextant COO Ed MacDonald boldly asserts "this adds credibility to our program," because if range is your yardstick the 400NXT still has longer legs than Hawker's forthcoming 450.

Nextant has finished baseline testing on the original Hawker 400, which will be its prototype. By next January, the company will have been shipped a pair of Williams FJ44-3AP turbofans and the components of a Collins Pro Line 21 avionics suite. After Williams has certified the -3AP engine on another testbed in March, the upgraded 400NXT should fly in June 2009 and receive its certification four months later.

Anticipating lively business, Nextant has reserved 100 N-numbers for a 450NXT "production line," which will turn out aircraft at $4.9 million each. If you are emotionally attached to your own machine, conversion costs $2.4 million and takes 13-15 weeks.

Optional winglets cost extra, as does a fourth screen for the Pro Line.

Some very clever re-profiling and re-angling of the engine nacelles, allied to the inherent increased efficiency of the new powerplant, increases Beechjet range 55% to 2,005 nm (NBAA, IFR, 4 passengers), compared with the original 1,294 nm (1,475 is offered by the Hawker 450), and at a 30-35% fuel saving. All the other important numbers are upped, too.