SyberJet Aircraft claimed on 21 August 2026 that one of its SJ30-2 business jets has set a new light jet transcontinental east-west speed record across the United States. The aircraft covered the distance between Jacksonville, Florida, and San Diego, California, in approximately 4 hours and 7 minutes, at an average speed of 505.3mph (813.2km/h).
The flight was commanded by pilot Gordon "Gordy" Bryan. SyberJet says the claim applies to the C-1.f class under the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) classification, which covers powered landplanes with a take-off weight of between 6,000kg and 9,000kg. The manufacturer said in its announcement that it expects the record to be certified by the National Aeronautic Association and the FAI within roughly 90 days.
Beating a 13-year-old benchmark
The previous mark in the same category was set in 2013 by an Embraer Phenom 300, which flew from Melbourne, Florida, to Long Beach, California, with an intermediate stop in El Paso, Texas. That attempt produced a total transcontinental time of 6 hours and 38 minutes, although the figure includes the refuelling stop on the ground.
That distinction matters. A significant part of the SJ30-2's advantage is that it did not have to stop. The type's headline selling point has always been the combination of a high cruise speed with the kind of range that lets a very light jet cross the continental United States without a fuel stop, and a non-stop coast-to-coast run removes the ground time that penalised the earlier attempt.
A programme with a long and difficult history
The record attempt puts a spotlight back on one of business aviation's most persistent survivors. The SJ30 was conceived in the 1980s by designer Ed Swearingen. The aircraft first flew in 1991 and was displayed at the Paris Air Show that same year, but development stalled for lack of funding.
The programme was subsequently rescued by Taiwanese investors, who relaunched it around the SJ30-2, a stretched version of the original design. The SJ30-2 was certificated in 2005, but only a very limited number of aircraft had been built and delivered to customers by the time the manufacturer went bankrupt in 2010.
The company has since changed hands several times and was rebranded as SyberJet Aircraft in 2011. Successive owners have all tried to restart production, and several variations on the original airframe have been proposed over the years without the type reaching volume manufacture.
New ownership, familiar ambitions
Also on board the record-breaking flight was Trevor Milton, chief executive of the Arizona-based manufacturer. Milton has been a controversial figure in US business circles since he was convicted in 2022 on fraud charges connected to his time leading the now-bankrupt electric truck start-up Nikola. He was pardoned in 2025 by President Trump, and took over SyberJet Aircraft later the same year.
For a manufacturer that has spent most of three decades trying to convert a promising airframe into a sustained production programme, a certified speed record is a relatively cheap and highly visible way to make the case for the design. Whether it translates into orders is a separate question, and one the light jet market has answered harshly before.
The claim now sits with the National Aeronautic Association and the FAI. Until those bodies complete their review, the 505.3mph average remains an unratified claim rather than an official record.
Sources: AeroTime. Featured image: AI-generated by AviationShop. By Marco Bianchi.
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