When Less is More …

Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation—the Savannah, Georgia-based manufacturer of the iconic business aircraft to which the world’s powerful so fervently aspire—has announced that its all new, ultra-long-range Gulfstream G800 has made its first international flight.

The sleek airplane—which is slightly smaller but longer-legged than its G700 predecessor—departed Savannah and cruised without incident to Farnborough, England in support of Gulfstream’s participation in the upcoming Farnborough International Airshow.

The G800 is Gulfstream’s newest ultra-long-range, large-cabin business jet. The aircraft ticks all the boxes for which the storied airframer is renown: power, speed, comfort, luxury, robustness, dispatch-reliability, and range—particularly, range.

The G650ER and G700 have endurance enough to make impressive, 7,500-nautical-mile leaps across the Earth’s continents and oceans; the G800, however, bests its siblings with a staggering NBAA IFR range of 8,000-nautical-miles. The five-hundred-nautical mile advantage permits G800 operators to fly nonstop from LAX to Adelaide while their G700-operating competitors stop in Brisbane for a tank of gas, a nip of Foster’s, and a lengthy customs delay

Notwithstanding the model’s emphasis on range, the G800 skimps on neither comfort nor luxury. Despite being ten-feet shorter than the G700, the new airplane offers passengers four living-spaces, each resplendent in natural light come streaming through Gulfstream’s signature, panoramic windows—16 of them. G800 passengers will also enjoy ion-filtered, one-hundred-percent fresh air and an exceptionally low, three-thousand-foot cabin-altitude as aircraft scoots along at FL410 (41,000-feet).

The pair of Rolls Royce Pearl-700 engines by which the G800 is motivated to a maximum cruise-speed of 516-ktas are impressive in their own right, each producing eight-percent more takeoff thrust (18,250-pound/feet) than the BR725 engines powering Gulfstream’s G650 aircraft family. The new engines also realize a 12% better thrust to weight ratio than their BR725 predecessors.

Pilots lucky enough to get their hands on the G800 will appreciate Gulfstream’s Honeywell Epic-based Symmetry flight deck, active side-stick controls, and heads-up-displays (HUDs) with synthetic vision. The cockpit features ten touch-screen displays—the most in business aviation—which work in conjunction with Gulfstream’s proprietary Phase of Flight artificial intelligence and predictive landing performance systems to streamline flight operations and ease pilot workload.  

Gulfstream president Mark Burns said of the G800’s first international flight: “To take the G800 on this transatlantic trip so close to first flight is extraordinary. Thanks to our strategic planning and the investments Gulfstream has made in our aircraft, we are able to fly the G800 with remarkable efficiency and bring the aircraft directly to customers early in the flight test program, as we have in Farnborough.”

Gulfstream brought the first purpose-built business-aircraft to market in the form of 1958’s Gulfstream I. In the years since, the company—by continuously bettering the designs and capabilities of its aircraft—has redefined the mission and validated the import of business aviation. Today, more than three-thousand Gulfstream aircraft are in service around the world.

FMI: www.gulfstream.com