The New Gulfstream G650

by philg

If you have $60 million(?) to spend on a new personal airplane, the Gulfstream G650, described in this Aero-News.net article, might be a good choice. The machine demonstrates that innovation can be pushed through the FAA certification process as long as you give yourself a few years and a few $billion. The G650 shows the pilot synthetic terrain, almost as realistic as if you’d hooked up a $30 GPS to a $39 copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator. More interestingly, it has a forward looking infrared camera to show a real-world image through fog or rain.

For folks who like to spend a lot of time on their new airplane, the cabin pressurization system is great, able to keep the cabin at 2,800′ while the plane is flying at 41,000′. To soar above the rabble, the G650 can get to FL510 (51,000′) and the pressure inside the cabin falls to about 5,000′ above sea level. The plane is even faster than the Cessna Citation X, the previous champ at 0.92 Mach, with a cruising speed of 0.9 Mach and a maximum speed of 0.925 Mach.

The world’s fastest flying airplane comes with the world’s slowest loading Web site: http://www.gulfstream.com/gulfstreamg650/

[If you think that by chartering one of these puppies for $10,000 per hour, you’ll escape the pain and suffering of Transportation Security Agency screening, you might just be right. The takeoff weight is 99,600 lb., just squeaking in under the 100,000 lb. threshold where TSA screening for charters is required. My understanding that if you own the plane outright and are just flying around in it, no screening would ever be required.]

10 thoughts on “The New Gulfstream G650”

  1. “The world’s fastest flying airplane comes with the world’s slowest loading Web site”

    Sweet. That’s a haiku of truth.

    You were too gracious to mention the super cheesy music, I hear a Casio keyboard playing a vibe with hints of Miami Vice, or is it Axel F?

  2. The new 650 is very impressive, but it better be at that price. It’s only 3.4 kts faster than the Citation X. As you may recall, we saw a X with new blended winglets being tested on s/n 0 when we were in ICT in December. I bet that the sole purpose of the new winglets is to retain bragging rights as the fastest non-military plane, even for a design 12 years older than the 650.

    And bragging rights are important when both companies spend thousands of dollars of jet A just to turn their planes into big Etch-a-sketches.

    GulfStream: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/GLF17/history/20070206/1538Z/KATW/KATW

    Cessna response in a X: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N750CX/history/20080307/1757Z/KICT/KICT

  3. Phil:

    Thanks for your comments. My team and I created the G650 microsite, and had a lot of fun doing it.

    Sorry it took so long for you to load the website – it does contain a lot of rich media, better suited for high-bandwidth web connections.
    Jonathan King

  4. Jonathan: I viewed the G650 page on a quad-core Pentium with 3 GB of RAM, connected via the “$10/month extra for higher speed” Comcast cable modem, which Comcast says will do “up to 16 Mbps”, but I personally haven’t seen more than about 10 Mbps sustained from any one server. Perhaps the page will load subjectively fast when the average household has multiple Verizon FiOS 30 Mbps connections?

    “Rich media”? Mostly what I noticed was the poverty of information on the site. There is more information on just the top page of http://news.google.com/, which loads instantly, than in the entire G650 “microsite”. As for the music, I am often using my desktop computer to listen to Rhapsody or a radio station, so I find it annoying when a Web page has a soundtrack.

    My philosophy of Web design may admittedly be atavistic. When students ask how to design a page or interface, I say “Compare what you’ve built to Google, Yahoo, and Amazon. Any differences are mistakes.”

    [I might add that our helicopters share a hangar with a Gulfstream G-IV, for which there is an adjacent management office. The Gulfstream team, which includes pilots, a mechanic, and a flight attendant, shares a 384 Kbps Covad DSL line.]

  6. VNE is what Mach .925? but those RR BR725 fans are incredible! 16,000lbs T/O thrust? That’s just shy of an F-4 Phantom’s J-79s in reheat. With available thrust, the thing could theoretically be supersonic, although obviously the airframe is not built for that.

  7. I thought you might be exaggerating on the speed of that web site. So I just timed it. Wow!

    55 seconds to load the opening page. 20 seconds to load the first link that I clicked on. On my sonic.net “high speed” DSL. This has to be the slowest web site I have ever visited. As one would expect for the world’s fastest business jet.

    But, perhaps you are right. Perhaps my connection to the internet is not fast enough. I’ll give it a go again tomorrow at work (I work at Google). Perhaps, just possibly, their network connection is fast enough to do this site justice.

  8. Okay, timed it at work: 54 seconds to load the opening page, 20 seconds to load the first link. I should complain that my connection here is just as slow as my home DSL service. 🙂

  9. The Webpage loaded for me via Verizon FiOS in just under 7 secs. Comcast cable is much slower. Lots of good stuff there, ( it’s an Advertisement – not a manual ). The brochure was very nice, ( please make it easier to download to Adobe ).

    “Man, that water is cold..”

    “Sure is…deep, too..”

    I love the location of the nav/landing lights in the wing/cargo blister. Perfect for a pair of ‘security’ swap out 20 mm ‘personal space’ defense appliances. The opportunity for mods on this swanky mode is astounding. BR725’s?!

    The G650 is the snot.

  10. Gulfstream hit the G650 out of the park with the bases loaded.
    The Fly-by-Wire Flight Control, Landing Gear, Pressurization, Electrical, and PlaneView Avionics System are outstanding. The BR 725 is designed from scratch to go, and go fast.
    Gulfstream listened very carefully to their customers, and designed the entire G650 with everything their customers wanted, and more. Even the Cabin Items are designed with back-up capabilities. It is truly a Pilot’s and Maintainer’s Dream. However, it is an owner’s dream come true.
    What an outstanding engineering marval.

    Tom Owens
    G550 Pilot Examiner
    FlightSafety International

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