Gulfstream unveils near-supersonic G650 business jet

14 March 2008

Savannah-based Gulfstream Aerospace, a unit of General Dynamics Corp, has unveiled the G650, a slightly larger version of the best selling G550 business jet, which is expected to enter service in the first half of 2012. The G650 will also become the world's fastest civil jet when it enters service.

The new G650 jet will have a top speed of 0.925 Mach and fly as high as 51,000 feet, Gulfstream president, Joseph Lombardo, informed the media. At roughly 694 miles an hour, a near-supersonic speed, the plane will be capable of flying New York-Los Angeles in less than four hours or New York-London in less than six.

At a speed of Mach 0.925, the G650 will displace by 3.31 knots, Textron Inc's Mach 0.92 Cessna Citation X from its title of world's fastest civil aircraft. At a cost of about $59 million it will also offer more than twice the range, 7,000 nautical miles, than that offered by the Citation X.

Gulfstream, the market leader in the large-cabin, long-range jet segment, is looking to the G650 to increase market share in Europe, Russia, Asia and Latin America even as a weak dollar boosts prospects.

Compared with the G550, the G650 will have a longer, three-inches-taller and 14-inches-wider cabin, which will offer 28 per cent more volume and a lower cabin altitude (4,850 feet at the FL510 ceiling), a larger baggage compartment, a larger main entry door and 16-per cent-larger cabin windows. I

The cockpit will feature PlaneView II avionics and fly-by-wire flight controls. Newly developed Rolls-Royce BR725 engines will propel the 99,600-pound maximum takeoff weight (mtow) jet, which will have a balanced field length of less than 6,000 feet at mtow and a 3,000-foot landing distance at mlw.