Don’t really have one. Just wanted to get in on the fun.
Dude, don’t joke around. : ) I was going to buy it off you…I’ve got 870 hours in the G III (the USAF C-20) from Ramstein Air Base but that GV has more than twice the range of the GIII!
Hello big kahuna and All,
Yes - The G V is so passé … so yesterday … 
Get a G 650:
http://www.gulfstream.com/products/g650/
The Gulfstream G650® ultra-large-cabin, ultra-high speed business jet is, quite simply, the gold standard in business aviation. The flagship of the Gulfstream fleet flies faster and farther than any traditional business aircraft and envelops its privileged passengers in a level of comfort far greater than any other aircraft in its class.
Introduced in 2008, the G650 will carry eight passengers and a crew of four on nonstop legs of 7,000 nautical miles (12,964 km). That means it will link Dubai with New York and London with Buenos Aires. With its powerful Rolls-Royce BR725 engines, the G650 will cover shorter distances at a speed of Mach 0.925. No traditional business jet will take you closer to the speed of sound.
Exceptional power and ultra-long legs aside, the G650 will be remarkably versatile. It will deliver excellent takeoff and landing performance with a balanced field length of just 6,000 feet (1,829 m).
The G650 is the most technologically advanced business aircraft in the sky. The G650 comes standard with many advanced safety features such as Enhanced Vision System (EVS) II™, the Head-Up Display (HUD) II and the Synthetic Vision-Primary Flight Display (SV-PFD). Its Planeview II™ cockpit comes equipped with a Triplex Flight Management System, Automatic Emergency Descent Mode, 3-D weather radar, Advanced Flight Controls – in short, a full array of sophisticated, next-generation technology to improve pilot situational awareness and enhance safety.
At a base price of $58 million, it will cost about $10 million more than its predecessor, Gulfstream’s G550. With a flying range of more than 8,000 miles, it will be capable of whisking heads of state, CEOs and other VIPs from New York to Tokyo or Buenos Aires non-stop.
Cheers,
Neal
Mach .925!! That will get you there. About 10+ miles per minute.
Nice plane, but from my experience the seats are to high.
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Or, the roof is too low? The cockpit is tiny and the military version had a Comm System Operator behind the Captain, which decreased the available crew bag space. Also, no belly space for cargo. If your client buys a 9’x16’ Baluchistan rug, you have to roll it up and use as a head rest for 5 or 6 seats!
Tell me about Mach .8. What does that really mean? I get the Mach is the speed of sound, but how does the speed of this plane compare to a regular airliner? Also, how expensive is it to operate a plane like this?
Tell me about Mach .8. What does that really mean? I get the Mach is the speed of sound, but how does the speed of this plane compare to a regular airliner? Also, how expensive is it to operate a plane like this?
Hey man, Mach 1.0 is the speed of sound. Mach .8 is 80% of the speed of sound . Only the Concorde exceeds Mach 1.0 on a regular basis, along with some military hardware. The practical use of Mach is that everyone above 30,000’ encounters roughly the same temperature, usually -54 to -56 C, making Mach # the better number to use. Let’s say you are getting metered into Chicago with 3 other airplanes on a certain day and the lead aircraft is doing .76 Mach while you are doing .78 M. Eventually, you will get too close to the lead and the controller will have to vector you off your path or just slow you down in the conga line. Sometimes they will get you to slow down in units of knots per hour (or just “knots”), though. But up high, Mach # is easier and more practical to use. (I won’t get into True and Calibrated Airspeed)
So, when we take off, we suck up the flaps and gear, and maintain 250 knots on our indicator ‘til 10,000’. Above 10,000’, we switch to 300 knots until that actually becomes a speed at which the airplane will overspeed! That’s right, 280+ knots on the indicator, if maintained in a climb, will be too fast for the airplane. Indicated airspeed (the speed the indicator senses) is affected by air density, so we must switch over to Mach # around 27,000’. So, 300 knots eventually hits .76-.79Mach and then Mach is used.
I’ve been up to almost 1.3 Mach in the T-38 intentionally and once just over Mach 1 accidently in a set up for a loop. I screwed up the set up for the loop and saw nothing but earth in a steep dive, breaking Mach by accident! I was alone and had to do a very hard pull to get out of the dive, hitting 7.2 gs to get out of it. That hurt a bunch.
If the G650 is doing .925 Mach, it is blowing away the airliners who do .76-.84 Mach! But we’ll never have problems with him sneaking up behind us because he’ll be in the 45-50,000’ range. How expensive? I don’t really know.
Sadly the G650 isn’t certified yet. In fact one of the test aircraft crashed in early April killing 4 Gulfstream employees on board.
Lower models of Gulfstreams have operating costs in the $2500-$4500/hour range. Which means if you have to ask, you can’t afford it…
Don’t do it. Back in 2009 I panicked a bit and sold one of my Gulfstreams. I really regret it now. If you can just ground the play and pay your flight crew to take some time off, it’s totally worth it wait out the financial storm that is the current recession. Or you could do what I did with my backup G5 and just fire your crew and hire a new one back on at half the wages. HAHAHAH what are those peons going to do, find another jobs crewing a Gulfstream? Suckers.