Keeping a secret as large as a new business jet is not so easy anymore, but on 14 October Gulfstream managed to reel off a handful of major surprises as it unveiled a powered G500 and introduced the G600 inside a Savannah, Georgia, factory built to produce them.
There were, of course, plenty of reasons to suspect Gulfstream had been up to something. References to the “Gulfstream P42” project swirled around the industry for years on supplier LinkedIn accounts and even one EASA annual report. Gulfstream also could not ignore the threat posed by the Dassault Falcon 5X and 8X to its 10-year-old large cabin franchises with the G450 and G550.
But not even a hint had emerged about Gulfstream’s unexpected new strategy. If a P42 existed, it was assumed it would be used to replace the G450, the G550 or perhaps both. Instead, Gulfstream has chosen to subdivide its own large cabin portfolio and keep all four types in production even after the scheduled delivery of the $43.5 million G500 in 2018 and the $54.5 million G600 in 2019.
“We are expanding our model line-up,” says Scott Neal, senior vice-president of Gulfstream.
Gulfstream’s departure from an industry norm of fielding product replacements every seven to 10 years makes sense to Ken Ricci, owner of Flexjet. Ricci’s Directional Aviation Capital acquired fractional provider Flexjet from Bombardier last year, obtaining a fleet of only Learjets and Challengers. As part of the unveiling Ricci announced a deal to buy up to 50 Gulfstreams, including the G450, G500 and ultra-long-range G650. Qatar Executive, a unit of Qatar Airways, also announced a memorandum of understanding to buy up to 20 G500s and G650ERs.
In an interview, Ricci says he supports Gulfstream’s decision to keep building 4,300nm (7,960km)-capable G450s alongside the 5,000nm-range G500. The G450, Ricci says, will remain highly desirable by fractional operators as a short-range or US domestic workhorse. The G500 will compete for sales where the customer has a mostly international mission, he says.
The fate of the G550 is less clear. It will fill a gap between the 6,200nm (11,500km) capability of the G600 and the 7,500nm range of the G650ER, but it can still be crowded out. Gulfstream often announces substantial range increases as aircraft near entry into service, and the G600 could quickly usurp the G550's 6,750nm range. One analyst briefed by Gulfstream understands the G550 is expected to be retired first before the G450.
Until that day, Gulfstream will have six options for customers to choose between in the large cabin and ultra-long-range segments of the market, a luxury formerly associated with Cessna’s line-up of jets in the light category.
According to Gulfstream president Larry Flynn, a customer advisory panel drove the decision to keep all four models in production, alongside the hot-selling G650 and G650ER.
“It was interesting to see it was not a direct replacement [the customers wanted], but it added to the product line and it gave them more choices based off their individual flight department needs,” he says.
If Gulfstream’s strategy was the biggest surprise, the execution of that strategy was not far behind. Minutes before the ceremony, nobody outside of Gulfstream’s supply chain even knew the name of the new aircraft, much less that the first flight test article of the G500 was fully assembled and ready to make its public debut by taxiing into view as the hangar door opened during the ceremony.
Gulfstream had quietly reserved the N500GA registration number with the US Federal Aviation Administration just over one month before the event. Under the cover of darkness, workers had taxied the aircraft in the weeks leading up to the event, and Gulfstream managed to keep it a secret.
Two more flight test G500s were visible in advanced stages of assembly inside the factory. Pratt & Whitney Canada plans to certificate the PurePower PW800 turbofan engines with Transport Canada by the end of the year, says P&WC president John Saabas. The PW800 is derived from the same core as the PW1000G geared turbofan that powers several commercial airliners, including the Airbus A320neo, but includes a redesigned low pressure spool and omits a fan drive gear system.
Gulfstream plans to induct five test articles into the G500 flight test programme after achieving first flight early next year. Twelve to 18 months after the G500 first flight, the first of four planned G600 test aircraft will start flying, Gulfstream says.
Revelations about Gulftream’s strategy and development progress overshadowed big surprises in the supply chains for the G500 and G600. For decades, Gulfstream has been linked with Rolls-Royce for engines and Honeywell for avionics. Honeywell retained its role in a revamped G500 and G600 cockpit, but Gulfstream broke a 56-year relationship with R-R’s engines, favoring the PW800 after a heated competition that also involved Safran.
Despite more than a half century of history with R-R, Flynn was unsentimental when asked about the decision to switch engine suppliers.
“We had three competitors that are pretty well known in the industry. We had a fair competition and we had three aggressive bidders and we chose P&W out of that particular bid process,” he says.
Gulfstream also decided to in-source on the G500 and G600 the wings and stabilisers, an area of concern on recent programmes. Gulfstream moved away from wing supplier Vought on the G650 and G280 programmes, selecting Spirit AeroSystems. But that supplier has been forced to write off more than $1.2 billion in forward losses related to the wing ship sets on the G280 and G650 alone.
Lynn, however, made no reference to Spirit AeroSystems’ struggles when discussing the decision to build the G500 and G600 wings in Savannah.
“it’s just a natural vertical integration move to build the wings,” he says.
It was generally assumed that Gulfstream would want to migrate the technologies that enable the speed, cabin comfort and fly-by-wire flight controls of the G650 into future models. The G500 and G600 will both feature the G650’s maximum operating speed of Mach 0.925, a tick behind the Mach 0.930 of the smaller Citation X+.
But Gulfstream has revealed a plan to revamp the cockpit of the G500 and G600 with BAE Systems’ active sidesticks, replacing the control columns found on all previous Gulfstream models, including the fly-by-wire G650.
The active sidesticks – also present on the Embraer KC-390 – are derived from technology BAE developed for the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter. In a dual pilot cockpit, the active sidesticks shadow each other’s movement, enabling what Gulfstream considers as a critical safety feature.
“The learning curve was about 5min to go from control columns to a sidestick,” Flynn says. “We were really keen that if we were going to do sidesticks they were both going to move simultaneously.”
Gulfstream was so keen on the technology that it redesigned the pilot’s interface. A side-mounted cursor control joystick on the G650 was moved to the centre pedestal between the two pilots, clearing room for the sidekicks. The new cockpit includes new touchscreen displays and airport moving map features introduced on the latest version of the Honeywell Primus Epic system.
Gulfstream answered many questions with the unveiling of the G500 and G600, but raised as many new queries. Will the company refresh the propulsion and avionics systems on the G450 and G550, since they are remaining in production? Could a G400 appear in the future to revive the market Gulfstream abandoned after closing production of the G350?
For the moment, those are secrets Gulfstream prefers to keep in-house.
“We’re going to keep going. We’ve got an R&D campus,” Flynn says. “I think we did enough today. So we’ll stop right there.”
Source: FlightGlobal.com
