Business & GA

Gulfstream Keeps G500/600 Avionics Configuration in New G700 Jet

Gulfstream introduced the new G700 business jet during an NBAA 2019 opening ceremony at Henderson Executive Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo: Gulfstream

LAS VEGAS – Gulfstream opened the 2019 NBAA Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (BACE) in Las Vegas with an introduction of the new G700 business jet that will keep the same cockpit avionics configuration, the Symmetry flight deck, as the G500 and G600, each of which achieved type certification and first deliveries within the last year.

G700 is the first all new business jet launched by Gulfstream since the launch of the G500 and G600 at the 2014 NBAA BACE event in Orlando, Fla. The new aircraft can fly 7,500 nautical miles (nm) at Mach 0.85 or 6,400 nm at Mach 0.90, and is powered by Rolls-Royce’s Pearl 700 engines.

The G700 flight test program will feature five fully outfitted production ready jets. Photo: Gulfstream

Along with showing a full-scale G700 mockup for the first time publicly at NBAA, Gulfstream also confirmed two new launch customers, including official launch customer Qatar Airways, North American launch customer Flexjet. Qatar will be purchasing a total of 10 new G700s, while Gulfstream did not say how many aircraft Flexjet agreed to buy.

The cabin of the G700 features up to five living areas, a passenger lounge, a master suite with a shower and enough cabin spacing for the configuration of a conference or dining room with enough space for six people. Gulfstream President Mark Burns showed a video of the aircraft taxiing under its own power at Gulfstream’s Savannah, Georgia headquarters and confirmed that the company has already accomplished nearly 14,000 hours of lab testing in its integration- and cabin-test facilities, Systems Integration Bench and Iron Bird in preparation for the first flight.

“The Gulfstream G700 brings together the best of two families of aircraft, it takes the innovation of the G500 and G600 symmetry flight deck and marries it together with the speed performance and comfort of the G650ER, and then pushes all that into the tallest, widest longest cabin in all of business aviation,” Burns said, during Gulfstream’s G700 launch event.

The interior cabin of the G700 has five different living areas. Photo: Gulfstream

According to Rolls Royce, the Pearl 700 engine will have a takeoff thrust of 18,250 pounds, a 51.8 inch blinked fan, a two-stage shroud less high pressure turbine and a four-stage low pressure turbine. The engine was developed at Rolls Royce’s business aviation manufacturing facility in Dahlewitz, Germany and is already undergoing testing. It will also incorporate a new engine health monitoring system, and is enabled for bi-directional communications and cloud-based data analytics.

Rolls Royce is already putting the G700’s engines through testing at its facility in Germany. Photo: Rolls Royce

Along with the Symmetry flight deck, Gulfstream will also bring the embedded data concentration network to the G700. During an interview with Avionics International at Gulfstream’s Savannah headquarters this summer, Colin Miller, senior vice president of innovation and engineering at Gulfstream, explained how the network will serve as a foundation toward the future development of artificial intelligence applications.

Five fully outfield production aircraft will be used for the G700 flight test campaign, and Gulfstream has already completed ground vibration testing, engine runs, loads calibration and structural testing for the G700’s first flight. Gulfstream expects to make the first G700 customer deliveries in 2022.

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