Just a few days after Gulfstream’s G280 super-midsize business jet achieved full type certification, the company announced its flagship G650 has followed suit, clearing the way for the start of deliveries before the end of the year.
Now that it has the official ok from the FAA, the G650 takes speed and endurance to new levels in the bizjet world. The aircraft tops out at a max range of 7,000 nm and reaches its max speed at Mach 0.925, making it the fastest civilian jet ever certified.
The new ultra-large-cabin jet brings a breadth of innovation to the cockpit as well, with advanced features including enhanced vision, synthetic vision, automatic descent mode and 3D weather radar, just to name a few.
The airplane – which Gulfstream says can seat up to 18 comfortably – was first announced in the spring of 2008. Test pilots took the G650 up for its short maiden flight at the end of 2009 and have since performed more than 1,181 flights in the jet.
The program experienced a setback in the spring of last year when one of its test aircraft crashed on takeoff, killing four Gulfstream test personnel.
Gulfstream reports it currently has received more than 200 orders for the fly-by-wire jet.
