I had a rare treat yesterday.

As some of you know, I have been working at Gulfstream Aerospace in Savannah for the past 41+ years. I'll be retiring soon and have had the opportunity over the years to fly on everything we've built in Savannah, GII, GIII, G450, and G550, with the exception of our new G650. One of my nephews who is a Team Coordinator in our G650 Completion Center wanted to do something for me before I retire. So he arranged a ride for me on one of their G650's that they are getting ready to deliver. This particular one belongs to Google and they where going up for a maintenance flight where they check out everything to make it's working perfectly and make adjustments when required. Let me tell you, that was one nice 4 hour ride. We're not allowed to take pictures of the customers plane, but I did get a couple out the window.

The first one is at a altitude of 51,000 feet and we're cruising along at about 650 mph air speed, you can just start to see the curvature of the earth. The second one is looking out over the left wing. Outside air temp. was -74 degrees.

Nice!!!

Talk about being taken for a ride!

That is massive cool

Fun!

When the clouds look like frozen tundra in the ocean, you are on a ride most will never experience!

Cool deal Doug! I love the view out the window when I fly! When is your retirement date? BTW congrats on your ride there brother....no doubt it was awesome.

Good deal Doug congrats

Doug you would have thought for that much Money they would have at least got the stripe on the wing on strait.. lol cool trip

Good lawd..... I just read that's a $65,000,000 toy..... Yikes!

dfree383 wrote:Good lawd..... I just read that's a $65,000,000 toy..... Yikes!

Yes it is, and I think we burned up about $10,000 worth of Jet A fuel. It would take about $39,000 to fill one up. I wish I could have taken some photos of the interior, cool gadgets galore .

bigblockfox468 wrote:Cool deal Doug! I love the view out the window when I fly! When is your retirement date? BTW congrats on your ride there brother....no doubt it was awesome.

My last day is Jan. 8th

That's a pretty cool deal Doug! Congrats on you retirement!!

Thats way up there! What is the maximum altitude for the plane? Doesn't commercial airlines fly at 35,000ft?

I don't see how it is feasible for a company to afford, own, maintain and travel in their own personal jet. I would like to see how they can justify the cost. Every job I have worked on has to be able to cover the expenses or else you will eventually bankrupt the company. Maybe if I was using it to get around customs or illegal activities.

jones wrote:Thats way up there! What is the maximum altitude for the plane? Doesn't commercial airlines fly at 35,000ft?

I don't see how it is feasible for a company to afford, own, maintain and travel in their own personal jet. I would like to see how they can justify the cost. Every job I have worked on has to be able to cover the expenses or else you will eventually bankrupt the company. Maybe if I was using it to get around customs or illegal activities.

GOOGLE owns the plane...I could make it my life mission to spend all of their money but I would likely FAIL. (would be a great time though )

FalconEh wrote:

jones wrote:Thats way up there! What is the maximum altitude for the plane? Doesn't commercial airlines fly at 35,000ft?

I don't see how it is feasible for a company to afford, own, maintain and travel in their own personal jet. I would like to see how they can justify the cost. Every job I have worked on has to be able to cover the expenses or else you will eventually bankrupt the company. Maybe if I was using it to get around customs or illegal activities.

GOOGLE owns the plane...I could make it my life mission to spend all of their money but I would likely FAIL. (would be a great time though )

You would think they would have a bean counter somewhere.

Usually only the biggest of companies buy our planes or the mega rich. Earlier this year a company called Flexjet entered an agreement with Gulfstream to purchase 50 of our planes, they are a fractional ownership company where smaller company's can own a piece of the jet, kind of like a Time Share Condo.
Plus our reliability rate of 99.9% makes a Gulfstream a must have for companies that do a lot of traveling around world and it saves them time. In the long run it's cheaper to operate than sending their people on commercial flights that these days have long delays, and it can land at airports where commercial jets can't, it can take off and land in weather that big jets wouldn't even try, plus it's just all around safer than a big jet.

Hell, Gulfstream ought to give me a commission for doing this commercial

Well at least we can look forward to you finally getting more work done on your hauler!! You know we have been waiting a while to see the latest!! Cool pics by the way...I enjoy them because I have never been in an airplane!!! You are one lucky guy!!

jones wrote:.................I don't see how it is feasible for a company to afford, own, maintain and travel in their own personal jet. I would like to see how they can justify the cost. Every job I have worked on has to be able to cover the expenses or else you will eventually bankrupt the company. Maybe if I was using it to get around customs or illegal activities.

It's just a write off in the cost of doing business... Figure a few execs fly first class all over the world. Spend that money on your own jet and do it on your own schedule. Not some commercial airline schedule...

That's a cool deal Doug, congrats on your retirement, I've been at my job 42yrs and all I will get is a boot up my ass when I go in 2yrs.