UPDATE: Click here for the announcement of the G500 and G600.
Although Gulfstream executives still aren’t talking, most everyone else in business aviation is buzzing about today’s much-anticipated debut of the company’s newest large-cabin design.
It’s a business jet that, according to the Wall Street Journal, “has been developed with the kind of secrecy typically reserved for a military spy plane or the latest smartphone.”
Savannah-based Gulfstream, as a policy, doesn’t comment on any aircraft in development until it has been announced.
“We are very conservative when it comes to making announcements,” Gulfstream spokesman Steve Cass said in July as rumors swirled around a company project codenamed P42.
“Before we announce any new product, we want to be sure it does what we say it is going to do and we want to make sure the positioning is right for the market.”
All those elements apparently have fallen into place, as the company has invited customers, media and aerospace analysts to “a special event” today at the site of its newest facility — a huge building in the northwest quadrant of the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport whose use has not been publicly designated.
Whatever P42 looks like, most industry insiders agree it will be Gulfstream’s answer to the Falcon 5X, a private jet built by French manufacturer Dassault Aviation, that has a wider cabin and the ability to fly 1,000 nautical miles farther than the G450.
Aviation News has reported that the P42 will be a clean-sheet design built on the all-new wing, fuselage and systems of the company’s flagship G650.
The new business jet “looks like a winner,” aerospace analyst Cai von Rumohr told investors in a note earlier this month.
A senior research analyst at Cowan and Co. who has covered Gulfstream extensively for years, von Rumohr said he expects the new plane to be positioned above the G450, with a larger cabin and longer range, but won’t replace it.
“These features will make it a more effective competitor to the Falcon 5X and Bombardier Global 5000 at a higher price than the G450,” he said, adding that, since the P42 isn’t a direct replacement of the G450, its cannibalizing impact on G450 demand should be limited.
Deliveries could begin as early as the end of next year, von Rumohr said.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the P42 has been the early report from Aviation News — and confirmation in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal story — that the new jet will be powered by Pratt and Whitney engines, marking the first time in more than 50 years a heritage Gulfstream business aircraft has moved into final design with a non-Rolls-Royce engine.
Regardless of what is revealed today, it’s no secret that Savannah-based Gulfstream has been growing by leaps and bounds.
Four years ago, the company was in the fifth year — and well ahead — of an announced seven-year, $400 million growth plan when it announced another expansion, this one a $500 million, seven-year plan expected to result in 1,000 new jobs.
Since then, the company has built major new facilities off Airways Avenue and renovated several existing facilities on the main campus off Gulfstream Road. It has also expanded office and lab facilities at the Gulfstream Research Development Center in Crossroads Business Park and tripled the expected number of hires to 3,000.