IAI unveils newest business jet

Read the forum code of contact

Member for

20 years 3 months

Posts: 272

For the first time this decade, Israel Aircraft Industries will unveil a new jet on Tuesday which the company hopes will dominate the mid-size executive business jet niche.

The G-150 will emerge for its first public debut from an IAI hangar outside Ben-Gurion Airport in front of an expected audience of 2,500 people, including hundreds of proud workers who have spent the past two years bringing it to life.

The roll out ceremony is expected to be a grand show of pyrotechnic smoke and lasers as this small nation once again takes its place among the world's leaders in aircraft production.

"IAI has a rich and long history of developing and producing business aircraft. We have proven once again our technological, engineering and production capabilities in this exclusive branch," IAI president Moshe Keret said in a statement Monday.

"IAI will continue to maintain its position as a leading member in the world of developing and producing new aircraft."

The last time IAI rolled out a new jet was the Galaxy in 1997. Tuesday's roll out is a further justification of IAI's capability to design and produce aircraft, 17 years after it was forced to abandon the ambitious Lavi fighter jet program.

The G-150 can be configured to seat between six to eight passengers (plus a crew of two), depending on the luxurious interior layout. With a range of 2,700 nautical miles, the G-150 can fly non-stop from New York to Los Angeles, or London to Moscow. Its cruising speed is Mach 0.8 or 844 kilometers per hour. Designers say it has the best range and speed of any aircraft of its class. It can fly the US coast-to-coast route an hour quicker and use 600 pounds of fuel less than its nearest competitor, the Sovereign executive jet.

The market price of the G-150 is expected to be about $12.5 million each, surprisingly affordable compared to other executive jets in its class. Based on its record, fifty of the jets were already sold before it got off the drawing boards.

The G-150 is actually being designed and built by IAI's Commercial Aircraft Group for Gulfstream, a US-company that specializes in larger business jets. Gulfstream purchased the IAI's Galaxy Aerospace Company from IAI in May 2001 for $330 million. It wanted to use the intercontinental Galaxy super mid-size jet and the Astra SPX to round out its fleet of larger aircraft. The Galaxy was renamed the G-200 and the Astra SPX became the G-100.

But it soon realized that the market was itching for an aircraft in between the two.

In September 2002, it was announced that IAI would design and produce the G-150.
The G-150 is expected to enter the market as the demand for business jets is rising.
Business jets today are less fancy toys for the rich and famous as they are a necessity for a global world where businesspeople need to have the flexibility to reach markets with more efficiency.

"Gulfstream is known as the best when it comes to customer support and marketing," said Ilan Faigenbaum, director of the G-150 program. "These are not our strengths."

A beaming Faigenbaum proudly showed off the entire production process, from the design rooms to the production lines and finally to the finished product itself. He said that the goal of the G-150 was to maintain the impressive performance records of the G-100 but to improve its comfort. To do this, the new jet is one foot wider and a few inches higher giving it generous head and legroom. But it still keeps its elliptical shape, which Faigenbaum maintained was better than the other, oval aircraft in the same category with the G-150.

www.jpost.com

G-150 top
G-200 botton

Attachments
Original post

Member for

21 years

Posts: 4,209

Interesting stuff, lets hope they can put the old reliability issues behind them once and for all now. I must say I'm not a big fan of the 1125/100 series, but the 1126/200 looks very nice indeed, and we have 2 or 3 regulars here at Farnborough.