The flight-test Gulfstream G500–dubbed T1–made its first cross-country trip for NBAA 2015, arriving at Las Vegas Henderson Executive Airport on Friday. With Gulfstream test pilots Scott Martin and Scott Evans at the controls, the new twinjet flew from Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport into 75-knot headwinds, accomplishing the 1,630-nm trip in 4 hours 36 minutes. It averaged a speed of Mach 0.85 and altitude of 45,000 feet.
Also on board were flight-test engineers Paul Ludlow and Nathaniel Rutland, who monitored the “significant amount” of flight testing equipment on the G500. Test equipment includes a noseboom, which provides air data, angle-of-attack and angle-of-sideslip information; attitude recovery system (ARS) for high-speed flutter testing and low-speed stall testing; data-monitoring system that provides real-time data for engineers on board and in the telemetry room; video recording system that captures touchscreen commands and flight-deck footage, as well as external footage of the landing gear, trailing cone and ARS; and flutter vanes on the wing and horizontal tips.
T1 is focused on flight performance and controls and first flew on May 18. To date, it has completed 44 test flights and has been flown to 50,000 feet and Mach 0.995. Certification is slated for 2017.
