Graham Warwick/ATLANTA
GULFSTREAM Aerospace flew the Gulfstream V long-range business jet for the first time on 28 November. The 1h flight of the first GV, from Gulfstream's Savannah, Georgia, base, also marked the first flight for BMW Rolls-Royce's BR710 turbofan.
The flight marks the beginning of an aggressive test programme intended to achieve US Federal Aviation Administration certification in October 1996 and European Joint Airworthiness Authorities (JAA) certification two months later. Certification of the 65kN (14,750lb)-thrust BR710-48 engine for the GV is scheduled for August 1996.
Four aircraft will be used in the flight-test programme. The first, serial number 501, will be used for envelope expansion and FAA testing. The second GV, 503 (502 is the structural-test article), is scheduled to be flown in December and will be used for systems evaluation. Aircraft 504, to be flown in February 1996, is earmarked for engine, environmental and JAA testing. Aircraft 505, the first production-configuration GV, will be used for function and reliability testing, Gulfstream says.
The aircraft was flown on its first flight by Gulfstream chief test-pilot John O'Meara and test-pilot Gary Freeman. "The flight went extremely well and the engines performed superbly, exactly as we had expected," says O'Meara. The landing gear and flaps remained down for the first flight, during which the aircraft reached 190kt (350km/h) and 10,000ft (3,000m).
The first GV is equipped with full flight-test instrumentation and stall-recovery, emergency-egress and flutter-test systems. The second aircraft will have provisions for the latter three systems and will be available as a back-up to the first GV, says Gulfstream.
A new data acquisition and reduction system has been installed for the GV programme.
Source: Flight International
