“We’re in the throes of flying that airplane now. It flew recently about 3.5 hours and about 48,000 feet…so we’ll continue to expand that envelope,” Gulfstream Aerospace president Mark Burns told reporters at the show.

He declined to provide a firm timeline for G400 certification but said the program “is going really well.” Additionally, he doesn’t see any issues that would upset certification.

“We don’t have a prediction of when. Unfortunately, I don’t make that call,” he explained. But Burns is encouraged the G400 will benefit from processes put in place after Gulfstream certified the G500, G600, G700, and G800 in the last seven years, even as the G700 “got mixed up in the middle of Covid” and things slowed down.

He also pointed to bumps in the process during that certification program. “I was probably the most vocal person on the planet during the G700 about my dissatisfaction,” he conceded.

Burns told the FAA at the time that the certification process needs to modernize, adding that it has since improved. The G800 went according to schedule, and Burns recently emphasized the process improvements that led to that to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Burns believes this will continue to improve with the G400 certification.

As a testament to G400 program maturity, one of the flight-test aircraft set a new city-pair speed record while also using a sustainable aviation fuel blend while en route to NBAA-BACE, completing the flight from Miami to Las Vegas in 4 hours and 8 minutes at an average speed of Mach 0.89. 

The G400 program will encompass four flight-test aircraft. Burns said Gulfstream is making “good progress” with flight tests, including completing flammable fluid drainage testing on one of the airplanes this week. Another is undergoing icing tests, he said, “so the airplanes are getting exercised quite significantly.”

Meanwhile, he noted, the 3,600-nm G300—the successor to the Israeli-built G280—is expected to be not far behind the G400 in certification. The initial G300 flew in December, and Burns said the second is prepping to take to the skies shortly. This will be one of three aircraft in the flight-test program, with production on the third aircraft underway.

As far as the continuation from the G280 program, Burns said the G300 will “accentuate the things that made that airplane successful, but we changed it to look more like a Gulfstream on the outside with the oval windows, new cabin, and interior.”

Flight testing of the super-midsize business jet is continuing to move forward with its program partner, Israel Aerospace Industries, he said.

The G400 is accompanied by the rest of Gulfstream’s in-production large-cabin jet fleet—the G500, G600, G700, and G800—at the NBAA-BACE Aircraft Connection (static display) at Henderson Executive Airport (KLAS). Also included are full-scale G300 and G400 cabin mockups.

“The aircraft continues to perform exceptionally well as we advance through the rigorous certification program,” said Burns. “Each milestone reinforces the performance, cabin comfort, and versatility customers will experience with this remarkable aircraft.”