Originally Posted By: bdcardinal
How is the 650ER? I was checking them out on their page and they look incredible. The range on them is unbelievable for a business/corporate jet.
Amazing machine. It does the 3 mutually exclusive "things" equally well and at the same time. 1) range, 2) speed, 3) altitude.
The only thing that comes close to a G650ER is the G550. Every other corporate jet falls short. Does it matter? Not sure, as relatively few people actually use the long range of these beasts.
It's fast, with a M 0.87 climb speed, and a normal cruise of M 0.90 and a descent speed approaching M 0.93, it covers ground amazingly fast in all aspects of flight. People do all sorts of calculations to determine "time saved". However, they often simply use cruise speed to calculate, and neglect climb and descent.
With that in mind, the G650 might not seem much faster on shorter trips (M 0.85 vs. M 0.90 is only a few MPH) , however real world time savings is significant due to the faster climb and descent, added to the faster cruise. In particular, it covers a lot of additional ground in climb. Many jets climb at M 0.72 or less.
Coming back from Savannah, we were at M 0.925 and 100Kts faster than the airliner 1000 feet above us. Amazing sight to run up on, and pass under an airliner, with a 100Kt speed differential.
Here is a pic of the HUD (heads up display)