What's the range of a Gulfstream II, this one seems pretty cheap

2000 miles +/-

 

$1 million for a G2? Even if it is old that thing must have some serious issues or have some major work coming up. Not to mention the cost of gas for 2 big straight jets, if i remember right that thing burns somewhere in the range of 400+ per hour.

 

That plane needs about $2m worth of updates just to land at most american airports. At the very least it immeadiatly needs noise apatement equipment for stage 3 compliance which takes affect in 2006. It probably needs another million or two in electronics and lets not forget the million dollar inspections that are due. Still sound cheap? When do you figure the motors are due for overhaul? Thats another million or so>

 

Check out netjets and flightoptions. My uncle recently bought a share in flightoptions and just loves it. Call 'em up and they'll pick ya up in whatever you want adn take you where ever you want. No hassles of maint, hangers, pilots and the other aircraft headaches. I have a single engine Cessna and it's a chore to keep up with that and I'm the pilot.

Good luck.

 

Wow, that jet is the same age as I am!

 

You are looking at major per hour costs to run that thing. At that price it has to need major work. It probably has a ton of cycles/hours on it and I'll bet it needs a lot of money spent on updates for noise compliance, RVSM etc. The RVSM compliance alone would probably cost 300 or 400 thousand just for a few electronic components and static system certification. I know a guy that flys a GIV and it burns right around 700 Gallons of fuel the first hour. That's with high bypass turbofans which are more efficient that the straight turbojets on a GII, but they put out more thrust, so you could probably figure about the same block block fuel burn per hour. Gulfstreams are the mutts nuts if you can afford one, but you have to be pretty (very) well heeled to even entertain the idea of owning one. Even a "cheap" one.

 

I don't know the cost of the RSVM, but I think that it isn't as expensive as it once was. IIs in perfect shape, with full complaince were about 6M when fuel was cheap, so this isn't a great surprise. I bet it would be up and flying with less than another 1M into the plane, but the cost to operate it would be huge. I'm told, yearly expenses on this type of plane are in excess of 2M per year, so it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Art

 

Look at NetJets or Marquis Jet. These let you buy fractional ownership in the jet or just buy hours (MarquisJet) on a credit card type setup. The costs of ownership get to be a little insane on these older jets.

 

NetJets, etc. work just fine for people that use the plane less than 100 hours per year. When your useage gets to be more, then you probably need to consider ownership.

I still like the idea of maintaining my own plane, not having to worry about someone else doing a good job.

Art

 

I've toured Netjets facility in Columbus and it is immaculate and by far the cleanest facility I have ever seen. Their maintenance is second to none. Their per hour costs are pretty high though. You pay share price plus the monthly management fee which if I recall is around 8 or 9 thousand then it's like 6500 per occupied hour. You can charter for less than that and not have to have the capital tied up, pay management fees, etc. But..... they are usually older aircraft, probably not maintained to quite the same standard etc. At that level of the game, any serious customer can probably afford to pay the price Netjets is asking. I mean it about their operation though, they are some of the most polished, professional people I have ever had the opportunity to meet.

 

That is a late G-II, with RVSM and TAWS, so presumably it could be operated as-is now. That said, it lacks winglets (which hurts the range), has an ugly interior, and looks like it is due for maintenance. It doesn't say anything about hush kits, so that may be an issue (I've been away from Stage II jets for a while, so I'm not sure what the current regs are on that).

I think $2mm is all the money for a good G-II, so this one looks to be priced about right.

As for the NetJets/Marquis option, figure out the hourly prices on those deals and you will realize that you could charter this G-II for the cost of a NetJets Citation.

EDIT: The range on a straight G-II without winglets is probably a little more than 2000 miles, but not much. You should easily be able to go west coast to east coast, but will sometimes have to stop coming back. I don't think Hawaii is a viable option, although people have done it.

Also, keep in mind you will spend more EACH year operating this aircraft than you would spend to buy it.

 

You could do Hawaii, but you'd have to go through Anchorage to make sure you got there. Would make the trip very expensive.

Art

 

A couple of other subtle things about this G-II:

1) I did not see "No Damage History" or "NDH" anywhere in the ad text. This makes me suspect it has damage history, which is not a good thing.

2) I did not see any mention of "Complete Logs" another negative.

3) At some point in the next few years, the GNS-XLS FMSs will have to be replaced. The GNS-XLS cannot do the new FMS arrivals, and while this is not a handicap right now, I would expect it would become one before too long.

4) I'm not very knowledgeable on the Spey engines, but I think these are getting close to overhaul.

Basically, this airplane is like buying a $10k Rolls Silver Shadow. You can look rich for cheap for a little while, but the first time you need to do any serious work (or pay the multiservice card bill for a few months, in the case of this G-II), you'll be spending more than you paid for the thing in the first place.

My guess is that it will either be parted out, or head for the third world, where overhaul times, etc., are less of a big deal and someone will run it until it self-destructs.

 

Uh, did anyone read the ad? It's RVSM capable already.

Still needs some work I'm sure, the $10k RR comparison is a pretty good one. 3k hrs SMOH...

DEFINATELY needs a new interior!