A late 1980s heavy jet with a cabin you can stand up in and the range to cross an ocean. Its empty legs are real and they move; what they almost never carry is a price.
Checking availability on this type...
Go down the heavy jets on this site, the GIV, the G450, the GV, and the same thing appears: repositioning flights published without a figure. Go down to the light end and it inverts; the Citation Ultra arrives with a price more often than not.
We cannot tell you why from the outside and will not guess on a public page. The practical consequence is simple. On this type there is nothing to compare, so asking two or three operators is the only comparison available, and the enquiry itself is how you find out what a whole aircraft, or a seat on it, costs.
Production ran from 1987 through the 1990s, so every GIV flying is at least a quarter of a century old. That does not make it a worse aeroplane, but it does put it in a different part of the charter market from a new Praetor or Latitude, and it shows in where the legs go: St. Pete Clearwater to Scottsdale, Aruba to Fort Lauderdale, Austin to Miami. North America and the Caribbean, sectors of two to four hours, in an aircraft built for eight.
Specification: Gulfstream IV, GlobalAir. What an individual aircraft offers depends on its cabin fit and fuel load; the seat count on the flight itself is the one to trust.
The 1993 SP upgrade is listed separately by operators and behaves differently on our board, with a much shorter life per listing. It has its own page.
The Gulfstream IV first flew in 1985 and entered service in 1987 as the first Gulfstream with Rolls-Royce Tay engines and a glass cockpit, and the first to seat fourteen in three living areas across an ocean. Over 535 were built through the 1990s, most of them the improved IV-SP from 1993, and a large fleet is still at work in charter and corporate service in North America. Every one flying is now over a quarter of a century old.
| Manufacturer | Gulfstream Aerospace |
|---|---|
| Engines | 2 x Rolls Royce TAY MK 611-8 |
| Passengers | 14 maximum |
| Cabin | 45 ft 1 in long, 7 ft 3 in wide, 6 ft 1 in high |
| Baggage | 169 cu ft |
| Range | 4,200 nm maximum, 3,800 nm on the normal profile |
| Maximum cruise | 500 knots |
| Ceiling | 45,000 ft |
| Take-off distance | 5,450 ft |
| Landing distance | 2,650 ft |
| Maximum take-off weight | 73,200 lb |
| History | first flight 1985, in service 1987, over 535 built |
Source: GlobalAir.