FARNBOROUGH: Gulfstream offers missile defense system...for bizjets

What do you get for the CEO who has everything? How about a corporate jet that comes complete with its own missile defense system? That just one of the new items "on sale" at the Farnborough air show this week.

Thanks to Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, company executives and VIPs who regularly do business in some of the world's "tougher neighborhoods" need no longer worry about becoming targets for terrorist groups armed with surface-to-air or air-to-air infrared guided missiles. For approximately $3.5 million they will now equip your Gulfstream IV with a Sanders AN/ALQ-204 Matador Infrared Countermeasure (IRCM) system. A similar system will soon be available for Gulfstream Vs.

Gulfstream is the first commercial business aviation manufacturer to offer a missile defense system on its aircraft. Bill Boisture, Gulfstream's president and CEO, said that five such systems have already been installed on customer aircraft. However, he would not reveal who had purchased them or where the aircraft are being used.

Gulfstream also announced on July 3 that one of their Gulfstream Vs carrying eight passengers and three crew members set a world speed record on a flight from New Jersey's Teterboro Airport to Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles, CA. Traveling at speeds up to Mach .88, the aircraft completed the 2,219 nautical mile flight in four hours, 34 minutes, breaking the previous world record by almost 15 minutes. Boisture said that on Friday, July 21, he and seven other Gulfstream executives had traveled nonstop from Dallas, TX to the Farnborough show site in a Gulfstream V, completing the 4,167 nautical mile flight in seven hours and 48 minutes at speeds of up to Mach .87.