A fellow aviation photographer here in Portland, who is a master at knowing what civilian traffic is where at any given time, raced to Hillsboro Airport (about 15 miles west of Downtown Portland, where Nike has its hangar) to capture Gulfstream’s first G650 delivery in all her glory. The new owner is none other than Las Vegas casino and hotel mogul Steve Wynn, a hardcore patron of Gulfstream jets for decades. As to why it is in Hillsboro and not Las Vegas? I am not certain but often times aircraft are sold in Oregon, this may be due to tax or finance incentives, and also Nike will be getting their G650 very soon so this may have had something to do with it. Coincidentally (or maybe not) a Gulfstream IV owned by Nike and Steve Wynn at different times wore both the iconic N711SW and N1KE tail codes while it served its respective owners.
Congrats to Steve Wynn on an awesome new business tool and congrats to all the master aerospace folks over at Gulfstream who continue to build great products that people cannot wait to get their hands on!
A bit about the biggest Gulfstream ever: She cruises at at almost the speed of sound, can fly 7,000 miles on a single tank of gas, that means New York to Tokyo folks, costs about $65M without going overboard on the interior, keeps its cabin pressure equivalent to 5,000ft while cruising (no fatigue!), weighs close to 100k lbs and features an entirely “fly-by-wire” flight control system.
*A huge thanks to Russell Hill for providing these great pics for all of us to enjoy! These shots are Copyrighted by Russell so if you would like to use them you can contact him through flickr or just shoot me an email and I can get you in touch with him. Make sure to take a look at Russell’s photography at the following link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sabian404/
Gorgeous airplane. I grew up in PDX and was at Hillsboro Airport the day that one of Nike’s jets had trouble with their landing gear. Any idea what the characters on the tail signify?