A Gulfstream G550 has undergone a full interior refurbishment and avionics upgrades at Duncan Aviation. The customer wanted to refresh the interior with a sleek new look. The in-house interior and design teams thus created a modern look with new seats and plated handrails inspired by the Gulfstream G600.
“The owner really liked the G600 seats, but the seat design is always limited by the seat drawings and certifications,” said Jack Bauder, lead designer. “Our upholstery shop did a fantastic job blending the G600 seat design with the existing structure to ensure the seats met certifications.”
Achieving the plated finish on the cabin handrails was another challenge. “Since they were too large to plate or hydrodip, the finish shop came up with a creative solution,” said Bauder. “They sanded the existing rails down to bare aluminium and applied a transparent Cerakote finish to match the clear coating on the cabin plating.”
The aircraft also underwent avionics upgrades. Senior avionics sales rep Mike Morgan said they installed a Ku/Ka tail radome that allows for the use of both Ka- and Ku-band satcom systems to be installed under the same radome. “This is a big deal because this is a newer STC on the market, and we are now able to provide options for high-speed data system installations to our customers,” said Morgan.
Viasat’s VMT-1500-C Ku-band satcom system was also added. “After it was installed, we turned it on and it worked flawlessly,” said Morgan.
Duncan Aviation also installed the Collins Aerospace Venue with AVDS cabin management system, an upgrade specific to Gulfstream aircraft that have existing legacy Collins ACMS or CMS-1 systems. The Venue CMS was paired with the Bongiovi audio system.
Bauder and Morgan both said that the customer was extremely happy with his new aircraft, and described it as “transformative” and “awesome”.
