CAPTAIN SPEAKING
After the Storm
They say things happen in threes, but no one could have expected hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria to tear up Texas, Florida, and several Caribbean islands in rapid succession. Once the storm passes, though, the cavalry is never far behind. With roads and other infrastructure heavily damaged, the first responders almost always arrive via air. Help comes in the form of a small armada of business jets and turboprops hauling relief supplies, physicians, and volunteers. The return legs are typically occupied by evacuees.
I’m proud of how the corporate aircraft fleet and those who fly them respond to these crisis situations. My company’s pilots worked long days with minimal rest prior to Harvey and Irma, helping evacuate as many people as possible from the storm’s path. And yet, this only scratches the surface of what private aircraft are capable of. Many have been converted into special mission aircraft, serving millions of people who rarely see them or may not even know they exist.
Among all types of special mission aircraft, I’m most familiar with the Gulfstream because that’s the type I fly. I’ve crossed paths with the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Gulfstream V, which features wing-mounted pods containing W-band cloud radar for exploring storm systems. Likewise, the NOAA operates a Gulfstream IV-SP that flies above hurricanes to drop instruments into the storm. The data collected from that programme has improved landfall prediction by more than 20 per cent, saving lives and property in the process.
At my home base, I’ve seen the Lockheed-Martin Dragon, a highly modified Gulfstream III that serves as an ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) platform for military, homeland defence, disaster relief, and humanitarian assistance purposes. Meanwhile, the Israeli Air Force’s surveillance fleet includes G550 jets, which are so radically altered that they’re hardly recognisable as Gulfstreams.
For more than 30 years, NASA operated four Gulfstream II jets, known as the Shuttle Training Aircraft, which were heavily modified to simulate the orbiter’s brick-like descent profile. The right half of the cockpit was standard business jet; the left side replicated the orbiter’s flight deck. Shuttle approaches were so steep – 20 degrees – that the jets had to be operated with the main landing gear down and both Spey engines running in reverse at 92 per cent power.
You’ll find Gulfstreams, Citations, Lears, Hawkers, and many other business jets used for signals intelligence, moving cargo, towing targets, medevac, oceanic patrol, search and rescue, and just about anything else you can think of. They can be outfitted and used to search for minerals, control oil spills, eradicate mosquitoes, perform ISR tasks, map the earth, and more.
Taking an aircraft that was designed to do one thing and rebuilding it to accomplish a completely different mission – that’s almost a work of art. NASA’s SOFIA airborne observatory, for instance, is a Boeing 747 retrofitted with a massive telescope in the tail. The cabin has to remain pressurised, but the telescope must be exposed to the open air. A new rear bulkhead had to be fabricated and installed for the pressure vessel, along with a 5.5- by 4-metre door for the telescope itself, which was strong enough to open and close while flying at 12,000 metres and 500 knots.
In a world of bespoke aircraft, the special mission variants turn customisation into a whole new ball game.
Help comes in the form of a small armada of business jets and turboprops hauling relief supplies, physicians, and volunteers