Advanced Aircraft

Our today's hero is the first business class turbo prop aircraft. Meet Grumman G 159-Gulfstream I the father of the the family. One of the first purpose-built business aircraft, the Gulfstream I found its true calling in performing a host of specialized operations.

Corporate customers responded, with 200 GIs built over the next decade for buyers as varied as Walt Disney, Ford Motor Company, and NASA. Grumman also explored a stretched version, dubbed the GI-C, for regional airline use; only five were produced.

Nine TC-4C Academe variants were also built as trainers for the A-6 Intruder attack aircraft. That adaptation hinted at the GI’s talents as a multipurpose platform, which became clearer two decades after the last airframe left Grumman's Bethpage, New York production facility in 1969.

Now there are only about a half-dozen of the model still in service worldwide.