G500 - Entry Into Service (EIS) Notes
Some airports have a 75,000 lb. maximum weight restriction that other Gulfstreams are able to get around using an ASC that "officially" reduces our maximum ramp weight. Gulfstream says this is in the works for the G500.
The HF defaults to Emergency mode and wrong settings. It is fairly easy to correct but sometimes it doesn’t take the changes until a few tries.
The GCMS has been acting up now and then freezing the moving map on cabin monitors. Gulfstream Maintenance techs are now telling us to wait until the IRUs Align before turning on Cabin power. A 650 driver confirms this is their SOP. This means you will be using flashlights for a few minutes. You cannot reset the cabin using a SSPC, it can only be reset by going to black.
We have also heard of fueling faults resulting from fueling before the IRUs have finished aligning.
The break away trim around the aft lav door...well it sure does break away. It’s often busted for us, scotch tape (shhhh!) to the rescue. When the aft bag door is open and the MED is open a differential pressure causes it to slam and bust. Very flimsy.
Don’t put anything on the floor during power up in the forward lav as there’s a weight sensor. This was a favorite spot for me and others to put a backpack or briefcase. What happens is if the system senses weight there during a system power up it disables water to the forward lav and you’re out of luck until depowering. Very little info out there, as in none, on this and we lost a lot of time chasing this down.
Gulfstream Maintenance told me the 3 (now 4) minute wing heat limitation is basically gumming up deice fluid and causing a lot of bright work issues. He was involved in a deice departure last winter that the bright work needed to buffed out twice to make leading edges look good.
We had the acoustic door closed while waiting on PAX. Once they arrived, we opened the door, but it was how it was opened that affected the CAS. I know we are all trying to be gentle with the hinges and latches and rightfully so. In this case, the door was not retracted past the plastic lever/locking mechanism that makes the acoustic door CAS appear for takeoff and landing. It's the same lever on top of the door that we actuate to move the door open from the stowed position. We had briefed aborting only for conditions unsafe for flight, thus continued the takeoff. Point of the story, we can still be gentle with everything but make sure that door in particular moves past the locking mechanism. Here are two photos. The one on the right “not latched” was closed just enough to not generate the CAS on taxi. However, during acceleration for takeoff, it moved aft enough to open the switch and generate the CAS.
Maintenance has asked us to spread the word on the cockpit floor compartment hinges. The current hinges are weak, so please open and close them gently. They believe they are breaking when the doors are overextended while opening.
Maintenance opens the lav door and sets the door stopper when the aircraft arrives back home. If the stopper is set "lever under the deadbolt," the door is more difficult to move. However, with much force, it rips the stopper off the bottom of the door.
Auto switch of speeds to 250 below 10,000 is dependent solely on the rate of descent and when the FCS determines the speed needs to start slowing in order to meet the limitation. This is regardless of altitude Pre-Selector or whether VNAV or FLCH/VSPD is being used. If you look at the VSD, you can see a notch where the descent path shallows out a bit, this corresponds to the altitude at which the FCS has calculated the slow down.