Preparation is everything in the paint business, because paint must endure such extremes of temperature and humidity?from 100 degrees Fahrenheit on the ramp to minus 65 degrees Centigrade at altitude. Not to mention the vicissitudes of soot, engine exhaust, salt, acid rain, bugs and hail. It?s a tough world out there and a good paint job protects your aircraft and your investment in it.

That is why Gulfstream goes far beyond what is common among other paint shops. As with every process at Gulfstream, this one begins with the customer. We invest more time in developing renderings, spray outs and test coupons so that the customer can see precisely how the finished product will look. Then we set to work, stripping and priming the aircraft with incredible care.

We use only top of the line paints and electrostatic paint guns to place more paint onto the airframe and less into the air. We maintain positive pressure in our paint booths to keep dust and other contaminants out.

We paint in places others often don?t?on the insides of baggage doors and access panels, inside wheel wells, on rear pylon beams and inside nacelles. The inner sections of flaps receive safety striping. Moving parts and hydraulic fluid seepage areas receive special care so that paint protects and endures.

Our painting teams delight in a complex request, such as that from a customer who asked for 13 stripes feathered across wings and winglets. Each paint scheme we complete is a work of art, whether a simple, two-stripe design or something considerably more intricate.

Before we return an aircraft to a customer, we spend 350-400 hours detailing it, carefully de-sealing panels, checking stripe edges, polishing light lenses and carefully checking the whole airframe. Yes, it all takes a bit longer. But the resulting paint job is one we know will beautify and protect an aircraft under the harshest circumstances for years to come.