Gulfstream Aerospace took a giant step toward reducing its backlog of Gulfstream V completions on August 19, when the Savannah, Georgia-based firm paid Kimberly-Clark $250 million cash for K-C Aviation, a leading refurbishment and completion center for large business jet aircraft. K-C Aviation's facilities in Dallas, Texas, in Appleton, Wisconsin, and in Massachusetts will be renamed Gulfstream Aerospace, more than doubling the capacity offered by Gulfstream's Long Beach, California and Savannah completion facilities.

The acquisition could not have come at a better time for Gulfstream, which reportedly has 100 orders for the GV, capable of flying eight passengers 6,500 nmi. Some GV completions are more than six months late, according to industry sources. And next year the firm expects to boost total GIVSP and GV production to 64 units-twice the number of aircraft the firm built in 1996.

By Fred George