Gulfstream Aerospace recently completed its 5,000th airborne support flight, with Field and Airborne Support Team (Fast) pilots Ty Ung and Shanon Baker flying a section of an engine bleed-air duct from company headquarters in Savannah, Ga., to a G450 at its home base at Waukegan National Airport in Illinois. The G450 made its scheduled flight the next morning.

This milestone comes more than 13 years after Gulfstream launched the business aviation industry’s first airborne maintenance and support service. The airborne support element of Fast deploys two G150s, more than 50 technicians and pilots and a support team of more than 230 people. It also has support vehicles throughout the U.S. and Europe. The airborne unit has accumulated more than 16,600 flight hours and covered 8 million nautical miles since its inception in May 2002. Last year it launched more than 580 missions and logged 2,378 flight hours.

“Returning an aircraft to service with minimal downtime is what Fast is all about,” said Gulfstream Product Support president Derek Zimmerman. “It takes a tremendous effort to pull off a swift, well coordinated response to operators whose aircraft are unexpectedly grounded as a result of needed parts or technical assistance.”