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Aviation History
2002
2002 - 2139.PDF
By • l&GA time of its debut, the de Havilland 125. Design detail has been key to the Falcon's US success, where European prod ucts tend to cost more than their domestic rivals but rely on better engineering to sus tain sales, Rosanvallon says. It appears to have worked - the majority of Dassault's sales are in the USA. US heritage The company also plays up its US heritage. Charles Lindbergh, who met Marcel Dassault after his first transatlantic flight in 1927, became the first Dassault distributor in the USA and persuaded Pan American World Airways' then-president Juan Trippe to take a dozen Falcon 20s for its US fleet. Although Dassault bought back Pan Am's 50% stake in the joint distribution venture and made Falcon Jet a wholly owned sub sidiary in 1980, the company still has three facilities in the USA - its headquarters at Teterboro, New Jersey; a completion centre in Little Rock, Arkansas; and a mainte nance operation at Wilmington, Delaware. Falcons are built in Merignac, near Bordeaux in south-western France. Design work takes place in the Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud, where Dassault is designing its new aircraft, the Falcon 7X, formerly the FNX. The long-range, high-speed air craft will be the first Dassault business jet with all risk-sharing partners working together in the design phase. Eighteen companies have engineers in Saint-Cloud, where three-dimensional computer mod els aVid shared real-time plans mean that information transfer delays are avoided. The new aircraft's "high-transonic" wing is thought to account for over half the pro ject's €265 million development costs, not including costs borne by engine supplier Pratt & Whitney Canada. With Dassault also responsible for a quarter of the non-recurring costs for developing the export version of the Rafale, in a consortium with Thales and Snecma, the company clearly benefits from finding civilian applications to make its military investments more cost-effective, especially now the French government, having sold its 45.87% stake in the com pany to Aerospatiale (now EADS), can no longer provide funding support. Dassault may have used military-tech nology transfer to make the Falcon the most profitable aircraft family in produc tion, but with rivals firmly entrenched in its traditional market sector, the French manufacturer may not have such an easy ride in the future. To reach its aim of half the $20 million market, the French manu facturer must woo the world's most dis cerning travellers. • Dassault is betting heavily on the 7X's wing aero dynamics to give it the edge DEVELOPMENT Longer, faster 7X After basing an entire family around the Falcon 50's super-critical wing, Dassault has come under pressure from the mar ket for longer range and faster flight since the mid-1980s, says Jean Rosanvallon, president of Dassault Falcon Jet. Initial studies resulted in the Falcon 50EX, which, re-engined with Honeywell TFE731-40 turbofans, increases maxi mum speed to Mach 0.80 from MO.75. This was, however, a stopgap. Last year Dassault unveiled plans for the new 7X (Flight International, 6-12 November, 2001). With a range of 10,550km (5,700nm), the 7X will fly 26% further than the Falcon 900EX, but is still behind rivals the Bombardier Global Express, at 11,130km,andGulfstreamVat • 12,046km. But Rosanvallon says that when the company analysed all the major city pairs, it found that 10,000km was ample for most typical journeys. Dassault says that speed and fuel effi ciency are more important, but the 7X's maximum speed at Mach 0.9 is only frac tionally faster than M0.88 for the GV and the Global Express. With a maximum dif ference in cabin width of only 0.3m (12in) between the three, Dassault is betting heavily on its wing aerodynamics giving it the edge. The 7X is Dassault's largest air craft and has a new "high-transonic" wing, and a higher sweep and aspect ratio than the current Falcon wing. Dassault claims that this optimised shape (both aerofoil and planform) improves the lift-to-drag ratio by a factor of more than 10, while maintaining suffi cient fuel volume. Use of a third engine means that the 7X will maintain a low approach speed necessary for short take-offs and landings. Rosanvallon says that the new wing will underpin the entire Falcon range for the next 30 years. The company holds over 40 deposits on the trijet, which is likely to sell for $37 million and be certifi cated in mid-2006, with first delivery later that year. www.flightinternational.com FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 16-22 JULY 2002 111
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