Dassault Falcon Jets – A Different Breed
As the only company in the world that builds both fighter jets and business jets, Dassault is able to transfer fighter technology and construction techniques to its business jets.
The Falcon 6X (right) shares more traits with the fighter jet Rafale than one could see or imagine.Last year, Dassault celebrated the 60th anniversary of the first Falcon Jet—the Falcon 20. Its story is worth recounting briefly. Famous aviator Charles Lindbergh recommended the plane to Pan Am Airlines for a new business jet division. The Falcon 20 was his choice based on solid, fighter-like construction and high performance.
Pan Am, then the de-facto US flag carrier, had a prestigious global presence. It bought 40 Falcon 20s for resale to corporate customers with an option for 120 more. A few years later, Fred Smith bought 33 of them to launch FedEx, making extensive modifications, including a six-foot-wide cargo door in the sturdy airframe. The US Coast Guard bought a fleet as well for search and rescue, and even experimented with putting afterburners on the engines.
To say the least, the plane was adaptable.
Why is this important to business operators today? Because the traits that made the Falcon 20 exceptional at the time are also the same ones that make today’s Falcons fundamentally different than other modern business jets—and in ways that are important to their owners.
No other business jet line has a heritage quite like the Falcons, that is because Dassault is the only company in the world that builds both fighter jets (currently, the Rafale) and also business jets. It is therefore able to transfer fighter technology and construction techniques (the company calls it fighter DNA) to its business jets.
For example, all Falcons today are assembled with strong piano hinge attach points between wing and fuselage, just as in the fighters, with 100 titanium bolts sinching the connection. Dassault fighters and business jets have long used machined structures that are both light and strong.
All Dassault business jets have slats and flaps for slow, safe approach speeds to short airfields. They are similar to the Rafale systems that permit carrier landings. And both types of aircraft have tough trailing link landing gear that can take a pounding (and make every arrival smooth in a business jet). They also permit the business jets to land at close to maximum takeoff weight, so a Falcon could make a short hop, pick up passengers, and fly across an ocean. That kind of capability adds to mission flexibility.
There is always a race to achieve a technological advantage in fighters, generating advances that can be transferred to civil aircraft. From the 50s through the early 2000s, Dassault constantly improved the Mach 2 Mirage fighter series. It was a mainstay of French defense and a global export success. Since then, the Rafale, has been constantly upgraded and is also an export mainstay.
Digital flight control technology, commonly referred to as fly-by-wire design, is the top benefit that Dassault business jets get from the fighters. Other business jets now have fly by wire, but none have been refining this technology for nearly 50 years as Dassault has.
In a fighter, the pilot needs to be heads-up, focused on the mission, and the threat environment. Therefore, flying the airplane should be as easy and intuitive as possible. Rafale flight controls have been designed with ease of use in mind. Dassault has carried this philosophy into its business jets.
For example, in other aircraft models, the pilot is required to manually trim off control pressures as speed changes. In fly-by-wire Falcons, trimming is automatic. A Falcon’s Smart Sidestick has other fighter features to control trajectory. A pilot can initiate a climbing turn and then release the control completely; the aircraft will stay on that flight path until another input is made.
Falcons are known for their precise and easy handling. They are easier to fly because the digital flight controls are more precise, simpler to manage, and offer a range of protections. The pilot cannot overstress, overspeed or stall the aircraft. Falcon digital flight controls provide confidence in the worst conditions such as wind shear and gusty crosswinds. They provide a smoother ride in turbulence because they react faster and more precisely to quick, sharp updrafts and downdrafts.
Consider also, Falcons have no life limits on primary structure, no speed limits in turbulence and the ability to land on unpaved runways.
Drawing on fighter design, Dassault was the first to put a head-up display in an airliner – its Mercure single-aisle jet from the ‘70s. It allowed near zero-zero landings. Dassault then installed the first head-up display in a business jet, a Falcon 2000 in 1993, for improved situational awareness.
Today, the company goes many steps further with its Combined Vision System (CVS), which fuses multiple sensor data and a global terrain database to create an outside picture of the world on a head-up display showing mountains, obstacles, runways, even animals on runways in darkness and fog.
It is an immense addition to safety that also helps pilots access airports that lack precision approaches when they might otherwise need to divert elsewhere.
Dassault introduced the first fly-by-wire plane in business aviation in 2007. The Falcon 7X set the benchmark for superior handling and safety protections and is still at the leading edge of digital flight control.
Each subsequent Falcon has introduced more advanced versions of what Dassault calls DFCS (Digital Flight Control System). The 8X followed the 7X with longer fuselage, new and lighter wing, more fuel capacity, and longer range. It can fly 6,450nm nonstop. An interesting aspect of the 8X is that because of its fighter DNA, it is about a third lighter than competitors with lower fuel consumption and lower direct operating costs. The 8X is also one of the quietest business jets, if not the quietest, with interior sound levels about 50 dB or less, equivalent to a suburban living room.
Dassault’s newest aircraft, the Falcon 6X ultra-wide-body business jet entered service in late 2023, with deliveries now underway. Those who have flown it say it is even quieter. Dassault’s 6X demonstrator aircraft has been on a constant worldwide tour including to Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.
This 5,500-nautical mile aircraft has the largest cabin cross section in business aviation. Cabin height is six feet, six inches, and width is eight feet, six inches. Its cabin has won design awards from leading industrial design organisations. Like all of Dassault’s jets, it is equipped for high-speed communications from almost any spot above the globe. In pre-certification proving flights, the company often had a dozen or more engineers aboard, many of them engaged in video conferences with the home office or otherwise utilising onboard communications and entertainment systems.
The 6X has an advanced version of DFCS that integrates more controls into the fly-by-wire system, including a new control called a flaperon—part flap, part aileron. Among other things, it helps smooth the ride in turbulence and allows for steeper approaches with excellent speed control where required. It even integrates nosewheel steering into the fly-by-wire system for precise tracking on wet runways and in crosswinds.
Now that the 6X has entered service, Dassault is more than ever focused on its next business jet, the 10X, which begins final assembly this year and will be certified in 2027. The 10X is even larger than the 6X and will be the largest and most comfortable purpose-built business jet—that is, not a repurposed airliner. The 10X will fly close to the speed of sound—Mach 0.925 and up to 7,500 nm.
The 10X will have even more advanced flight deck and flight controls. These include a ‘Smart Throttle’, which is one lever controlling both engines, and completely integrated with the digital flight control system. This new level of integration allows for a new safety feature—an automatic recovery mode. Should the aircraft encounter some type of upset, for example, in a wake turbulence encounter, it can be restored to straight and level flight at the touch of a button.
The ‘Smart Throttle’ draws on similar technology in the Rafale—yet another example of Dassault’s fighter DNA being transferred into its business jets.
Meanwhile, the company’s smallest jet, the 4,000-nautical-mile 2000LXS, remains its best seller. It is not a fly-by-wire airplane but is also known for its pleasing and precise handling qualities. More than 700 2000-series jets have been delivered. The 10-seat jet, certified in 1994, remains a model of efficiency and go-anywhere short-field performance.
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