About the aircraft
The Dassault Falcon 7X is a large-cabin, 5,950 nmi range business jet manufactured by Dassault Aviation, the largest of its Dassault Falcon line. Launched at 2001 Paris Air Show, its first flight was on 5 May 2005 and it entered service on 15 June 2007. The Falcon 8X is derived from the 7X with a longer range of 6,450 nmi afforded by engine optimizing, aerodynamic refinements and an increase in fuel capacity. Featuring an S-duct central engine, it is one of only two trijets in production with the Falcon 900.
Dassault launched the FNX at the 2001 Paris Air Show, aiming for a 10,500km (5,700nm) range at Mach 0.88 up from the Falcon 900EX 8,300km at Mach 0.84. Its new high-speed wing is 1.86m (11.4ft) wider and with 5° higher wing sweep than the 900 wing, its 20% longer fuselage is keeping the same cabin cross-section but with a new curved windscreen. The trijet have a combined thrust of 18,000lb (80kN) to be provided by Honeywell FX5, a new design, or a Pratt & Whitney Canada PW306 growth version. Based on Honeywell Primus Epic avionics, its EASy cockpit is developed for the Falcon 2000EX and 900EX and controls are fly-by-wire. Scheduled to fly in 2004, first deliveries were planned for mid-2006.
With 41 deposits, it was named 7X in November with first flight slipping from late 2004 to early 2005 and certification planned for mid-2006. With a simplified structure to reduce cost and weight, the optimised high-transonic wing improves by more than 10% the lift-to-drag ratio over the supercritical-section wing of the Falcon 50 shared by previous Falcons. The cabin is 2.4m (8ft) longer than the 900 and have a lower 6,000ft (1,800m) cabin altitude. the 6,100lb-thrust (21.7kN) PW307A was finally selected, among other risk-sharing partners: Honeywell for avionics architecture, auxiliary power unit, air management system; with Parker Hannifin for the power generation system and wheels brakes; and TRW Aeronautical Systems for the hydromechanical flap and airbrake systems.