The past 12 months have been exceptionally busy for Dassault in terms of both important military sales for its Rafale fighter and the development of its new Falcon 8X and 5X business jets. Following a first flight on February 6, there are now four 8X aircraft engaged in flight testing, with certification anticipated in mid 2016. The first example of the 5X rolled out in June, with a first flight anticipated before the end of the summer and certification in 2017.
Nonetheless, worldwide Falcon sales slowed down in the first half of 2015, with Dassault last month reporting 25 orders and 20 cancellations, bringing the net total to five. All of the cancellations are down to fractional ownership group NetJets, which withdrew a long-standing order for 20 Falcon 2000s. The overall order intake for the first six months of this year amounted to €610 million ($670 million), however, and deliveries for the entire year are expected to remain steady, at 65 jets.
Eighteen Falcons worth €919 million ($1 billion) were delivered in the first six months of 2015. “The beginning of the year is always slower,” noted Dassault CEO Eric Trappier in a July 23 press conference. As of June 30, the Falcon backlog stood at 108aircraft.
Dassault partly attributes the slowing sales to a weaker global market. “After a good 2014, the beginning of 2015 has not been very impressive,” said Trappier. He mentioned large emerging countries–especially Brazil–as particularly difficult markets in the current economic climate. “Competition is extremely fierce, while the political and economic environment remains uncertain,” the firm added in a financialrelease.
But he remains hopeful for the second half of the year, which is usually more active. The U.S. and Northern Europe are doing well, according to Trappier. Moreover, he noted an “active” second-hand market, a “good sign” for the new aircraftmarket.
In addition to the four 8Xs involved in test flights, another prototype is currently being outfitted with its interior. Dassault’s engineers will use it to evaluate comfort, cabin systems and soundproofing. Another prototype will also receive a cabin interior and will be part of an endurance program as well as a certification aircraft.
Falcon 5X
Dassault unveiled the first prototype of the 5,200-nm Falcon 5X twinjet at its factory in Bordeaux, southwest France, on June 2 and is preparing to fly the aircraft in the next few weeks. Despite some complications with Snecma’s Silvercrest engine, certification of the new turbofan is still anticipated in mid 2016. Dassault has acknowledged that it is evaluating progress with the Silvercrest certification work to be mindful of possible knock-on delays.
The 5X cockpit features the first-ever combined vision system, in which supplier Elbit merges synthetic and “real world” vision for enhanced situational awareness in poor weather and at night. The system has been flying on another Falcon type at Dassault’s flight-test center in Istres, in southeastern France.
The 5X’s cockpit windows are 30 percent larger than those on previous Falcons. “This provides enhanced visibility on a visual approach and allows you to better anticipate your flight path,” chief test pilot Philippe Deleume told AIN. Flight control surfaces include flaperons, combining flaps and ailerons. On a steep approach, they allow the pilot to fly the attitude independent from the slope angle, explained Olivier Villa, Dassault’s senior v-p for civil aircraft.
CAE is building simulators (two initially) for pilot training. They will use 7000XR technology, which recently entered service on an Airbus A320 simulator. The level-D devices will use a full-electric motion system.
The Falcon 5X has a projected range of 5,200 nm at Mach 0.80 and a top speed of Mach 0.90.
8X Flight Testing
Dassault’s new flagship, the 6,450-nm Falcon 8X, made its maiden flight with test pilots Eric Gérard and Hervé Laverne at the controls. During the inaugural flight, the trijet leveled off at 5,000feet and raised its landing gear before beginning flight handling maneuvers and system tests at 15,000 feet. It later climbed to 40,000 feet, accelerating to Mach0.80. “We reached each of the performance objectives set for the first mission and, in a few cases, surpassed goals,” Gérardsaid.
The flight-test program is expected to last some 500 flight hours and is now well under way. The third 8X will be the first of the new model to be outfitted with a cabin interior, at Dassault’s Little Rock, Arkansas completionfacility.
With eight passengers and three crew members, the 8X will be able to fly 6,450 nm at Mach0.80. Meanwhile, it will retain the short-field capabilities that Falcons are famous for: six-degree steep approach capability, a balanced field length of about 6,000 feet and an approach speed of 107knots.
Improved Falcon Support
Dassault has focused hard recently on customer support around the world and has been keen to leave no gaps, so its aircraft are more appealing to customers wherever they are based. For example it has Falcon Airborne Support and FalconResponse programs in place through which it can respond quickly to ‘aircraft on ground’ (AOG) situations using two Falcon 900s–one based at Paris Le Bourget and another at Teterboro, near New York City.
FalconSpares, FalconBroadcast and Falcon Operational Support are other initiatives that mark Dassault as a company that is really giving its customers far more than just aircraft to fly.
Dassault Aircraft Services at Sorocaba Airport (west of São Paulo) is known as “Falcon do Brasil,” with the 23,000 sq ft facility having been opened in 2009. Last year Dassault launched a “major expansion” of its services in Brazil, focused at Sorocaba, “to better accommodate the demands of Brazilian and other South American customers.” This included adding another 10,000-sq-ft of hangar space.
It said that Sorocaba would be “pivotal” to its success in South America, performing lines maintenance and airframe inspections on all Falcon models (except the Falcon 20 and Falcon 100). The facility is also authorized to carry out engine maintenance on the General Electric CFE-738, Honeywell TFE731 series and the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW307A and PW308C models.
Earlier this year AIN visited Dassault’s Falcon Command Centre in St. Cloud area of Paris. It handles all customer calls and coordinates Falcon ‘Go Teams’ to support customers.
Pierre Thiélin, v-p of customer support explained that the company does “whatever it takes” to rescue a situation for its clients. “Customers expect reliability so the expectation we have is for more than 99.7 percent–that’s three delayed or cancelled flights per 1,000 attempted.”
Jacques Chauvet, senior v-p worldwide customer service, added that, “What is most important is the front line people, the CSMs [customer service managers]…out of 17 CSMs, seven are based near customers and 10 are based at St. Cloud and are traveling.” Operators can feed back into the whole system via involvement in the operator advisory board. This has one main meeting each year (most recently in February this year) but has ten very active working groups involving more than 120 customers.
Another aspect is having spares available at short notice. Ten years ago, Dassault only had parts warehouses in Teterboro and Le Bourget but now there are 13 centers around the world and the total spares inventory has increased from $300 million to $778 million [in that time],” said Chauvet. Soon Singapore will become the third main spare parts inventory and in 2015 two more facilities will be added, in Lagos, Nigeria and one in the Atlanta area.
The service center network meanwhile has 45 sites including the Dassault-owned ones at Le Bourget, Wilmington, Little Rock and São Paulo, Brazil. “The number of independent centers has decreased as we prefer to concentrate on our own,” said Chauvet.
In addition a major new maintenance facility is being built adjacent to its Bordeaux plant. The new Dassault Falcon Service Merignac facility will complement the Le Bourget facility using a duel hangar that has space for six Falcon 7X-size aircraft (the first 7X scheduled C-check was completed in March at Le Bourget so there is a growing need for capacity now). The new facility will open in mid-2016 and will help Dassault serve an in-service Falcon fleet that now totals some 2000 aircraft. “Bordeaux will be a center of excellence,” said Chauvet.
Falcon Broadcast
Thiélin gave an overview of aircraft health monitoring using FalconBroadcast. “We are always looking at what we can do with the data,” which it can gather/monitor with the customer’s agreement. “On the Easy aeroplanes [Falcons with Easy avionics] we have ECAM an can receive maintenance messages–so we can provide the customer with a diagnostic on e-mail alert. The customer can also go to the @FalconPortal to see all their messages.” He added that it is a system that is “constantly evolving…for the new aircraft [8X/5X] we are developing a new algorithmic system.”
The new aircraft will also have built-in networks allowing the collection of some 17,000 parameters. “We are thinking now about what to do with all that data–20Gb per flight!” Ultimately much of this can be downloaded as the flight proceeds via sitcom links. “We want to give better diagnostics, and predict problems if possible,” said Thiélin.
So far some 130 aircraft have FalconBroadcast “equipped and activated,” concluded Thiélin, who also mentioned FalconCare, the company’s guaranteed maintenance program. “This covers the aircraft but not the engine or APU, with a pay-as-you fly monthly fee, a flight hours fee and a fee based on number of landings.” He said it was “very popular,” with “200 active contracts; half of the 7X fleet is subscribed, for example,” he said. The service was introduced in 2004 and this year will see the incorporation of FalconSmart, a bundle of services including EFB updates covering performance calculations and tools.
Meanwhile, Dassault is preparing to provide training for flight crew operating the new Falcons. Two Falcon 8X FlightSafety Level D full-flight simulators are now on line at Teterboro Airport, New Jersey, and at the Le Bourget center. They are equipped with Vital 1100 visual systems, electric motion control and cueing, and training features Matrix, FlightSafety’s integrated training technology that includes desktop simulators and flight-deck simulators.
