New Very Wide Body Twin Set To Fly This Summer

Dassault announced Tuesday at EBACE that its new Falcon 5X will roll out on June 2 and is expected to make its maiden flight this summer.

The first 5X was powered up for the first time at the end of August 2014 and started system ground tests last autumn followed by a vibration test campaign. It was joined by s/n 02 earlier this year.

Both aircraft are participating in ground testing and s/n 01 recently completed a second engine run up cycle. 

Bench testing of key systems, including the electrical and fuel system, hydraulics and the aircraft's advanced digital flight controls, is well advanced. Pilots have completed over 250 simulation flights on the global simulation bench at Dassault Aviation headquarters in Saint-Cloud, France which replicates the 5X's flight control, avionics and hydraulic systems.

"We are pleased with the way ground tests are proceeding," said Olivier Villa, Senior Vice President, Civil Aircraft, Dassault Aviation. "We are moving ahead with preparations for the first flight and expect the aircraft to take to the air this summer."

Dassault is also moving ahead with Falcon 5X static and fatigue testing, which started earlier this year. The 30-month airframe static and fatigue test campaign, being conducted at DGA-TA (formerly CEAT) in Toulouse, France, began with preliminary trials that cleared the aircraft for flight testing.

Accumulated simulated flights during fatigue testing will be equivalent to three times the design life of the airframe, or 60,000 cycles, including damage tolerance analysis. A total of 28 different mission profiles will be covered. Cycle testing will be followed by five rounds of limit load tests with ultimate loading equal to 1.5 times the design limit load.

The campaign will also include margin testing in which engineers intentionally vary input parameters beyond design values to verify the accuracy of computer model algorithms and, ultimately, the safety margins of the structure.

In addition to standard qualification tests, aircraft equipment will be subjected to a pair of efficient endurance testing methods - the Highly Accelerated Life Test (HALT) and Highly Accelerated Stress Screening (HASS) - part of a comprehensive effort to ensure that the 5X is fully mature by delivery of the first aircraft. The testing will expose equipment and systems to extreme vibration, humidity, temperatures, pressure and other in-flight phenomena exceeding those that the aircraft will be subjected to in service.

The 5X development also benefits from the use of Dassault's new FalconScan tool, developed for onboard fault diagnosis. It has already proven very valuable facilitating ground testing.

(Image provided by Dassault)

FMI: www.dassaultfalcon.com