Completes Cold Weather Testing

Representatives with Dassault Falcon tell ANN that Falcon 7X s/n 02 (F-WTDA) recently completed five days of cold soak trials at Iqaluit and Resolute Bay in northern Canada. Temperatures during the tests reached as low as -33 C during the campaign that ran from April 6 to April 10. All aircraft systems performed as designed.

"Despite the brutal weather conditions that included a blizzard during the third day of testing, the Falcon 7X performed very well," said Bill Kerherve, Senior Chief Test Pilot for Dassault Aviation. "We had no problems in starting or warming the aircraft. All systems and avionics came online very quickly after start-up. Performance of the Pratt and Whitney Canada 307A engines was excellent."

The aircraft performed high-speed taxi and aborted take-off tests on the gravel and packed ice runway and made several landings in 20+ knot crosswind conditions. The tests also proved aircraft systems functionality under extreme weather conditions including all avionics installed on the EASy flight deck, electrical, hydraulic and fly-bywire.

Iqaluit is a popular place for airplane manufacturers to test the cold-weather durability of their newest aircraft. In February, Airbus flew the A380 there for similar cold-soak testing.

To date, the Falcon 7X test program has accumulated 540 flight test hours over 172 flights. The entire flight test program will last approximately 1200 hours. Final certification is expected in early 2007 with deliveries starting shortly after. Over 80 copies of the world’s first purpose built fly-by-wire business jet have been sold making it the most popular Falcon ever at this point in the launch of a new aircraft.

Dassault Falcon Jet Corp. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dassault Aviation, and is responsible for selling and supporting Falcon business jets throughout North America, South America, and the Pacific Rim countries of Asia --including China. Since the rollout of the first Falcon 20 in 1963, over 1800 Falcon jets have been sold to more than 65 countries worldwide.

The family of Falcon jets currently in production includes four tri-jets -- the Falcon 50EX, 900DX, 900EX EASy, and the new 7X -- as well as the twin-engine Falcon 2000, Falcon 2000DX and Falcon 2000EX EASy.

FMI: www.dassaultfalcon.com