Dassault could have a supersonic business jet on the market "within 10 years" and is looking at whether Concorde's demise creates a niche for a faster-than-sound transport.
"There are passengers who have become accustomed to travelling in Concorde. These are suddenly potential customers for a supersonic business jet," says vice-chairman Bruno Revellin-Falcoz.
But the French manufacturer would have to find an engine. Lack of a suitable powerplant was the main reason Dassault scrapped a project to build a Falcon 50 class jet capable of cruising at Mach 1.8 at the end of the 1990s.
"We would have to say to manufacturers: 'Can you provide me with an engine to sustain supersonic speed for 95% of the time?' We would have to redesign the engine," says Revellin-Falcoz.
Meanwhile, Dassault has effectively abandoned studies into an aircraft smaller than its super-mid-size Falcon 50EX trijet, in the medium sector that its Falcon 10 used to occupy (Flight International, 17-23 September, 2002).
Dassault says its new long-range business jet, the Falcon 7X, will make its flying debut at the 2005 Paris air show. The company is extending its factory at Merignac, near Bordeaux, and will begin assembling the first examples of the fly-by-wire trijet later this year.
Dassault says it is on track for US and European certification for its Honeywell Primus Epic-based EASy flightdeck-equipped version of the 2000EX large twinjet in the first quarter of next year.
Deliveries of the larger 900EX equipped with EASy begin later this year. The company expects to ship 20 900EXs in 2003, 12 with the new flightdeck. Dassault predicts about 60 business jet deliveries this year, down from 66 in 2002.
Source: Flight International
