Dassault breezed into the show with its brand-new Falcon 2000LX. The next evolution of its best-selling 2000 family, the 2000LX can fly an extra 370km (200nm) – up to 7,400km – and climb to 41,000ft (12,500m) in 18min. Dassault has teamed with Aviation Partners (API) to improve the 2000EX by adding high-mach blended winglets, reducing drag by up to 5%, at Mach 0.80, thus increasing range and cutting fuel consumption.
“The range increase gives our customers more efficiency on longer trips and they will surely enjoy seeing their fuel consumption numbers drop,” says John Rosanvallon, Dassault Falcon Jet’s president and chief executive. “Our fuel efficiency advantage over the competition will continue to grow.”
The 2000LX can now fly 370km further than Gulfstream’s G350 and almost as far as Bombardier’s Challenger 605, which reaches 7,485km. Designed to broaden possible city pairs, customers can now travel comfortably between Paris and New York, even in strong headwinds. The aircraft can also connect New York-Moscow; Paris-Delhi and Hong Kong-Brisbane.
Powered by the same Pratt & Whitney Canada PW308C engines as the 2000EX, the 2000LX comes standard with the same EASy flightdeck and cabin as its predecessor. So far the aircraft has flown 130h in its flight test campaign, which will finish this summer.
Dassault says it opted for winglets rather than adding fuel capacity as it did not want to add extra weight to the aircraft. This presented a challenge to its partner, which produced a design that is three times deeper into the drag rise than for normal cruise. “We’ve never designed a winglet before that performs so well, so high into the drag rise,” says Joe Clark, chairman and chief executive of API. Certification is due in the last quarter of 2007 and the 2000LX will replace the 2000EX for 2010 deliveries. Until then, customers can opt to add the winglets for an extra $550,000.
Retrofits for the 2000 series will begin shortly after certification and take place at Dassault’s facilities in Le Bourget and Wilmington. The two companies may add winglets to the Falcon 900 family and API also plans to offer retrofits for the Falcon 50. It is a bumper year for Dassault, last month its Falcon 7X became the first business jet to attain European and US certification simultaneously and it looks set to announce an engine supplier for a new model in the near future.
Source: Flight Daily News
