Dassault has announced its airframe partners for manufacture of the Falcon 7X long-range business jet. EADS Socata will supply the upper fuselage and body fairing; Latécoère the rear fuselage; EADS Casa the horizontal stabiliser; Fokker the trailing edge movable surface; Sonaca the wing leading edge; and Hurel Hispano and Aermacchi will make the nacelles and thrust reversers.
The Falcon 7X will be the first business aircraft to use fly-by-wire technology. Dassault will design, develop and produce the triplex digital flight control system, based on technology developed by the company's military division and used on the Mirage 2000 and Rafale fighters.
"Fly-by-wire is a trend that has fully encompassed civilian jetliners and will spread to both business jets and regional jets before the end of the decade," says John Rosanvallon, president of Dassault Falcon Jet.
Combining fly-by-wire sidesticks with the large displays of the company's EASy advanced flightdeck will result in more cockpit room than any other aircraft in the 7X's class, he says.
Fly-by-wire will reduce pilot workload and improve handling qualities, says Olivier Villa, vice-president of Falcon programmes. Fly-by-wire offers pilots "a level of control that can't be matched by mechanical means" and will be coupled with a brake-by-wire control system that will feature "full redundancy and auto brake capability".
The EASy flightdeck, meanwhile, has been installed on a Falcon 900EX and is scheduled to fly early next year. The system, which is based on Honeywell's Primus Epic avionics, will be standard on all widebody Falcons within two years. The system displays flight data, checklists and navigation information in graphical formats and will lead to a "paperless cockpit" in time, the company says.
Source: Flight International