Julian Moxon/BORDEAUX
DASSAULT AVIATION has started preliminary studies into an advanced medium-sized business jet which the French manufacturer hopes will be around 30% cheaper to build than current aircraft manufactured by its rivals.
Aimed as a replacement for its now out-of-production Falcon 20, the new aircraft will be available in "not less than five years", says Falcon programme manager Olivier Villa. "We intend to begin something that will eventually feed into the entire range of our business aircraft as we renew our range," he adds.
The new aircraft must cost "between $10 million and $12 million", says Villa, and be capable of greater speed and longer range than those of its rivals such as the Raytheon Hawker 800. "We're talking about at least 2,800nm [5,000km] and Mach 0.80," he adds. "We have to look in more detail, but we believe it must have a coast-to-coast capability".
Having captured almost 50% of new business-jet sales in its sector in 1994, Dassault has turned its Falcon programme into a major part of the company's business with the decline of military sales.
Speaking at the roll-out of the new Falcon 900EX, Dassault vice-president and financial director Charles Edeistenne said that the company sold 45 Falcons in 1994, compared with 23 in 1993. This year there have been ten new orders "...possibly the largest number we have seen so early in the year", he adds.
Chairman Serge Dassault says that the company has won ten orders for the 900EX, the first of which will be delivered to Sony in late 1996. The eight-passenger 900EX is similar to the Falcon 900B, but has new AlliedSignal TFE 731-60 engines, Honeywell-supplied Primus 2000 avionics and increased range.
With flight tests due to begin on the 900EX in May, Dassault now wants to complete its range of business jets, consisting of the Falcon 50, 2000, 900B and 900EX, with a smaller aircraft. "It's a very competitive area in a market slot which contains no new aircraft," says Villa.
The effort to reduce costs, and hence the price of the aircraft, centres on suppliers. Villa says: "We have to find totally new methods to reduce prices." The result will, he adds, amount to a "revolution" in manufacturing methods at Dassault Aviation.
Cost reduction, can also be achieved through design, Villa stresses. "For example, we're looking at using fly-by-wire flight control as a way of enabling us to modify the aerodynamic design in a way that reduces costs." Several aerodynamic configurations are being studied, "but nothing too dramatic". Advanced materials are also likely to figure heavily in the design, he adds.
Source: Flight International
