Dassault Aviation has filed a lawsuit in a New York federal district court seeking $60 million in compensation from Honeywell over late deliveries of its Falcon series business aircraft ,which it claims were caused by problems with the EASy integrated avionics system.
The EASy flightdeck is based on Honeywell’s Primus Epic integrated avionics and features four large liquid-crystal displays managed via two trackball cursor-control devices mounted on the pedestal between the pilots, and has been a key feature of the Falcon series since the introduction of the fully certificated Falcon 900EX EASy in late 2003. However, this was several months later than originally planned and because of delays in certification, Dassault was forced to fly several essentially complete aircraft to its Little Rock, Arkansas, completion centre while awaiting approval of the EASy cockpit. The 2000EX EASy was certificated in August 2004, also at least four months later than planned, while the 900DX with EASy obtained its ticket in October 2005. The in-development 7X and 2000DX also have EASy cockpits.
Dassault says that “Step 3” of the EASy functionality was certificated on the 900EX in July, while Step 3 certification on the 2000EX EASy is due in mid- 2006. Dassault’s lawsuit claims it was misled by Honeywell into believing that the integrated avionics system was essentially developed when, in fact, the system required significantly more time for development.
Both EASy and the related Primus Epic have encountered delays over the past three years, with Embraer being hit particularly hard by development issues with the Primus Epic-based flightdeck on the 170 airliner. In mid-2003 Honeywell acknowledged that certification was taking longer than expected.
Source: Flight International
