Dassault aviation has released a video sequence of its Falcon 7X ultra long-range business jet undergoing a series of extreme conditions trials.
Dassault says the 7X has been subjected to the "most rigorous testing regimen ever assembled for a business jet". The clip shows the prototype taken from hot weather extremes in the desert to the "coldest conditions on the planet", when the second prototype went in April last year to Iqualuit, Canada. The 7X got covered in a snow drift that covered the aircraft with more than 1m (3ft 3in) of snow that had to be shovelled off prior to power-up tests.
In another segment of the video (below), the aircraft undertakes the most severe icing conditions in the air. But the pièce de résistance is a July test on the highly-flooded runway at Cranfield, UK. The test pilots demonstrated the ability to come to a dead stop in water over 2cm (1in) deep, through which Dassault chief test pilot Philippe Deleume taxied 12 times at speeds of up to 105kt (190km/h) with the Pratt & Whiteny PW307A engines in reverse thrust.
The aircraft undertook 1,400h of tests over an eight month period that also included high altitude landings in the US Rockies.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
