Aircraft and factors reshaping business aviation
General aviation aircraft deliveries are on the rebound, in the COVID-19 post-pandemic era, as they recover from an overall 16+% sag in 2020. “We’re obviously in recovery,” says Rolland Vincent, head of the Plano, Texas-based aviation market research and analysis firm bearing his name. He notes that the International Monetary Fund predicts the U.S. will experience a 6.4% growth in gross domestic product output in 2021.
“OEMs really ramped down production in 2020, with deliveries falling 22%. Now, things are really looking up as these are the best GDP numbers in 40 years. This puts wind into our sales, translating into aircraft sales,” says Vincent.
Capturing the full benefit of strong economic tailwinds, Dassault Aviation announced the $75 million Falcon 10X in early May, a fully clean-sheet, top-end aircraft that will compete head-on with the Bombardier Global 7500 and Gulfstream G700. While Dassault is the last business aircraft maker to enter this rarified niche, it benefits from the strongest customer loyalty of any of the major OEMs, says Vincent. The Falcon customer demographic always has valued high technology, sophisticated systems design and fuel efficiency over ultimate speed and range performance.
This time, however, there will be no such trade-offs as the Falcon 10X represents a sea change in design philosophy at Dassault Aviation. Slated for initial customer deliveries in late 2025, the new French flagship will be the biggest and heaviest purpose-built business jet yet built. Its ramp presence is impressive, being 109.6 ft. long, with a 110.3-ft. span and 27.6-ft. height. With a 115,000-lb. MTOW, it will outweigh the Global 7500 and carry slightly more fuel. Yet, its estimated BOW will be 400 lb. less than the Canadian jet, currently the heftiest purpose-built business jet. The Falcon 10X will have a 2,400-lb. tanks-full payload, depending on options, and a higher maximum payload than competitors from Montreal and Savannah. With about 33-deg. sweep at quarter chord--more than any previous Falcon—and a new high-aspect-ratio, super-critical airfoil, it’s clearly designed for efficient cruise at Mach 0.85 to 0.88. It will cede virtually nothing in cruise performance to the fastest competitors in class.
The Falcon 10X has little in common with its predecessors, other than its Mach II Rafale-inspired digital flight controls and some systems architecture. It’s the first Dassault business jet to have a T-tail, the first top-end Falcon in 45 years to have only two engines, the first Falcon to be powered by Rolls-Royce turbofans, the first Falcon to have a composite wing and the first business aircraft to have dual HUDs certified as primary flight displays.
It will be powered by twin Rolls-Royce Pearl 10X turbofans, the largest and most-powerful versions of the second-generation Pearl-series. Expected output will exceed the 18,250-lb. thrust of the Pearl 700 engines fitted to the Gulfstream G700. The new engines will squeeze 5% more thrust out of each pound of fuel, meet Stage V noise standards and produce substantially lower exhaust emissions than the BR700-series powerplants from which they are derived. The Pearl 10X should be quite mature at entry into service, having already accumulated more than 1,000 cycles and 500 hr. on the test stand at Rolls-Royce’s Dahlewitz, Germany, facility in preparation for flight testing aboard its “Spirit of Endeavor” Boeing 747-400 flying testbed in the coming months. The Pearl 10X’s Advance2 core also has been tested to run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel.
DASSAULT AVIATION
The Falcon 10X thus will carry eight passengers 7,500 nm while cruising at Mach 0.85, 29 kt. faster than the long-range cruise speed of any previous Falcon. Its range at its Mach 0.90 high-speed cruise will be more than 6,000 nm, says Carlos Brana, Dassault Aviation’s executive vice president, civil aircraft. Mmo redline will be Mach 0.925. And with its 100% SAF certification, it promises to be a green neighbor.
Brana says that while there are “good competitors” in the 7,500+ nm large-cabin segment, Dassault’s goal with the Falcon 10X is to “reinvent the customer experience to make sure the passengers enjoy the flight.” So, this aircraft will cosset passengers in the largest volume cabin ever offered in a purpose-built business aircraft, allowing them “not to be stuck in their seats,” notes Brana. For comparison, the Falcon 10X’s cross section is 8-in. wider than that of the Falcon 6X, already the current purpose-built business jet record holder for the largest cabin cross-section. The Falcon 10X’s cabin is only about 2 in. narrower than an Embraer E2 regional jet cabin.
Having a 2,780-cu.-ft., four-section cabin, offering 50% more volume than the Falcon 6X, Dassault calls the Falcon 10X “Your Penthouse Suite in the Sky.” Overall interior length is 53.9 ft. and the net length of the four sections, excluding forward galley and aft lavatory, is approximately 35 ft. The standard four-section cabin includes a four-chair forward club section, four-seat dining area, center cabin lounge suite and aft private stateroom. Each of the four sections is close to 9 ft. long and 9 ft. wide with four of the largest windows ever fitted to a Falcon jet on each side. They’re about one-third larger than the windows of the Falcon 6X, numbering 38 in total. Pilots also will notice that the windshields and side windows are considerably larger than in previous Falcons.
For additional privacy, Dassault will offer a fully enclosed, convertible single sofa sleeper chair as a personal, single passenger compartment, similar to a first-class sleeper unit aboard a commercial jetliner. This will enable a passenger to work or rest in seclusion.
The aft lavatory has left- and right-side windows, another first for a Falcon jet. The right-side forward galley, nearly 9 ft. long, has four windows and ample capacity to support 16-hr. missions with multiple meals and beverage services. Forward of the galley, there is a right-side crew lavatory.
The skylight, prominently featured in the Falcon 6X galley, apparently is not being carried over into the new aircraft. The left side of the galley features a crew rest compartment with two windows and a fold-up, side-facing crew rest chair. When the crew rest chair is stowed, the crew rest compartment can be configured with a 7-ft.-long crew rest bunk.
Alternatively, customers may choose a four-lounge floor plan with a larger aft lavatory with four windows and optional shower. The tradeoff is a 25% shorter center-cabin lounge suite, still well-suited for use as a private home theater.
A third layout will be offered, featuring three larger zones, including a 25% longer dining/conference area with four individually accessible chairs, a 50% larger aft stateroom and the larger aft lavatory. All layouts are configured with the same basic forward galley, crew rest compartment and crew lavatory. All floor plans also feature a 200-cu.-ft. aft interior baggage compartment, plus an 8-cu.-ft. unpressurized compartment in the left aft wing root fairing designed to stow fly-away kit items.
The Falcon 10X will have 10.6-psi pressurization, the highest of any Falcon yet built. This provides a 3,000-ft. cabin altitude at FL 410 and a 5,100-ft. cabin altitude at FL 510. Brana predicts that cabin sound levels will be equal to, or lower than, those of the Falcon 8X, already one of the quietest large-cabin aircraft in operation. Temperature and humidity, lights and shades will be adjustable in each of the four zones, with functions controlled by a Dassault app hosted by iPhones or other PDAs.
Up front, flight crews will experience the most intuitive, lowest workload flight deck yet offered in a Falcon jet. The Falcon 10X borrows more from Rafale than any of Dassault’s previous civil aircraft. Dual FalconEye HUDs, with both synthetic and multi-spectral enhanced vision systems, function as primary flight displays as they do in military jets. The head-down displays may be configured several different ways as appropriate for the phase of flight.
While the flight deck layout doesn’t yet have a name, it’s based on the Falcon 6X’s EASy III, powered by Honeywell Primus Epic, featuring four 14-in. displays in a T configuration that have been upgraded with a touchscreen function. Four additional 9-in. touchscreen controllers flank the main displays on the left, right and bottom. As touchscreens can be tricky to use in turbulence, Dassault has retained twin cursor control devices, but they’re upgraded with touchscreens that replace the trackballs.
The new touchscreens make possible virtual switches that control various systems through synoptic diagrams on the large-format displays. This greatly reduces the number of hard switches on the overhead panel and makes possible interactive checklists that sense virtual switch position and systems status. The result is considerably shorter, simpler checklists.
The Falcon 10X retains the flight-path stable control law, first introduced on business jets with the Falcon 7X. The Falcon 10X’s digital flight control system is being upgraded to dampen gust loads from turbulence to improve ride comfort.
As in the Rafale cockpit, a single “Smart Throttle” will control both engines once they are running. In case of a partial or full engine failure, the engines can be split with one making rated thrust and the other operating at reduced power or completely shut down.
The Smart Throttle is fully integrated with the digital flight control system and autopilot to support new functions, such as automatic upset recovery, a future ground collision avoidance mode inspired by Rafale, noise abatement thrust reduction and soft go-around to prevent slamming the passengers into their seat when executing missed approaches. Also borrowed from Rafale, the Smart Throttle has left- and right-side air-brake switches that replace the left-side air-brake lever in the center stand. The slat/flaps control also has been relocated to middle of the center console behind the Smart Throttle from the right side of the stand for easy access by either pilot.
Company engineers believe the pilot workload is so much lower aboard the Falcon 10X that they’re proposing 1+1 flight-crew staffing, thereby enabling the off-duty pilot to sleep in a fully reclining crew seat on the flight deck for 120-150 min. while cruising above FL 200. Dassault officials say they’re already having discussions with the FAA and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) about certifying this feature in the future with the goal of reducing crew fatigue.
“Dassault had been conspicuously missing from the $75 million, ultra-long-range segment,” says Richard Aboulafia, Teal Group’s vice president of analysis. Vincent says the battle at the top of the pyramid now is joined. “We always knew this would be a three-way race. Now, the game is afoot.” Other Debuts, Trends The Falcon 10X flagship announcement shouldn’t distract our readers from picking up on other 2021 business aviation trends. We welcome the debuts of the 5,500-nm Falcon 6X, Airbus ACJTwoTwenty and Cessna SkyCourier in this year’s Purchase Planning Handbook, all long in coming. Expect more new models to be announced next year.
BOMBARDIER
“The tide started to rise in mid-2020, floating all boats,” says industry analyst Brian Foley. “December was a blow-out month for aircraft sales, with momentum carrying over to January 2021. Last year was unexpectedly great for both new and used aircraft.”
With COVID-19 virtually stopping international travel and thus the demand for long-range aircraft, light and midsize jet sales were buoyed in the U.S. as they are used primarily for domestic missions. “The pendulum will swing this year toward large-cabin, long-range jets.”
Bargains in the pre-owned market have dried up. “There are slim pickings now,” says Foley. This will help drive demand for new aircraft orders. As a result, book-to-bill ratios are up. Gulfstream scored 1.3 in first quarter 2021 and Textron Aviation was close to 1.5 to 1.6, says Vincent.
Single-engine turboprops and light jets are doing well, especially with innovative fresh designs such as the all-composite Epic E1000, Cessna Citation CJ4 Gen2 and Pilatus PC-24. Demand for the HondaJet Elite is on the rise. The midsize and super-midsize (SMS) segments are recovering nicely, particularly with an expected announcement from Textron regarding an improved version of the Citation XLS+ and Embraer’s considerably more-capable Praetor 500 and 600 SMS aircraft replacing the Legacy 450 and 500.
The rising tide also sunk a few other slow-selling models. The Citation Latitude eclipsed the Citation Sovereign+. Bombardier’s Global 5000 and 6000 large-cabin aircraft were replaced by the more-capable Global 5500 and 6500, with refined aerodynamics, more-fuel-efficient Rolls-Royce Pearl 15 engines and upgraded cabin furnishings.
Demand for the Bombardier Challenger 650 has all but vanished, with only 12 deliveries in 2020, says Vincent. Learjet 75 production has ceased, a victim of the hot-selling Embraer Phenom 300E. Kevin Michaels, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, opines that Bombardier only has $5.6 billion in revenues and has lost much of the “critical mass” needed to survive in an increasingly competitive business aircraft market. Michaels observes that Textron, Dassault and General Dynamics--Gulfstream’s parent company--all have sizable defense sector income to offset lean times in business aviation. Bombardier has no such cushion.
Moreover, Bombardier has a $4 billion debt that starts to come due in 2023. And analysts don’t believe it will become cash-flow positive until 2022 at the earliest. Debt restructuring or rescheduling clearly is on the table.
Optimists, however, say that Bombardier’s Global 5500, 6500 and 7500 are strong competitors and should sell well as the market recovers. With nearly 5,000 Global, Challenger and Learjet aircraft in service, Bombardier has strong potential to exploit aftermarket support and parts supply. But since industry surveys consistently rank it near the bottom in customer support surveys, the Canadian firm has a steep climb to come up to the level of Dassault, Gulfstream and Embraer. This, while its market capitalization has declined to $2 billion.
All these pressures make Bombardier a prime candidate for acquisition, merger or a massive infusion of private equity. Surviving the storm will take reducing debt, taking full advantage of aftermarket support opportunities and good fortune in new aircraft sales, according to Michaels.
EMBRAER
COVID-19 accelerated the demise of other OEMs’ models. The Nextant G90XT has been dropped from the Handbook and Nextant 400 XTi deliveries have all but stopped. The SyberJet SJ30i may not be dead, but it appears to be in a persistent vegetative state. Mahindra stopped building Gipps Airvans.
Even with strong U.S. economic growth and book-to-bill ratios on the rise, other parts of the business aviation industry won’t rebound immediately in 2021. “Equity markets are strong, but corporate profits are soft. There is sluggish consumer spending and savings rates are at a half century high. The travel, tourism and hospitality sectors are way off. There is so much cash sloshing around out there,” says Aboulafia. It will take quite some time to recover from the after-effects of COVID-19.
Then, too, the aviation supply chain has been severely disrupted, causing widespread shortages in airframe and systems components, cabin equipment and engine parts, among others, says Vincent. Airbus and Boeing are feeling the strain of ramping up production to meet increased demand. General aviation manufacturers are dependent on many of the same suppliers as the firms that build commercial jetliners, so they too are feeling the pinch in parts supply.
Bottom line? A full recovery of the business aviation industry won’t occur until 2024 to 2025—just in time for the Falcon 10X’s entry into service.
