Falcon 10X: Dassault Thinks Big

Dassault appears to have taken to heart some advice with which weightlifters are well acquainted: go big or go home. Known for decades as the manufacturer of lighter-weight, fuel-efficient, and high-performance Falcon business jets, the company seems no longer content to be seen as a niche player in the large-cabin segment. This May it launched a potential kill shot at large-cabin, long-haul competitors Gulfstream and Bombardier, unveiling the 115,000-pound (maximum takeoff weight), Mach 0.925 Falcon 10X. 

The company expects the $75 million, 7,500-nautical-mile (at Mach 0.85) twinjet to enter service in 2025. Dassault says the 10X will feature the most advanced avionics and the tallest and widest cabin in its class, and it calls the model “the largest and most capable purpose-built business jet.” 

That’s not hyperbole. To get anything bigger, you’d need a business-branded converted airliner such as an Airbus Corporate Jet, Boeing Business Jet, or the discontinued Embraer Lineage—aircraft that require larger runways, ramps, and hangars and, in the cases of the Airbus and Boeing, cost tens of millions of dollars more once interiors are installed. 

Compared with offerings from its bizjet peer group, the cabin of the 10X will be at least eight inches wider and five inches taller. It’s six feet, eight inches tall; nine feet, one inch wide; and 53 feet, 10 inches long, yielding 2,780 cubic feet of cabin space. That’s a full 177 cubic feet more than the Gulfstream G650/700 offers, but six cubic feet less than the Bombardier Global 7500 provides. While the latter has a longer cabin, however, it is considerably narrower, at eight feet wide, and with six inches less headroom. 

A Highly Customizable Cabin

The 10X’s modular, baseline four-zone cabin allows for considerable customization. Each standard zone has its own temperature control and measures eight feet, 10 inches long with four windows on each side—but the dimensions of each zone can easily be changed, Dassault notes. For example, you can fit the 10X with a 15-and-a-half-foot-long stateroom complete with a queen-size bed and ensuite lavatory, including a stand-up shower. 

The larger tube also accommodates a more capacious forward lav and a galley big enough for scratch cooking. Natural light floods the cabin through 38 windows that are 50 percent larger than those on the 8X, Dassault’s previous flagship. Humidity levels can be set and a new air filtration system delivers what the airframer says is “100 percent pure air.” Cabin altitude at 41,000 feet is just 3,000 feet. 

In the interior renderings for the 10X, Dassault suggests some unconventional-looking barrel-shaped single executive seats. They are reminiscent of what Embraer tried on its Legacy midsize bizjets before opting for a more traditional design. We’ll see how much of this design makes it into the production 10X. 

But one great thing about the 10X cabin—no matter what shape the seats eventually take—is that it offers enough space to banish the need for those “joined at the hip” double seats in the conference grouping that you see on virtually every other large-cabin bizjet. Now everyone at the grownups’ table can have their own independently controlled single seat and dine without first demonstrating gymnastics ability. 

As you’d expect for any aircraft built after 2010, passengers will be able to control cabin HVAC, communications, entertainment, and lighting via a personal smart device app or small touchscreens and hard switches at the seat positions. Seamless, high-speed internet will be available via an optional Ka-band system. 

Big Payloads

The 10X also will be able to carry more full-fuel payload than either of its peers: slightly more than the G700 and a lot more—700 pounds—than the Bombardier Global 7500. 

Dassault laid the groundwork for the 10X with its aborted 5X and its 6X large-cabin twinjet programs. (The former project was aborted but the latter is in flight test and expected to enter service next year.) In a lot of ways, in fact, the 10X is a super-sized 6X. Until the 10X was announced, the 14- to 16-passenger 6X had the largest cabin cross section of any purpose-designed business jet: eight and a half feet wide, six and a half feet high, and just over 40 feet long. Like most Falcons, it blends good short- and long-range capabilities and can use runways as short as 3,000 feet (partially loaded) while delivering a range of 5,500 nautical miles and a top speed of Mach 0.90.

But the 10X’s girth and heft present Dassault with a challenge: how to deliver all this extra comfort and range without sacrificing the popular performance attributes of the considerably smaller 8X trijet. That aircraft has a range of up to 6,450 nautical miles, albeit at a somewhat pokier Mach 0.8, but could land in distances as short as 2,200 feet and take off fully loaded on runways less than 6,000 feet long. 

It looks as if the 10X will match or actually beat those runway numbers thanks in part to a new, all-carbon fiber, highly swept wing with integrated winglets and a clever flap and leading-edge slat design, as well as a pair of Rolls-Royce Pearl engines bolted onto the back. The Pearls deliver more than 18,000 pounds of thrust each and incorporate a variety of new design features that make them cleaner and more efficient. They are also wired to an advanced engine-health-monitoring system that detects little problems before they become bigger ones. Beyond the engines, the entire aircraft is connected to a real-time health-and-usage-monitoring-and-diagnostic system called “FalconScan,” which tracks over 100,000 aircraft parameters and provides fault detection, troubleshooting, and trend monitoring.

Up front, the digital touchscreen “next-generation” flight deck—based on the Honeywell Primus Epic system—features full fly-by-wire controls, automatic flight envelope, and “recovery” protections. It also offers the “FalconEye” system, which combines enhanced and synthetic vision and a dual head-up display that allows either pilot to fly—and land—without referencing the instrument panel, a particularly useful thing to have when visibility is limited. The flight deck is also extremely comfortable, allowing the pilots to take turns completely reclining their seats to the lie-flat position for rest during the cruise portion of long flights—should such a thing ever become legal.

The 10X pushes the design envelope not just in terms of size but also with regard to design and technology. This is more than Dassault’s entry into the bizjet “bigs”—it is the company’s announcement that it intends to dominate the sector

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2025 Dassault Falcon 10X at a Glance

Crew: 2–4

Passengers (typical): 12–18 

Price (2021): $75 million 

Engines: 2 Rolls-Royce Pearl 10X, 18,000+ pounds of thrust each 

Avionics: Next-generation flight deck with Honeywell Primus Epic 

Range: 7,500 nm*

Top speed: Mach 0.925 

Ceiling: 51,000 ft 

Maximum takeoff weight: 115,000 lb

Cabin

            Height: 6 ft 8 in

            Width: 9 ft 1 in

            Length: 53 ft 10 in 

Baggage: 198 cu ft 

*eight passengers, four crew, Mach 0.85 NBAA IFR reserves

Source: Dassault