Falcon 6X

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FALCON 6X: Luxury Enhanced with Fighter DNA

Big aeroplanes tend to land at big airports — they need the runway length and little planes are generally suited to little airports in out-of-the-way places. But the Dassault Falcon 6X is a big business jet with a big cabin that lands almost everywhere.

HE 6X has the largest cross-section of any

Tpurpose-built business jet. It’s 6 ft 6 inches (1.98m) tall — tall enough for 99 percent of passengers and 8 ft 6 inches (2.58m) wide. Passing a fellow passenger in the aisle doesn’t require an awkward ballet, as in smaller jets. The conference/dining table doesn’t have you knocking elbows. There’s more than enough personal space for everyone.

The cabin length, excluding the cockpit and baggage area, is 40 ft 4 inches (12.3m). This provides ample space for three large living areas as well as a kitchen galley forward and a lavatory aft.

And yet, this big comfortable jet can slip into and power out of 4,000-foot runways with ease. That sort of performance opens up a wide world of potential airport destinations, and in more interesting places — both out of the way spots on remote ocean islands, or at small airports in urban centres such as London City airport.

The 6X is the latest in the Falcon line, benefiting from Dassault’s latest technological advances. It’s scheduled to make its maiden flight in early 2021, with certification and entry into service in 2022.

The 6X’s 5,500 nm (10,186km) range allows direct flights between Johannesburg and London or Cape Town and Dubai.

The fuel efficiency of the 6X’s Pratt & Whitney PW812D engines helps in achieving that long-range performance with the added benefit of low emissions. This D (for Dassault) variant is a 13,000-14,000 lb thrust turbofan optimized for the fast, highflying 6X. The aircraft can operate as high as 51,000 ft and has a maximum speed of Mach 0.9.

Dassault has invested heavily to keep passengers in the quietest of environments, using sensitive noise-testing labs to identify and isolate even minor sources of noise. Current Falcon aircraft are achieving remarkable noise levels as low as 48 dB SIL, about what you would find in a suburban living room. Dassault achieves this by reducing airframe vibration from the engines and by placing noise cancellation materials between the outer skin of the aircraft and the cabin shell.

The cabin has plenty of moodenhancing natural light with 30 large-size passenger windows. The air inside the cabin remains fresh and clean, thanks to an advanced air purification system. The 6X is equipped with satellite communications so passengers are constantly connected by phone or Internet. Wide bandwidth even allows live video streaming.

On a more technical level, the 6X also excels.

All Falcons are known for their shortfield capabilities through advanced wing design, and the 6X is no exception. Its extendable leading-edge slats and trailingedge flaps enable approach speeds as low as 109 knots indicated — about 10 knots slower than competitors, which is critical for short landing and take-off performance.

A new addition to the 6X wing’s highlift devices, called a flaperon, enhances this capability. With such an ideally balanced wing design, the 6X can easily operate at challenging, short-field and steep approach airports such as London City or Lugano, Switzerland.

Day or night, in poor weather conditions, the 6X provides pilots with maximum situational awareness thanks to FalconEye, a head-up display (HUD) combining enhanced vision with synthetic vision. Dassault is the first business jet maker to develop a HUD with this unique technology. FalconEye features a fourthgeneration multi-sensor camera whose six

sensors present top quality images in both the visible and infrared spectrums. These images are combined with worldwide synthetic vision databases that map terrain, obstacles, navigation, and airport and runway data.

FalconEye is derived from a military technology that Dassault Aviation has applied to its civil aircraft. “What makes Dassault Aviation unique is that we are the only business jet-maker that also makes fighter

jets,” explains Dassault Aviation Executive VP Carlos Brana. “In fact, both are designed by the same engineers and manufactured at the same facilities.”

“When people walk through the 6X mockup for the first time, they are impressed by its beauty. But with Dassault aircraft, beauty is more than skin deep. In any case, we are proud that our interior is what makes people fall in love with a Falcon like the 6X,” says Brana. 