Dassault Falcon 5X Flies with 'Preliminary' Engines

The Falcon 5X made its first flight from Dassault’s final assembly facility at Bordeaux-Mérignac on July 5, powered by a “preliminary version” of the Safran Silvercrest. Design issues with the engines have delayed their development and, in turn, the 5X program. According to Dassault, the preliminary flight-test campaign will last only a few weeks to help streamline the development process. A full-fledged flight-test campaign with “certifiable engines meeting Dassault’s specifications” is scheduled to begin next year.

Test pilots Philippe Deleume and Philippe Rebourg were at the controls for the two-hour flight. The preliminary flight-tests will permit Dassault to collect a certain amount of airframe and systems data that could not be generated during ground tests undertaken earlier this spring. The ground campaign involved engine runs as well as low- and high-speed taxi tests.

“We’re committed to limiting the consequences of the four-year engine development delay as much as possible, and the short preliminary flight-test campaign is part of this effort,” said Dassault Aviation chairman and CEO Eric Trappier. “We will closely monitor the validation tests on the modified Silvercrest, which are scheduled by Safran in the few coming months, as their results will be critical for meeting the 5X entry into service in 2020.”

“The inaugural flight with current standard Silvercrest engines marked the beginning of a preliminary flight-test campaign intended to evaluate aircraft handling and test principal aircraft systems and help streamline the development program,” said Dassault Aviation executive vice president of civil aircraft Olivier Villa. “After the first two-hour flight on July 5 at our Bordeaux-Mérignac final assembly facility, the aircraft was ferried to our Istres flight-test facility near Marseille, which is equipped with high-performance monitoring equipment and real-time data analysis resources.”