Story ID: 
Falcon 50 Engine Upgrade Expected By Year-end
By: Gordon Gilbert
Caption: Premier Aircraft of East Alton, Ill., continues to work with Honeywell on an engine upgrade program for the Falcon 50.
Word Count: 147
Premier Aircraft of East Alton, Ill., continues to work with Honeywell on an engine upgrade program for the Falcon 50. Now that a launch customer–Samaritan’s Purse of Boone, N.C.–has been secured, an STC is expected to be completed by year-end. The program will convert the original Falcon 50 TFE731-3 engine to a TFE731-4 to provide the “Falcon 50-4” with longer range, increased hot-and-high performance, better climb capability and higher cruise thrust than the original aircraft, according to Premier Aircraft. As an incentive to spur additional orders, Premier is offering the first 10 customers $50,000 off the cost of the upgrade. The price is $2.3 million for non-MSP aircraft. For an operator whose aircraft is on MSP (which is the majority of the fleet), pricing is between $1.6 and $1.7 million. The total upgrade takes seven weeks, but loaner engines will be available to reduce downtime to about 10 days.