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Issue 27 - 2005 : Falcon Facts - Falcon 7X Unveiled
With nearly 800 friends of the Falcon Family on hand, Dassault unveiled Falcon 7X s/n 001 on February 15th in Bordeaux. The event marked the completion of the first airplane that had already started ground testing earlier in the month.
On February 1st, the first Falcon 7X was moved outside its hangar for a series of ground tests on the engines and APU. This marked the first occasion that the aircraft was running fully on its own power.
The engines were pushed to their limits, from idle to maximum power, during a full week of test runs. A typical ground run test will monitor more than 1,000 parameters from the engines, APU, avionics, fuel flow, FADEC and all moveable surfaces including flight controls and the landing gear. All systems were working as predicted.
Roughly 50 hours of engine ground run tests will be required before the first flight, which is scheduled for the second quarter of 2005 from the Bordeaux- Mignac facility. Three aircraft are scheduled to take part in the flight test program with about 1,000 total flight test hours scheduled prior to final certification before the end of 2006.
Virtual flights on the 7X have been ongoing during the past several months in the Saint-Cloud facility near Paris, where a 'global test bench' has been constructed. The test bench replicated every aspect of the actual airplane. Exact duplicates of the length of the hydraulic tubes and electrical wiring were manufactured to ensure response times were accurate to the millisecond. Together with the flight computers, the global test bench has allowed the test pilots to 'fly' the aircraft and validate control laws well before the first flight. Software development was completed in early 2005.
During the flight test program, 7X performance will be evaluated during icing conditions, which will include lightning strike testing. The aircraft will also be tested in a severe electromagnetic environment to determine if it is safe to fly close to powerful emitters. The shielding quality was said to be high enough to allow use of mobile phones in flight pending future tests.
Static and fatigue testing of the Falcon 7X is scheduled to begin in March at the Toulouse Aeronautical Test Center (CEAT). All static and fatigue trials will be completed using just one test article.
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