Dassault Aviation is progressing with its plans for a super midsize Falcon scheduled for an official launch at the end of the year. The French manufacturer has selected a 10,000-pound-thrust Rolls-Royce engine for the airplane, which is projected to enter service in 2013. The cooperation between Dassault and Rolls-Royce is their first in business aviation. Dassault Aviation chairman and CEO Charles Edelstenne told NBAA Convention News, “The new combination of Dassault and Rolls-Royce will be a winning formula in the rapidly growing business jet market.”
He said the Rolls-Royce engine was chosen from five competing options, but declined to go into specifics about how the final selection was made. The competing engines included Honeywell’s HTF10000, a new-design Pratt & Whitney Canada engine and Silvercrest, Snecma’s first engine for a business jet. A Rolls-Royce spokeswoman said the powerplant for the Falcon would be the first of a new family of engines designed to “meet the most stringent performance, reliability and environmental requirements of the corporate and regional engine marketplace.” According to Rolls-Royce, the company is the world’s leading business aircraft engine supplier, with a 34-percent market share. Rolls-Royce engines power “more than 3,000 corporate aircraft worldwide,” mostly Gulfstreams, the engine maker said.
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