Dassault Seeks Strong Support for Its Supersonic Business Jet

It was Las Vegas legend Frank Sinatra who sang, "Who wants a supersonic plane?" (Show News thinks it was "High Society" but is ready to be corrected by the Chairman's fans.) The response was "I don't," but Dassault hopes for a different answer from the rich, influential and busy people of the world.

Dassault revealed plans for a supersonic Falcon at last year's NBAA, and gave more details at its maintenance and operations seminar at Nice in May. The company has spent the past year refining its design, with an emphasis on creating an affordable vehicle which can be brought to market relatively soon. As the only company in the world which makes both supersonic fighters and business jets, Dassault brings unique experience to the project. It is also widely recognized as having a world-class development and prototype operation, and is the producer of the industry-standard CATIA computer-aided engineering tools.

As unveiled in May, the supersonic Falcon is a slender tail-first airplane with an arrow-shaped wing. The wing shape and the canard make it possible to use flaps to increase lift (unlike Concorde), reducing takeoff thrust and noise. They also keep the rotation angle to 14 degrees and eliminate the need for a droop nose.

The supersonic Falcon measures 104 feet from nose to tail and weighs 86,000 pounds at takeoff, including 46,000 pounds of fuel. It has three engines, echoing Dassault's Falcon 50 and 900: Dassault says that three engines are safer for overwater flights than two engines and less costly and complex than four engines. The engine-out case is less demanding and the exhaust from the third engine reduces afterbody drag.

Conveniently, there are at least two modern fighter engines that are about the right size for a three-engined business jet -- the Snecma M88 from Dassault's own Rafale, or the General Electric F414. The engines are crucial to the project: using high-temperature materials, they can maintain full power at high speeds, so the supersonic Falcon can cruise at Mach 1.8 without afterburning. Instead of afterburners, the engines will be fitted with advanced mixer/ejector nozzles which will allow the supersonic aircraft to meet the same noise rules as a subsonic business jet.

Dassault stresses the importance of keeping the supersonic jet's performance at an achievable level. The current design has a 4,000 nm range and a Falcon 50-sized eight-passenger cabin, and cruises at Mach 1.8. The speed is chosen to minimize aerodynamic heating effects: at higher speeds, heat builds up rapidly, demanding more exotic materials in the airframe and engine and a more complex cooling system for the cabin. Dassault understands that customers might want more -- West Coast to Tokyo range, Mach 2 and a Falcon 900 cabin, for example -- but the company's studies show that such an aircraft would be too big and too expensive for the market to bear.

Instead, Dassault argues that the 4,000 nm supersonic aircraft will still beat the longest-range subsonic-even with a refueling stop, it will fly from Los Angeles to Sydney in 7 hours 30 minutes, six hours faster than a subsonic jet-and that the Falcon 50-sized cabin is more than adequate for a 3.5 hour sector time.

There will be no launch announcement here, but it may not be far off. Dassault wants a firm configuration, a tight estimate of the non-recurring costs and a good idea of the price before it starts seeking customers. At the same time, the company is looking for risk-sharing partners, some of them in the U.S. Development could take as little as five years.

By Bill Sweetman