Falcon’s eagerly anticipated super-midsize business jet, the 2000S, has completed a year of flight testing and is on track for certification toward the end of this year. The jet, which is priced at right around $25 million, promises the cabin of large bizjet with the price and short-field performance of a super-midsize model.
That Dassault is calling it a super-mid is interesting, as that descriptor covers only the airplane’s price and not its size (big), or range (better than 3,300 nm, for the record). The range is arguably the model’s top selling point when combined with the large cabin, and Dassault thinks it might have hit a sweet spot in the market. The combination will give the jet the ability to connect several desirable city pairs at an acquisition cost many millions of dollars less than comparably sized, slightly longer-range large-cabin category jets.
The 2000S will has some eye-popping specs, including a direct climb to FL410 in 19 minutes, a 4,450-foot takeoff distance and a hot-and-high takeoff (5,000 feet and ISA +15C) of 5,755 feet. Both figures are for maximum takeoff weight. The new Falcon’s engines are the 7,000-pound-thrust Pratt & Whitney PW308C models (think “C” for “clean”), which are said to be far more fuel efficient than the previous generation engine and greener, too, producing 20 percent fewer NO2 emissions than last-gen turbofans.
