Falcon in Flight
It was a beautiful if chilly winter day at Dassault Falcon Jet’s Teterboro headquarters on the day of my flight in the 900LX. The plan called for a long round-robin flight up through the Hudson Valley and west toward Syracuse and then a stop at Stewart, New York, for some pattern work before heading back home again. The out-and-back trip would take around an hour and a half and would give me the opportunity to see the 900LX’s performance in a number of interesting flight regimes. Falcon Jet Capt. Paul Hansen was in the right seat and Dassault avionics expert and pilot training director Woody Saland was in back.
The 900LX is a tiller airplane, and it handles responsively and predictably on the ground, though it does take a bit to get used to how carefully you need to manipulate the control when taxiing. A little tiller goes a long way.
On takeoff I stood the power levers up (being sure to grab a handful of levers) and waited two beats for the beast to come alive. The 900LX requires tiller until 80 knots, which happens in a hurry with 15,000 pounds of total thrust on a sub-50,000-pound airplane. V1 and rotation speed come fast. The 900LX needs just 5,101 feet for a sea level max-weight takeoff, this for an airplane that, if we’d carried full fuel, could have proceeded to fly nonstop to Paris from there.
We, however, were light for a short flight and were, consequently, off the ground in a hurry and climbing fast. I had to come back on the power just moments after commanding “flaps up” in order to keep the speed down for our level-off at 2,000 feet. Learning to effectively use the trim, which runs in a leisurely fashion, requires some practice and some foresight. The autothrottles too come in very handy, because they remember (if you forget) to pull the power back, saving the pilot a possible bust for an airspeed and/or altitude deviation.
After our level-off and a few short vectors, we were quickly cleared up to Flight Level 200 and then all the way up to 34,000 feet. I hand-flew the airplane up to 180 and was delighted by its handling, the tight, precise control feel with exactly the right amount of force required for roll inputs at low and higher speeds. Falcons are much beloved by the pilots who fly them for a living for their honest and responsive flying manners. They also love the workplace. With infinitely adjustable seats, award-winning ergonomics and dual-zone environments, the cockpit is easy to love.
After cruising west for a while and consistently getting slightly better than book values on airspeed, climb and fuel consumption (another vaunted 900LX trait), we turned around and headed to Stewart (KSWF) to do some landings. Improved vertical nav capability on the FMS is part of the EASy II package, and with a little help from Paul, I was able to program in our crossing altitudes. As we descended below 10,000 feet using speedbrakes and the autothrottles while selecting the ATC-assigned airspeed, the synthetic vision showed its value. There, clearly depicted in living color, were the peaks of the Catskills, color-coded, no less, to show just how much threat, if any, they posed to the flight.
On downwind for Runway 9 at SWF, the HUD showed its value, allowing me to fly an ATP-quality pattern on my first try in the airplane. I know from experience that, without the HUD, I wouldn’t have been close. It’s also great for approach, since it shows the airspeed — our Vref was 110 knots — altitude and glideslope, allowing me, once again, to fly far better than I would have been able to, at least that day, without the HUD. Another improvement on EASy II is its conformity with the primary display, so when you look down at the flight display, the layout of the symbols and tapes are identical to what you were seeing on the HUD.
Like all current Falcons, the 900LX features leading-edge slats coupled with the flaps, making descents all the easier. And with an approach speed of 110 knots that day, it would have been easy to get stopped in about a third of the available runway had we not elected to do a touch-and-go on the remaining 9,000 feet.
After a couple of approaches at Stewart, we headed back to TEB for a full stop and a debriefing.
With the Falcon 900LX, Dassault has proved that its original mid-1970s three-engine design was indeed years ahead of its time, as the company has always proudly insisted. With the addition of winglets (as well as the added range they bring) and the impressively capable EASy II cockpit, the 900LX has re-established itself as a formidable competitor in the large-cabin market.
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