The Dassault Falcon 8X business jet is a large, long-range jet that is built by Dassault Aviation in France. The aircraft program was launched on May 19th, 2014; however, some reports are saying that it was launched on December 17th, 2014 at the European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE). The official launch date for the aircraft is May 19th as Dassault has a press release announcing the launch on their website. Dassault Aviation developed the aircraft as a larger version of the 7X with more range. The aircraft is certified under the 7X type certificate with notations stating that 8X is a slightly different version of the jet. Many of the systems on board the aircraft are the same as those found on the Falcon 7X.
Program History
After the launch of the aircraft on December 17th, 2014, Dassault began work on building the first aircraft for flight testing. A few months later, the company conducted its first test flight of the aircraft on February 6th, 2015 at Dassault’s Mérignac plant. The first flight consisted of flight handling maneuvers and systems tests from 5,000 feet to 40,000 feet for 1 hour 45 minutes. On April 2nd, 2015, the second flight test aircraft conducted its first flight. The last flight test aircraft (number 3) entered into service on May 18th, 2015.
As part of the launch of the aircraft, Dassault Aviation expanded its aircraft completion center in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. The 350,000 square feet addition was finished on November 19th, 2015 and the project included a 250,000 square foot hanger to house the Falcon 8X.
On June 27, 2016, the Dassault Falcon 8X received certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the following day (June 28th, 2016), the jet received certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). On those two days, EASA and the FAA both issued type certificates for the Dassault Falcon 8X. Near the end of the year, Dassault Aviation delivered the first Falcon 8X to Amjet Executive on October 5th, 2016 and the jet officially entered into service. That is the EIS or entry into service date. The entire test and launch program took 1 year and a little over 9 months to complete from the 2014 launch to the first delivery.
Above is a Dassault Falcon 8X jet in flight at the Paris Air Show in 2019. The photo is by Matti Blume on Wikimedia Commons and has been enhanced by FlyRadius. The photo is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Aircraft Background
The Dassault Falcon 8X is a trijet or three-engine aircraft that was developed from the design of the Falcon 7X. It is a large, long-range private jet that is made to serve international travel. The plane can seat up to 19 passengers; however, it is typically configured with 14 to 15 seats. The cabin is 6.2 feet tall, 7.67 feet in width, and extends 42.67 feet from front to back.
The range of the aircraft is 6,450 nautical miles and it operates up to 51,000 feet. From the Teterboro (KTEB) airport in the New York area (USA), the aircraft can reach all of the Americas (North and South), Europe, and parts of Asia.
Another key feature of the Dassault Falcon 8X is its speed. The aircraft can travel up to Mach .9 which is just below the speed of sound. On April 26th, 2019, the Dassault Aviation team set a new time record or speed record for a U.S. West Coast to East Coast flight. The Falcon 8X jet was able to fly from Santa Monica (KSMO) to Teterboro (KTEB) in 4 hours 28 minutes. In addition, the Falcon 8X private jet was able to takeoff from Santa Monica’s 3,500-foot runway and still fly to Teterboro non-stop. The jet has also set time records for a flight from Beverly, Massachusetts to London City. That flight was completed in 6 hours 44 minutes.
Pilots also love to fly the Dassault Falcon 8X. Many flight reviews of the aircraft state that the aircraft is easy to fly. Pilot reports indicate that it does not feel like they are flying a large business jet. The Falcon 8X is a great performance jet as it can takeoff from and land on short runways. A balanced field length takeoff at maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) can be accomplished with 5,880 feet of runway. Landing at a typical landing weight can be accomplished in an amazing 2,250 feet under FAA FAR part 91 standards.
The performance of the jet is in part due to the three Pratt & Whitney PW307D engines that are mounted on the tail of the aircraft. The engines produce 6,722 to 6,725 pounds of thrust, which will helps the airplane achieve great performance.
Operators
There are several operators for the jet which include Amjet Executive and other charter operators. There are also many corporate operators of the jet. It is hard to tell which companies have an 8X over a 7X as the 8X is registered as a 7X in the FAA database. In the FAA database there are a total of 120 Falcon 7Xs and 8X. Most of those jets seem to be the Falcon 7X.
According to Corporate Jet Investor, Dassault Aviation delivered 13 Falcon 8X jets to customers in 2019.
There is limited information on the number of deliveries that have been made for the Falcon 8X as Dassault does not announce order numbers publicly.
ICAO Code
The International Civil Aviation Organization or ICAO code for the aircraft is FA8X. FA8X is the ICAO Code that is used by air traffic controllers to identify the aircraft in their line of work. Also, pilots use the FA8X code to file flight plans for the jet. ICAO is a UN organization.
IATA Code
According to our research, there is not an official IATA aircraft code for the jet. The code should be DF8 as the Falcon 7X is DF7. The code may exist; however, we have not seen any IATA publications with the aircraft listed in it. The IATA code is not used as much with business and private jets as IATA deals with commercial aviation and not private aviation.
The Dassault Falcon 8X is a high-performance long-range private/business jet that can take travelers across the globe. To learn more about the jet, please visit the other pages about the jet. Those articles will be posted shortly.
