Dassault Falcon 7X

Where it came from

Dassault launched the programme at the Paris Air Show in June 2001 under the project name FNX, and named it Falcon 7X that November. The target was to beat the Falcon 900EX on both range and speed. The answer was a new wing, longer and more swept than the 900's, a fuselage a fifth longer on the same cabin cross-section, and the first digital flight control system fitted to a business jet — carried across from four decades of Dassault fighter work. The prototype flew on 5 May 2005. EASA and the FAA certified the type on the same day, 27 April 2007, and it entered service that June.

In May 2011 a 7X suffered an uncommanded pitch-trim runaway in the cruise. EASA grounded the fleet, the cause was traced to a soldering defect on a pin in an electronic control unit, and a modification returned the aircraft to service in June that year. On 2 May 2014 a 7X flew Teterboro to London City in 5 h 54 m, a city-pair record — a useful shorthand for what the type is: long legs at one end, a short and difficult runway at the other.

Around 300 were delivered before production ended in 2023, by which point the stretched Falcon 8X — the same three engines, a longer cabin — had taken over the line. The 7X is now the previous generation, and the reason it still sells on charter is the airports it can use.

Who charters a Falcon 7X, and why three engines

Eight to fourteen people on a sector of six hours or more, where the aircraft has to leave from or arrive at an airport the alternatives cannot use. Its competition is the Global 6000 and the Gulfstream G650, and against both it concedes a little cabin width and a little cruise speed. What it gives back is the third engine.

The centre engine sits in the tail on an S-duct, and three engines rather than two show up in the numbers that decide trips: 1,740 m of balanced field at maximum weight, 630 m to land, 104 kt across the fence. Dassault states that all Falcons are EASA and FAA steep-approach certified and approved for London City. Samedan — 1,800 m of runway at 5,600 ft of elevation — is within reach with an approved operator, and the 7X is the largest ultra-long-range type regularly chartered in there; that approval is per operator and we confirm it per tail. Cannes–Mandelieu takes nothing this size.

What 11,000 km actually means

11,000 km — 5,950 nm — is Dassault's figure, calculated at M 0.80 cruise with eight passengers, three crew and NBAA IFR reserves. Two things follow from it.

First, speed. Our table shows ≈900 km/h, which is high-speed cruise, around M 0.85; the redline is M 0.90. The range above is flown slower, at about 850 km/h. The two do not coexist on one flight — on a long sector the crew trades speed for distance.

Second, payload, which is this type's strongest card. With full tanks the 7X still lifts roughly 1,700 kg: fourteen people and their bags without offloading a drop of fuel. The headline range barely moves with a full cabin — expect a few hundred nautical miles of erosion from bags and routing, not the 500 to 800 a twin gives up. Nice–New York, London–New York, Nice–Malé, Nice–Delhi and Moscow–Hong Kong are nonstop. London–Los Angeles is marginal westbound with everyone aboard and routinely done in favourable winds. Singapore needs a stop.

Inside the cabin

11.91 m long, 2.34 m across, 1.88 m high, flat floor, 44 m³ of volume, normally three zones. Charter layouts run twelve to fourteen seats; the type is certified for up to nineteen, which no charter operator uses. A twelve- to fourteen-seat cabin has two lavatories, forward and aft. There is no shower and no true bedroom — the bed is a converted divan, and the forward divan is also where the crew rests on a thirteen-hour sector.

Baggage is 4 m³ and accessible in flight: enough for fourteen people travelling normally, modest for an aircraft this size, so ski and golf loads are worth counting before we quote. Dassault publishes no cabin-altitude figure for the 7X — the 3,900 ft advertised for the Falcon 8X is a different aircraft — so we publish none. Connectivity is the other per-tail question: later airframes carry Ka-band, earlier ones only SwiftBroadband.

The corridors it flies

London–Dubai is the everyday one: about 6 h 30 m nonstop with a full cabin, comfortably inside the type's thirteen-hour capability, which is why nobody on board is working hard. London–Larnaca is around 4 h 20 m and asks nothing of it.

The short European legs are here for reasons other than range. London–Nice at about 1 h 40 m and London–Geneva at 1 h 25 m appear on 7X quotes either because the trip continues — the Riviera or Geneva is one leg of a longer itinerary and the aircraft stays with the party — or because of the departure airport. This is one of the few cabins of its size that can work out of London City, and leaving from the middle of London is worth more than half an hour of block time. On a plain London–Nice return the aircraft is more than the trip needs, and we will say so before you book it.

What moves the price

From around €10,500 per flight hour, quoted against a named aircraft and specific dates.

Positioning. Around 300 7Xs were built and only a minority are on the European charter market, so the empty legs at each end are a larger share of the quote than they would be on a Challenger. A trip that starts where an aircraft already sits is a materially different price from the same trip a day earlier.

Crew. Sectors near thirteen hours exceed what an unaugmented two-pilot crew may fly under European flight-time rules, so a third pilot is rostered; a cabin attendant is standard at this cabin size.

Then the route itself: Gulf, Asian and African overflight and navigation charges, and handling at the far end. And the calendar — August on the Riviera, the Gulf winter peak — when the slot and the parking are the constraint rather than the aircraft.