Rolls-Royce today announces that its Pearl 10X engines have successfully powered the first flight of Dassault’s brand-new flagship aircraft, the Falcon 10X.
The flight took off from Dassault’s Mérignac facility near Bordeaux, France, marking the start of the aircraft’s flight test programme and another major step towards entry into service. Over the coming months both the airframe and the engines will get rigorously tested, delivering key data for the final certification of the aircraft.
Philipp Zeller, Senior Vice President Dassault, Business Aviation, Rolls‑Royce, said:
We congratulate the Dassault team on this important milestone. Seeing the Falcon 10X taking off for the first time, powered by our Pearl 10X engines, makes all of us at Rolls‑Royce proud and serves as yet another testament to our market-leading position in the strategically important ultra- and very-long-range business aviation market.”
The Pearl 10X is the latest and most powerful member of the state-of-the-art Pearl engine family and the first Rolls‑Royce engine ever to power a Dassault Aviation business jet.
So far, the engine has undergone an extensive development programme, both on the ground and in the air. Overall, the programme has now successfully accumulated more than 4,000 testing hours, both on the Advance2 demonstrator and the Pearl 10X engine configuration. This included a comprehensive flight test campaign on Rolls-Royce’s Boeing 747 flying testbed. During the six-month campaign, and more than 25 flights, the engine flew a distance of 36,000nm, which would have taken the aircraft around the entire globe one and a half times.
The Pearl 10X features the Advance2 engine core, the most efficient core available across the business aviation sector, and combines it with a high-performance low-pressure system, resulting in a superior thrust of more than 18,000lbf. It features a new ultra-low emissions ALM combustor, which is compatible with 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), and a new accessory gearbox, which allows for higher aircraft power extraction.
The result is an engine that offers a market-leading combination of power and efficiency. This combination will enable customers and operators to have premium airport accessibility and fly ultra-long-range connections, whilst also being able to travel close to the speed of sound.
