After a three-year delay
that was made much worse this past fall by news of more technical
problems with the Safran Silvercrest engines for the Falcon 5X, Dassault
today said it is cancelling the jet's development program and starting fresh
with a new large-cabin airplane powered by Pratt & Whitney Canada engines.
The new jet is scheduled
to enter the market in 2022, Dassault announced in a press release issued shortly
after Safran announced it expected Dassault to begin the process of cancelling
the Silvercrast engine contract. The as-yet-unnamed jet will feature the same
cabin cross-section of the 5X and a 5,500-nm range, Dassault said.
The first Silvercrest
engines were originally planned to be delivered to Dassault for 5X testing by
the end of 2013, but technical issues delayed that timeline. In 2015 and 2016,
more serious technical issues led Safran to announce a new schedule that would
lead to engines being delivered for Falcon 5X flight testing by the end of
2017. This past fall, Safran experienced problems with the high-pressure
compressor and informed Dassault of an additional delay and a performance
shortfall, making a revised 2020 entry into service of the aircraft impossible
and leading to order cancellations as customers’ patience ran out.
“Considering the magnitude
of the risks involved both on the technical and schedule aspects of the
Silvercrest program, Dassault Aviation initiates the termination process of the
Silvercrest contract leading to the end of the Falcon 5X program and plans to
start negotiations with Safran,” Dassault said in the press release.
The French manufacturer
offered no timeline for when the 5X replacement formally will be launched.
(Evangle Luo of TTFLY shared with you)
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