COMMERCIAL DASSAULT FALCON 5X
Flaperons
However, the stand-out aerodynamic feature
of the Falcon 5X is its aperons. These are
active high-speed de ection control surfaces
located on the trailing edge between the
ailerons and the aps. The Falcon 5X is the
rst business aircraft to use them.
As their name implies, aperons combine
the lift/drag-producing effects of aps and
the roll control authority of ailerons. Dassault
previously designed aperons for the Rafale
and the nEUROn unmanned combat air
vehicle technology demonstrator.
Flaperons operate differentially to the other
control surfaces, de ecting downwards as
the ailerons de ect upwards. Integrated with
the DFCS, the aperons are always active,
which enhances roll authority.
During approach, the aperons will act as
an additional pair of aps, which will increase
drag, and because they operate differentially
to the ailerons, they will enable the aircraft to
maintain a high lift coef cient.
The result is that the pilots will be able
to y a steep approach angle without
an increase in approach speed, with the aperons helping to maintain optimal control
all the way to touchdown. The Falcon 5X
will be able to conduct steep approaches
of up to 6o, which is of bene t to operations
at business aviation hubs requiring steep
descents, such as London City, St Moritz
and Aspen.
The aircraft is expected to have a
balanced eld length of about 5,250ft
(1,600m) and to be capable of landing
at speeds more typical of a turboprop;
its approach speed will be about 105kts
(194km/h) at its typical maximum landing
weight of 29,982kg (66,100lb).
Another DFCS feature designed to assist
in handling is a nosewheel steering control
function, which is intended to improve
controllability during ground taxiing and
help pilots more precisely keep the aircraft
on the runway centreline during take-off
and landing.Flight deck
Like its larger Falcon 8X stablemate, the
Falcon 5X has the latest, third generation
of the EASy ight deck suite Dassault useson all its bizjets (and which is derived from
the man-machine interface developed for
the Rafale). The EASy suite, which uses
Honeywell’s Primus Epic avionics as its
hardware platform, intends to create a highly
interactive and intuitive ight deck and
maximise pilots’ situational awareness.
The Falcon 5X ight deck has four 14.1in
(358mm) screens displaying all systems,
communications, navigation and ight
management information. Each pilot uses
a Dassault-developed trackball cursor
control device (CCD) to select pulldown
and pop-up menus.
The two outboard primary display
units show aircraft con guration, engine
parameters and the crew alerting system.
There are two inboard multifunction display
units (MDUs), stacked vertically in the
centre of the instrument panel. Typically, the
upper MDU is used to control and display
navigation functions and the lower MDU
is used for the ight management system,
checklists and systems information.
An autosensing feature automatically
checks off items such as setting aps for1
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