Aircraft
'Green people' aid 7X progress
Dassault Aviation’s Falcon 7X business jet, with a fly-by-wire, side-stick control system, promises to redefine the word “new.” At the Dassault Falcon Jet

Dassault Aviation’s Falcon 7X business jet, with a fly-by-wire, side-stick control system, promises to redefine the word “new.” At the Dassault Falcon Jet 25th Worldwide Maintenance & Operators Seminar, held in June in in Boca Raton, Fla., the company also described the virtual-reality program that promises to dramatically reduce maintenance time and costs for operators of the big, $37 million trijet.

Dassault has been using CAD/CAM and CAE (computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing and computer-aided engineering) processes for nearly two decades, processes that evolved naturally to Catia (computer-aided three-dimensional interactive application). Taking it to yet another level two years ago, with PLM (product lifecycle management) and Enovia software as a major component, Dassault produced a life-cycle mockup computer model of the airplane for the purpose of reducing maintenance time and cost.