Aircraft
All-electric Falcon jet could be launched by ’15
Dassault Aviation could launch an all-electric Falcon business jet program in 2014 or 2015, said company engineers at a conference held by the ASTech Paris

Dassault Aviation could launch an all-electric Falcon business jet program in 2014 or 2015, said company engineers at a conference held by the ASTech Paris Region aerospace cluster at the Paris Air Show in June. According to Yvon Ollivier, a Dassault coordinator for advanced studies and ASTech’s president of the “on-board power” project, there are numerous benefits of replacing hydraulics with electric power, but some challenges remain for designers.

Current aircraft architectures rely on electric, hydraulic and pneumatic (air) power, but the latter two present a number of disadvantages. For example, “Current anti-/de-icing systems, such as that found on a Falcon 2000, use hot air and have
poor efficiency. They essentially warm up the outside air,” Ollivier said. Moreover, using bleed air from an engine reduces the engine’s efficiency.