Dassault Falcon 200
By Mark Huber - December 1, 2009
Dassault stopped producing this twin-engine model more than two decades ago, but pilots still love it. it has great range and can climb 6,000 feet per minute. And while its hourly operating costs are high, its low acquisition cost compensates: You can buy a well-equipped, well-maintained 1987 falcon 200 for around $1.6 million–at least $3 million less than you’d pay for some competing models.
I CALL IT “EUTHANAIRSIA.” A manufacturer builds an airplane that’s so good it threatens sales of its own follow-on–and more expensive–models. So the company kills it.
Cessna did it with the Conquest II turboprop. Beech did it with the F90 King Air (see New Jet Review on page 22–Ed.). Hawker did it with the Model 1000A super-midsize jet. And Dassault Falcon Jet did it with the midsize twinjet Model 200.
Allegedly, Dassault did more than stop production of the airplane. According to one source, it tried to quietly buy back the 33 Falcon 200s that were in civil hands and send them to the smelter or re-engine them. The owners would have none of it. Even today, Dassault Falcon Jet doesn’t want to discuss this airplane. When I asked about it, one of the company’s PR guys suggested I write about the spendier trijet Falcon 50 instead. I got the feeling I had committed an aviation faux pas equivalent to trying to order sauerbraten at Paris’ Le Procope. Vous idiot!
The twin-engine Falcon 200–which Dassault first delivered in 1983 and manufactured until 1988–was a follow-on to the wildly popular Falcon 20, an airplane built to fighter jet tolerances with an unlimited-life airframe. During the 1970s, Federal Express began its rise using freighter versions of the Falcon 20, operating them at four times the frequency that designers had envisioned. Some of these aircraft remain in service with smaller freight companies. While the 20’s airframe was robust, its noisy, gas-guzzling GE CF700 engines limited the midsize cabin airplane to incredibly short legs. Hitting a headwind from Teterboro, N.J., to Chicago meant a fuel stop in Ohio. Under those conditions, you could fly home faster nonstop in a King Air 200.
So in 1973 Dassault began work on the Falcon 50 trijet, which used the 20’s fuselage but had three more fuel-efficient Garrett (now Honeywell) engines and range enough to cross the Atlantic or beat a headwind and fly nonstop from White Plains, N.Y., to Burbank, Calif. But it also began working on a much improved version of the 20 called the Falcon 200. The 200 shared the 20’s fuselage but had a redesigned and more comfortable cabin, more powerful and efficient Garrett ATF3 engines, a tweaked wing and first-generation glass cockpit avionics.
The ATF3s produced 5,200 pounds of thrust each, a 1,100-pounds-per-side improvement over the CF700s on the Falcon 20. More blow means more go. Compared with the 20, the 200 climbed faster, flew faster and farther, used shorter runways, handled better, had increased gross weight and burned much less fuel. Pilots noticed stunning performance improvements. Pilots typically say nice things about the airplanes they fly, but there is an unusual level of effusiveness about the Falcon 200. “The airframe is awesome,” said one seasoned 200 pilot.
Share This Article With Others