Dassault’s new Falcon 6X has won the Red Dot: Best of the Best award for its cabin design. Past winners of the award include Apple, Porsche and Audi. Dassault also reported the aircraft is on pace for service entry in 2022. The aircraft recently made its first flight.
The Red Dot organisation noted that this year it received an unprecedented number of nominations from more than 60 countries for the award, which rewards trailblazing work in product design.
Dassault noted that in awarding the prize, the Red Dot committee determined that the cabin’s flowing lines and environmental engineering create a unique, healthful and productive environment offering great personal comfort and space. It was also impressed by the clean, modern lines and layout of the interior and small touches such as easy-to-use fingertip controls, the overhead galley skylight and mood lighting designed to support natural circadian rhythms.
The Red Dot prize is the second design award Dassault has received for the 6X cabin. In September 2020, the 6X won in the International Yacht & Aviation Award for interior design.
Meanwhile, the Falcon 6X flight test programme is gathering momentum as the aircraft proceeds towards its scheduled certification in 2022. Since its first flight on 10 March 2021, the 6X has accumulated more than 50 flight hours in the air, and opened the flight envelope all the way to the aircraft’s maximum operating speed of 0.90 Mach.
“For its brief time in the air, the aircraft has demonstrated excellent handling in multiple flight scenarios and shown unusual maturity in systems function,” said Bruno Ferry, flight test pilot.
A second flight test aircraft will join the test programme a month from now, and a third, outfitted with a full interior, before the Summer.
The Falcon 6X cabin is 6ft 6in (1.98m) tall and 8ft 6in (2.59m) wide. The aircraft has a range of 5,500 nautical miles (10,186km) and will be capable of flying from short, constrained runways. The aircraft is equipped with the latest version of Dassault’s digital flight control system, for safety and flying precision.
