Sampling the 10X terroir

opinion

by Yves Le Marquand

March 16, 2026

When Marcel Dassault bought the vineyard now known as Chateau Dassault in 1955, he immediately began improving the vines and modernising production. By 1969, the chateau achieved the rank of Grand Cru Classé. Today it is a Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Classé.

The Dassault approach to aircraft production is similar. Entering the ultra-long-range market, the French aircraft maker has spent thousands of hours and millions of euros designing and building the Falcon 10X from scratch. Dassault hosted a roll-out of the first Falcon 10X last week at its new facility at Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport.

Behind the scenes there are airframe, avionics and flight control updates that get engineers excited. To most people it will just be known as the biggest purpose-built business jet. This is a bit like describing the Louvre as a decent coffee shop with some great pictures.

The company is not giving much away when it comes to price and interest. Rumoured to cost anywhere between $75m and $100m, Jean Kayanakis, senior vice president, Worldwide Falcon Customer Service & Service Center Network, tells CJI Dassault believes the price is “competitive” with its ultra-long rivals.

“Dassault has demonstrated its ability to sometimes be higher in price than competitors,” he says. “But if you’re not competitive, then it is very difficult to sell. We look at it from a perspective of combining price with capability.”

Dassault delivered 37 business aircraft in 2025, up from 31 in 2024. On that basis, even hitting 50% of its delivery target would be a big boost to sales momentum.

“Our attention is initially on first flight and certification,” he says. “Many customers want to see the aircraft fly before they make a decision, we can then adjust based on orders. However, it would be great if we can get into the range of 20 aircraft per year.”

The OEM has purpose-built a new assembly line for the 10X, and while total annual output figures are being kept quiet, Kayanakis says Dassault is not concerned about hitting capacity.

The size of the aircraft is impressive. The 10X features the biggest cabin volume in its class at 6ft 8 inches high, 9ft 1 inch wide and 53ft 10 inches long. For comparison, a Gulfstream G700 cabin is 6ft 3 inches high, 8ft 2 inches wide and 56ft 11 inches long.

The cabin is also “highly customisable”, with hundreds of combinations available. “You can live in the aircraft like you are at home”, says Kayanakis. Dassault’s interior design team employed a philosophy of making the “customer feel like they are in an apartment, not a business jet”, he adds.

There is a convertible crew rest area because the 10X is being certified for three pilots, an L-shaped shower with two windows and, in an industry first, room for a queen size bed.

Dassault has put a lot of focus on passenger experience. The 10X features a 3,000ft cabin altitude at FL410 and receives ample natural light through 38 windows (sadly no skylight). Cabin noise should be the same as the Falcon 8X, but will be achieved at higher speeds.

It also has the biggest baggage compartment in its class. “Any bigger would have designated the 10X as an airliner,” says Kayanakis. At about 198 cubic ft, there is easily enough room for a barrel of Chateau Dassault or two.

The two-engined clean sheet 10X design includes an all-new “thin” wing. Built almost entirely from carbon fibre composite materials, the wing features a curved trailing edge to improve low-speed performance and a high constant sweep angle and “low relative thickness” to reduce drag at high speed.

There have also been subtle changes to the fuselage, which resembles a “Coca-Cola bottle” on close inspection. The nose has been upturned to improve laminar flow, and the area immediately above the cockpit has been “flattened” to reduce noise levels inside.

The 10X will cruise at Mach 0.85 with a top cruise speed of Mach 0.9. This lets it fly between: New York to Shanghai, LA to Hong Kong and Sao Paulo to Dubai. Like other Falcons, Dassault says it will being certified for steep approaches allowing it to land at airports like London City.

That performance is largely thanks to an all-new product from engine partner Rolls-Royce. This is the first time a Dassault civil aircraft will have Rolls-Royce engines.

Perhaps still haunted by the issues with the Falcon 5X, Dassault made engines a top priority for its new aircraft. The Pearl 10X has been in development since 2021, accumulating 3,500 testing hours, including about 25 test flights covering 36,000nm.

Phillip Zeller, senior vice president for Dassault, Rolls-Royce, says the development team “sought maturity from day one”. “The 10X Pearl power plant offers the most efficient core available in business aviation with more than 18,000lbs of thrust,” he adds.

Among the changes to the cockpit, “simplification” and “reducing workload” are the dominant themes, Antoine Doussand, experimental test pilot, Dassault Aviation, tells CJI.

Calling on its jet fighter pedigree, Dassault has introduced its single throttle lever to the 10X. “One single throttle lever managing two engines may sound too simple and that is really the point,” says Doussand.

The function means pilots no longer have to adjust engine parameters, instead they can focus on controlling the amount of power based on the phase of flight.

The 10X is also introducing Dassault’s NeXus flight deck, a purpose-built avionics system consisting of eight multi-function displays. About 50% of all hard switches found in the 6X have been moved down to these displays, while all physical keyboards have been replaced by digital counterparts.

Maintenance is also a target of simplification. Dassault is already using 3D mockup data for spare parts engineering to define what will be needed most. It says it has 88,000 parts on the shelf today.

Parts should not be required as regularly though. “We are looking at 800 hours or 12 months between inspections,” says Kayanakis. “While we are aiming for a 10-year interval target between major inspections.” The airframe comes with a 20-year warranty.

Including the first airframe, rolled out in Merignac on Tuesday, Dassault has another in build and two more to come. These four will make up the test cohort for certification.

Next up is the start of the flight test campaign and type certification with EASA. Entry into service has already been revised from the original target of 2025 to late 2027, although some suspect this could be pushed to 2029.

Dassault is unlikely to be concerned. Chateau Dassault is best enjoyed at a bottle age of four to six years. The work required to produce the 10X is already in the barrel, it is now up to the regulator to decide the vintage.