Falcon 2000

[hawker750]

Hi, I need to put a Falcon 2000 on my AOC. Any out there looking for a home in a nice free heated hangar at Biggin? Preferably in 10 seat config as one of my most loyal Hawker customers now wants more seats on regular runs out to the Stans. I have advised him that the Falcon is probably the next most reliable aircraft after the Hawker. Am I correct there?

[international hog driver]

I currently fly a 2000EX Easy and previous to this was on a Hawker 800XP so here is a perspective..... The Hawker was middle of the road everywhere, the Falcon is at the top of the road, around the corner beyond the hills and sitting back at the pub.... waiting for the Hawker to show up.

Reliable yes, if you treat them right. The Hawkers I flew lived in the heat & occasionally snow, never got hangared and were still pretty reliable. The Falcon needs a little TLC, but is very reliable you will need access to a trouble shooter and 99% of the time its a nuisance message that cant be reproduced.

It is an electronic machine and likes to be fired up methodically and in sequence, occasionally she will not play the game so shut it down and disconnect the batteries (always do this when leaving the plane for more than a few hours - its easy). Reconnect, fire up, and she will have forgotten everything.

I have done everything from 8 minute flights to consecutive 7+ hour legs in one go. (Usually twice around the bubble each year) engine and airframe combo is great with no issues, the only real issue we have had is tyre wear, they are soft rubber and rough runways are not kind. Quick turns are no prob either we regularly do drop and go 15 mins chock to chock shutdown is not uncommon, hell we even do dump and runs and leave the right one going, again no problem.:}

Winglets are only really noticeable in the climb above FL340, and then of course you can milk a couple hundred miles from a standard M0.8 cruise.

Rules of thumb, M0.8 is normal, M0.82 uses 14% more fuel and the time saving is minimal and gets killed by radar vectors at the end anyway. M0.84 will get you there quicker, but fuel burn goes up by 20%+ . We find it is a comfortable 3400NM machine before you start looking at chewing sheepskin.

We find that you get the best TAS between FL380 & F410 anyway, going higher never works out unless there are some seriously good winds or FL430+ will get you over the traffic.

Compared to the Hawker, ..... well you can actually carry suitcases now! (my record was 22!) heaps of space in the cabin, (dont get the espresso machine its nothing but trouble). High MLW so you can tanker fuel, cockpit is light years ahead, seats are ok if you are average sized. Draining the fluids in cold WX is super easy, jump seat is good if you regularly carry a cabin safety specialist ;)

Best bit is you get all of this with the fuel burn less than a Hawker! The PW's are bullet proof..

Having flown 3 different c/n 2000 Easy each one was different, one was more trouble than the other two combined.

Enjoy it.:ok:

[hawker750]

Thanks for that.
I need the model that is the most reliable. A typical mission would be EGKB-UTDD-UAKB-UAMS-UAAA-UTTT over 7-10 days. Not a lot of engineering support in those places. My old Hawkers never let me down I need the Falcon equivalent, may be an earlier model that has fewer computers to glitch up.
And of course need to find an owner who wants some hours

[falconeasydriver]

Hawker,

Hoggy is spot on in his assessment, also bear in mind that the Easy (honeywell) falcons are actually now quite a bit more reliable than the original 2000's 900's and 50's simply because the older versions are just that..getting old.
The falcons I flew, for all their french quirks are very reliable machines, in 18 months we had one avionic snag, and that was our own fault thanks to uploading the wrong DB disk.
In colder climes, it pays to remove the batteries and make sure the water system is purged, but thats about it, we used to top off the tanks making sure it was Jet A1 or equilvalent. The last Falcon I flew, a 900Ex Easy sat on the ramp at Vunokovo for 7 days in -23 or worse...I turned up, replaced the batteries, cleared the snow from the APU inlet, and fired it up, 10 minutes later it was all warm so on when the avionics, no problems at all.
My advice regarding support would be to contact the FBO's you use, or even the Dassault rep directly, usually you can get this info through the owner or operator in any case as you probably already know.
Hope this helps, Falcons these days are a quantam leap more reliable than they used to be....then again have you looked at the Embraer Legacy?

[jetopa]

Both International Hog Driver and Falconeasydriver are absolutely right.

The F2000 EASys start working flawlessly after the teething problems they all had in the beginning.

Have you considered a F2000EX 'non EASy' or 'classic'? That is the exact same airplane as the EX EASy but with with the old Collins avionics. There are 27 of them somewhere out there. Asolutely bullet-proof and it can do everything you can ask of modern avionics - minus the autothrottles, that is...

If you treat them right, they work just fine. That applies to everything from France, by the way. Living creatures as well...:ok:

[hawker750]

Thanks for all this great info. Looks like the one for me is going to be the EX "classic".
Going straight from 700/800's to an easy might be too much of a culture shock! Anybody have the MSP or equivalent hourly rates for the engines? The tyre wear worries me a bit, the runways we go to can be pretty rough, but I guess there is enough space to carry a couple of wheels in the baggage bay. Any other recommended items for the fly away spares pack?

[Max Payne]

If you have flown Pro Line 21 Hawkers, transition should be fairly simple. System wise you just have to get used to the much greater redundancy than compared to the Hawker.

[international hog driver]

We carry a spare built up main in the hell hole, along with the ladder and towbar and it is still as big as my first apartment:}

The collapse-able towbar is a very nice piece of kit, but get it out and have a play before you get somewhere that is toooo freakin cold and you need to put it together in a rush.

Other than that we dont carry anything else other than a couple cans of oil and the squirter bottle used to get the oil in, just so the engineer does not need to carry it if we are down route.

Get a good floor runner, we have an additional light one over the entry as well to soak up the gunk from pax feet.