Dassault Aviation

As of October 2026 – When a slim jet with three engines at the tail stands on the general aviation apron, the answer is almost always clear: it’s a Falcon from Dassault Aviation. The French manufacturer is a special case for spotters. It no longer builds airliners, but its business jets shape business travel at every larger airport, and with the Rafale it delivers one of Europe’s most distinctive fighter jets. If you can read a few details at the tail, you can identify Falcons even without livery and logo.

From Marcel Bloch to Dassault

The story begins in 1929: Marcel Bloch founds the Société des Avions Marcel Bloch and builds military and civil aircraft in the 1930s. After the Second World War, he adopts the name Dassault – based on his brother’s Résistance code name – and in 1947 the company is called Avions Marcel Dassault. Under this name, the era of jet aircraft begins – first with fighters such as the Ouragan and Mystère, from 1956 with the Mirage III, whose delta wing becomes a trademark.

In 1971, Dassault takes over the long-established manufacturer Breguet, and in 1990 the company receives its current name, Dassault Aviation. Today it belongs mainly to the Groupe Dassault, with Airbus on board as a minority shareholder. Dassault has been led by Éric Trappier since 2013. Incidentally, a by-product of its own design work is world-famous: the CATIA design software originally comes from the company and has been developed further since 1981 by the independent Dassault Systèmes.

Economically, Dassault stands on two legs. According to its own figures, revenue in 2025 was around €7.42 billion, with 37 Falcons and 26 Rafales delivered. The order backlog at the end of 2025 comprised 220 Rafales and 73 Falcons. For you at the fence, that means: new Falcons reach the market in a steady stream, and many of them sooner or later turn up at German, Austrian and Swiss airports as well.

The Falcon family at a glance

The Falcon line begins on May 4, 1963, with the first flight of the Mystère 20 at Bordeaux-Mérignac. In North America, the jet is marketed through Pan Am as the Fan Jet Falcon and later the Falcon 20 – the name Falcon has stuck to all Dassault business jets ever since. A chapter of logistics history comes free: with converted Falcon 20s, FedEx began its express service in the 1970s.

Since then, Dassault has relaunched the family again and again. The following table sorts the types you may encounter today – current and older.

The most important rule of thumb: count the engines at the tail. All Falcons carry their engines at the rear of the fuselage. On the trijets, the third engine sits in the center of the tail; its air intake is on top of the fuselage directly in front of the vertical stabilizer. You see this hump from the side, from the front and on a flyover.

The trijets: Falcon 900LX, 7X and 8X

Three engines are the hallmark of the large Falcons. Dassault justifies this with safety margins on long overwater routes and good takeoff and landing characteristics on short runways. For spotters, it is above all a gift: hardly any other current business jet has three engines, so a Falcon trijet is almost unmistakable.

The Falcon 900 first flew on September 21, 1984, and is a further development of the Falcon 50. The current version, the 900LX, carries upswept winglets that distinguish it from older 900B or 900EX models. According to the manufacturer, it manages around 4,750 nautical miles.

The Falcon 7X made its first flight on May 5, 2005, and was the first business jet with digital fly-by-wire controls. Compared with the 900, the more strongly swept wing stands out. Its stretched sister is the Falcon 8X, which first took off in Mérignac on February 6, 2015. The 8X’s cabin is a good meter longer, and the range is around 6,450 nautical miles according to Dassault. To the naked eye, the difference between the 7X and 8X is subtle – fuselage length helps, but certainty comes only with the registration or type designator.

The twinjets: Falcon 2000LXS, 6X and 10X

The Falcon 2000 first flew on March 4, 1993 – a shorter, twin-engine derivative of the Falcon 900. From the side, it therefore looks like a “900 without the center engine.” Numerous versions followed over the years: EX, DX, LX, S and finally the current 2000LXS with winglets and improved takeoff and landing performance. According to available figures, around 675 Falcon 2000s had been built by autumn 2022 – so you see them correspondingly often.

The Falcon 6X is the current large twinjet. It first flew on March 10, 2021, received EASA and FAA certification in August 2023 and entered service at the end of November 2023. Its hallmark is the strikingly voluminous fuselage: Dassault advertises the cabin as the widest of any purpose-designed business jet. Add to that the large nacelles of the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW812D engines. The 6X replaces the Falcon 5X project, which Dassault canceled at the end of 2017 after the planned engine failed to meet expectations.

At the top of the family stands the Falcon 10X. With a cabin width of 2.77 meters and a range of around 7,500 nautical miles stated by the manufacturer, it is the largest Falcon and competes with long-range business jets such as the Gulfstream G650 and the Bombardier Global 7500. It is powered by two Pearl 10X engines from Rolls-Royce. The first prototype lifted off on its maiden flight at Bordeaux-Mérignac on June 19, 2026, and flight testing has been under way since. When the first customers will receive their 10X has already slipped several times – so expect test aircraft with French registrations, not customer jets.

The right Falcon in four steps

Business jets often taxi far out on side taxiways or depart between two airliners. This sequence quickly leads you to the right answer.

Rafale, Mirage and the military side

Besides the Falcons, Dassault is best known for fighter aircraft. The Rafale goes back to the Rafale A technology demonstrator, which lifted off at Istres on July 4, 1986. Today it flies with the French air force and navy; export customers include Egypt, India, Qatar, Greece, Croatia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. Like the Falcons, it is final-assembled in Mérignac near Bordeaux.

In the field, you recognize the Rafale by its delta wing with two engines and the canards directly behind the cockpit, above the side air intakes. This distinguishes it from the Eurofighter, whose canards sit far forward and whose air intake is below the fuselage. The older Mirage 2000, by contrast, is a single-engine delta-wing fighter without canards.

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, you see the Rafale mainly at air shows, on exercises or on visits to military airfields. Which events are worthwhile is shown in the overview Air shows in Europe. Before you photograph at a military airfield, be sure to read the article Photographing military airfields: the rules – considerably stricter requirements apply there than at civil airports.

The Mercure – the only Dassault airliner

A chapter that many spotters don’t know: Dassault once built an airliner. The Mercure first flew on May 28, 1971, a twin-engine short-haul jet with Pratt & Whitney JT8D engines for up to around 160 passengers. Visually it recalls an enlarged first-generation Boeing 737 but was designed for very short routes with high capacity.

Commercially, the Mercure was not a success: only 12 aircraft were built, all of which flew with the French domestic carrier Air Inter – from June 4, 1974, to April 29, 1995. Some aircraft are preserved today. One stands in the Technik Museum Speyer, another in the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace at Le Bourget near Paris. For collectors, a visit to Speyer is the easiest way to see a Dassault airliner up close.

Manufacturer identified, operator not

With business jets, this separation is even more important than with airliners. A Falcon often carries no corporate colors, and the registration can point to a completely different country than the actual place of operation. How to tell the origin of a registration is shown in the article Country codes on aircraft. New Falcons often fly test and delivery flights with a French registration, which begins with F-.

Where to see Falcons best

Falcons land wherever business travelers go. Geneva Airport is especially rewarding: international organizations, banks and the proximity to the Alpine resorts generate a lot of business jet traffic. From the observation deck in Geneva, you have good chances of Falcons taxiing and taking off.

At Zurich Airport, the number of business jets rises markedly every January around the World Economic Forum in Davos. Spectator terrace B and the Butzenbüel are proven locations for it. In Germany, large hubs such as Frankfurt Airport or Munich Airport offer regular business jet traffic, often at trade fairs and major events. General tips on locations, times and parking areas are in the article Spotting business jets.

Falcons with government or military registrations are among the coveted subjects, because many states use them as transport or special-mission aircraft. How to recognize such flights is explained in the article Spotting government aircraft. And if you are hunting rare Falcon variants such as an old Falcon 20 or a prototype of the 10X, you’ll find suitable strategies in the article Spotting rare aircraft.

If you want to compare Falcons with other manufacturers, Pilatus Aircraft with the PC-12 offers a smaller representative of business aviation. The big airliner manufacturers Airbus and Boeing have pages of their own.

Conclusion

For spotters, Dassault Aviation is above all the home of the Falcons. With a glance at the tail, you split the family into twinjets and trijets, with wing shape and fuselage you narrow down the model, and the registration turns it into a complete sighting. Add the Rafale as the military flagship and the Mercure as a curious chapter of civil aviation.

In the coming years, a watchful eye is especially worthwhile: the Falcon 6X is spreading through fleets, and with the 10X the largest Falcon of all time is in flight testing. If you catch test flights or first deliveries, you have a sighting that not everyone has in their logbook.