Dassault Falcon 50

The Dassault Falcon 50 is a French super-midsize, long-range business jet with three engines, the centre one fed through an S-duct intake. It shares the fuselage cross-section and similar capacity of the earlier twin-engined Falcon 20 but is a new design, area ruled and with a more advanced wing. The first prototype flew on 7 November 1976, and French and American certification followed in February and March 1979. Dassault also offered a maritime surveillance version, the Gardian 50, and later the Falcon 50EX with improved engines, first flown in 1996. The basic Falcon 50 was built to 252 aircraft and the 50EX to 100, and the last delivery came in 2008. The Falcon 900 and Falcon 7X carried its three-engine layout forward. A Falcon 50 shot down near Kigali in 1994 carried the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, and the event triggered the Rwandan genocide.