Beechcraft King Air

The Beechcraft King Air family is part of a line of twin-turboprop aircraft produced by Beechcraft. The King Air line comprises a number of models that have been divided into two families; the Model 90 and 100 series are known as King Airs, while the Model 200 and 300 series were originally marketed as Super King Airs, with "Super" being dropped by Beechcraft in 1996 (although it is still often used to differentiate the 200 and 300 series King Airs from their smaller stablemates).

The King Air was the first aircraft in its class and has been in continuous production since 1964. It has outsold all of its turboprop competitors combined. It now faces competition from jet aircraft such as the Beechcraft Premier I and Cessna Citation Mustang as well as newer turboprop aircraft including the Piaggio P180 Avanti, and single-engine Piper Malibu Meridian, Pilatus PC-12, and Socata TBM.

Development

Model 90 series

The Model 90 King Air was conceived as the Model 120 in 1961. In May 1963, Beechcraft began test flights of the proof-of-concept Model 87, a modified Queen Air with Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-6 engines. On 14 July, Beech announced a new type, and a month later began accepting orders for the "King Air", with deliveries to commence in Autumn 1964. After 10 months of test flying, in 1964 the Model 87 was delivered to the United States Army as the NU-8F. On 24 January, the first definitive prototype, by now designated Model 65-90 and also fitted with PT6A-6 engines, flew for the first time. The first production aircraft was delivered on October 8, and by the end of the month, 152 aircraft had been ordered; by year's end, seven had been built.

Dassault Falcon 7X

The Dassault Falcon 7X is a French large-cabin, long range trijet manufactured by Dassault Aviation, the flagship offering of their business jet line. It was first presented to the public at the 2005 Paris Air Show.

Development

The aircraft has over 200 orders to date. It has received its type certification from both the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) on 27 April 2007. The first 7X, MSN05, entered service on 15 June 2007; the hundredth was delivered in November 2010.

In 2001, the Falcon 7X, at approximately $35 million (pre-production order price), was nearly $10 million cheaper than its nearest competitors in the long range, large cabin market segment, the Gulfstream G550 and Bombardier Global Express. Its 2007 cost was $41 million.As of 2008, the approximate unit cost of the 7X is $50 million (which was no longer less expensive than the Global Express, at $40M). It conducted high altitude airport tests at 14,500 ft in Daocheng in 2014.