What’s The Latest With Rolls-Royce’s Pearl 10X Set To Power The Dassault Falcon 10X?

The Rolls-Royce Pearl 10X is one of the newest engines within the private aviation sector, with the engine set to power the upcoming Dassault Falcon 10X. This will be the largest business jet produced by the French aircraft manufacturer, seating up to 19 passengers and flying an impressive 7,500 nautical miles (13,890 kilometers), matching the range of some commercial widebody aircraft. However, the engine is not yet certified by the world’s civil aviation authorities, with Rolls-Royce racking up flight test hours with the powerplant.

Flying on a Boeing 747 testbed

The Pearl 10X could be spotted mounted on a Rolls-Royce Boeing 747-200 flying testbed, registered as N787RR. In an update in May 2023, the company said that the Pearl 10X development program is “advancing at pace and has successfully accumulated more than 1,500 testing hours, both on the Advance 2 demonstrator and the Pearl 10X engine configuration.” The Pearl 10X-mounted Boeing 747-200 should take off soon, with Aviation Week reporting that the company is placing the engine on the aircraft to fly it later in 2023.

Photo: Rolls-Royce

Dirk Geisinger, the Business Aviation Director at Rolls-Royce, told the publication that he sees no problems that would prevent the company from conducting flight tests by the end of this year. According to Geisinger, the engine maker is already preparing the next set of test engines, as well as manufacturing the first Pearl 10Xs that will go to Dassault directly. During the same announcement in May 2023, Rolls-Royce said it was building a production support facility in France. The site is in close proximity to Dassault’s Final Assembly Line (FAL), where the Falcon 10X will also be manufactured.

Read more: The Dassault Falcon 10X: Everything You Need To Know

Using SAF on Pearl 10X

Rolls-Royce has also tested the engine to run on 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). In a statement in October 2023, the engine maker said it had completed a series of tests on the Pearl 15, powering the Bombardier Global 5500 and Global 6500 and the Pearl 10X.

Photo: Rolls-Royce

Previous tests included running the Pearl 700, used to power the upcoming Gulfstream G700 and G800 aircraft, on 100% SAF. At the time, Rolls-Royce stated that a Pearl 10X was powered by Jet A-1 and SAF back-to-back, as the company aimed to “confirm further improvements in the environmental footprint when switching to SAF.”

“The results from this first back-to-back engine emission test under standard certification conditions provides important correlations for the evaluation of future SAF within our environmental strategy.”

Speaking about the tests, Dirk Geisinger, the Director of Business Aviation at Rolls-Royce, commented that SAF is a “key element of our sustainability strategy, as they will play an important role in decarbonising long-haul flight.” Furthermore, the Pearl engine family is “already setting new standards in the ultra-long-range corporate jet market,” where few jets compete against each other. Rolls-Royce dominates the engine market within the largest business jet segment, with General Electric’s (GE) Passport being its only competition, which powers the Bombardier Global 7500.