This Week in GA: Dazzling Debuts

First off, Bravo! to our friends at Dassault Aviation on the first flight of the Falcon 10X on July 19. “The 10X will redefine the standard for business aviation, and aviation as a whole,” said Dassault’s lead test pilot, Sébastien Dupont de Dinechin, during the unveiling of the second test article, in its livery, at Bordeaux-Mérignac Airport in March. 

Known by his call sign “Triple D,” reflecting the three Ds in his name, maybe de Dinechin can now rightfully update that nickname to “10X.” Would that be pronounced in French as “dix-dix” or “2D”? Congratulations, in any event, to him and copilot Fabrice Dougnac, and the entire team on the biggest Falcon’s aerial debut!

Air & Space Turns 50

In a preview event for the press on June 23, we walked through the new galleries at the National Air & Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, taking lots of pictures and testing out all of the new activities interwoven into the presentation of compelling and historic artifacts on display.

The newly visioned galleries include “How Things Fly,” “Living in the Space Age Hall,” “Discovering Our Universe,” “World War II In the Air,” and “Flight and the Arts Center.” These five will be open in time for the 50th anniversary of the debut of the museum on the nation’s bicentennial, on July 1, with two more set to open this fall, completing the total overhaul of the NASM building and the way it connects with the world. 

“Just as the opening of this museum may have brought the Smithsonian into the 20th century, it became clear a decade ago that significant work was needed to bring this museum into the 21st century,” said Christopher Browne, director of the NASM, at the press event. And so began a massive renovation effort, knowing they needed to empty the museum in order to make the restoration possible. The NASM team has clearly made good on that mission, and the museum feels fresh, approachable, and inviting for those around the world who will visit and learn and be inspired.

Another LightHawk Milestone at 50, Too

Conservation flying association LightHawk hosted its second 50 in 50 Challenge, which culminated on June 22 with 53 actual flights in the logbooks. I missed out on participating in the Challenge last year by a few weeks, but the flight I made bears strong resemblance to the typical mission and long-term impact these flights can have.

This year, 29 volunteer pilots flew segments across the country, counting California condors in the west, to flying over marshland in the east. Importantly, many of these flights brought journalists aloft, sometimes for the first time, and introduced them to the power and utility of general aviation in protecting our wildlife and wild places. The images captured also drive home the rate of change in some places, such as lowering water levels on Lake Powell. If the idea of applying your talents as a pilot to a wide range of conservation efforts appeals to you, and you have more than 1,000 hours of time, I encourage you to apply with LightHawk so you can be part of next year’s challenge.

GAMA Wins for Aircraft Design and Sustainability

This week, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) announced that the team from Cambridge High School in Milton, Georgia, won first place in the 2026 GAMA Aviation Design Challenge. The team from Corona Del Sol High School in Tempe, Arizona, is the second-place winner, with the team from Greenville Technical Charter High School in Greenville, South Carolina, coming in third.

We love that the challenge gives a large yet achievable task to a group of students, and doesn’t pull any punches on the process. The outcome is meaningful, and the skills learned—including how to work within a design team—are directly translatable to the workplace the young people may be inspired to join in the future.

Hats off to the companies that have sponsored the 2024 Aviation Design Challenge, including Bombardier, Cirrus Aircraft, Click Bond Inc., CubCrafters, Embraer, Garmin, Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, Hartzell Propeller, Jeppesen ForeFlight, Jet Aviation, Redbird Flight, Signature Aviation, Textron Aviation, and Wipaire.

GAMA (and Dassault) also celebrated another win this week in the pursuit to align sustainability targets with the announcement of a critical judgment of the General Court of the European Union that annuls the exclusion of aircraft “intended for private or commercial business aviation” from the EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance. The judgment stems from an action brought to the court by Dassault Aviation seeking that annulment, so that the manufacture of business aircraft could be deemed environmentally sustainable, and thus potentially qualify for access to funding in the quest for climate change mitigation.

“The judgment is an important recognition that sustainable-finance policy must be based on legally sound, technology-neutral and equitable criteria,” said GAMA Europe in a release. “It confirms that business aircraft manufacturing cannot be assessed through an operational metric that is not recognised in EU law, nor by assuming that other transport modes are necessarily low-carbon alternatives, all of which GAMA has been advocating for at all levels of the European Commission for over five years.”

In other words, business aviation has been and will continue to be a driver for greater sustainability, not just in Europe but around the world.