SI: N550TH - The Life Of A Sony Corporate Jet

[Christopher]

This is pretty random, but I was searching around flickr for a picture to use with a story and came across this gem. Apparently, there are publicly accessible websites out there that have pictures of interesting commercially/private-owned planes. The picture above is of a 2001 Dassault Falcon 900EX, labeled N550TH, and the accompanying text states “Sony Corporate Services.” So it looks like Sony executives fly around in a plane that can do 4,500 nautical miles nonstop, the farthest in its class. Three fuel efficient Honeywell TFE731-60 turbofan engines deliver 5000 lb of thrust. How fuel efficient is that? The manufacturer’s website states that it “..is capable of flying eight passengers from Stockholm to Amsterdam, then on to Paris, Rome, Istanbul, and finally, Moscow without refueling.”

The cabin length measures 33 feet 2 inches from the cockpit divider to the aft pressure bulkhead, devoting 25 feet to passenger seating. It is a broad 7 feet 8 inches wide and 6 feet 2 inches high so you move about easily with your head held high. The typical Falcon 900EX has seating for 13 passengers includes six Erda 20″ electric seats, two sets of 20″ mechanical double seats, one three-place divan with berthing capability. Configuration consists of forward four-place club, mid-cabin four-place conference/dining group opposite two-place settee, and aft three-place divan opposite two-place club, forward galley, aft lavatory.

Fully equipped for multiple meals, the galley houses all the essentials for a fine dining experience, 45,000 feet in the air. Two-dozen panoramic windows drench the cabin with natural light. There are several options for customizing the interior (these are not actual N550TH pictures), such as this:

However, if you search around you will see that the interior has unlimited potential, but since this is Sony it could seriously be something equal to the brain-stem hookups from The Matrix for all we know. Regardless, Sony folks love globetrotting, because when you start Googling, you see the N550TH been around the block. I was able to find a few pictures, so now I’m basically making a scrapbook and not a blog post at this point. The first picture used in this story was taken in Philadelphia, but this plane has been all over the world.

Here’s a picture of Sony’s Falcon 900EX at London Luton Airport in 2007.

I found another picture on airliners.net and jetphotos.net of the N550TH in Salzburg, Austria also in 2007.

It just keeps going and going. Here is the N550TH again about to land at Tokyo National Airport, also in 2007. This thing was seriously busy. Strangely enough I can’t find any pictures of the N550TH after 2007 - anyone know of its fate? Is it still being used heavily with Sony? How has the recent downturn in the economy changed that? If anyone knows, please leave a comment.

One last thing - the cockpit of the Falcon 900EX is pretty cool. I am pretty sure that it looks something like this, and yes, apparently Wookiee fur seating is common on this plane, as other cockpit images from post 2001 models that I’ve seen also have it. Weird.

View the full article