Duncan Aviation is excited to showcase a Falcon 50 that its aircraft artisans have recently refurbished. The team gave the aircraft new exterior paint, full interior refurbishment, aft cabin reconfiguration with new divan installation, avionics upgrades, winglets and LED lighting.

After the aircraft's pre-purchase evaluation was completed at Duncan's Battle Creek, Michigan facility, the team immediately began the transformation process. The first-time customer told senior completions and modifications sales rep Tiffany Buschini that they had heard about the quality of work Duncan Aviation provides and the reputation the company has, and that they didn't want to take the aircraft anywhere else.

Buschini explains that as part of the refurbishment, the owners wanted to add a divan. To meet their request, it removed the existing right-hand aft single seats and installed a right-hand, three place divan. The team also replaced the pull-up jump seat with a side-facing jump-seat.

"They had explained to me that the flight attendant had expressed concern about sitting on a pull-up jump seat," says Buschini. "To create a more comfortable and enjoyable experience, we added a side-facing jump-seat. This also creates more space for the crew to get in and out of the flight deck when someone is seated in the jump-seat."

Buschini says that the interior wasn't necessarily in poor condition when it arrived at Duncan's facility, but the new owners wanted a complete refresh, and they wanted to personalise it to fit their tastes. The result is a modern and striking interior that has a few unique additions, such as cupholders and galley inserts designed and customised to hold handmade pottery mugs that the owner's friend creates.

"Our cabinet shop built a custom-fit insert to store these mugs in a galley drawer," says designer Jack Bauder. "We also created the concept for a multi-level cupholder that can accommodate both these mugs, or highball glasses, in a single unit."

The Duncan engineering team developed the measurements and drawings for production, which the manufacturing solutions team then produced in-house. The custom, one-off cupholders were installed throughout the cabin and include a specific spot to put the passengers' lowball whiskey glasses and highball glasses.

"This is just another example of how Duncan Aviation can harness our in-house capabilities to fit our customers' specific needs," says Buschini.

The team also made modifications to the interior by removing the existing mirrors and trim in the lav and adding custom light covers to give it a more modern look. The LED lighting makes the area brighter and more contemporary.

The aircraft also features two-tone seats with diamond-patterned, quilted inserts that were completed using an automated CNC machine. All of the cabinetry in the cabin was treated with hydrographic finishes and new, one-piece modern Duncan-designed passenger service unit panels were installed.

The aircraft also received a much-needed avionics upgrade, including a Collins Aerospace Pro Line 21 integrated avionics system and Future Air Navigation System 1/A (FANS-1/A) w/ATN-B1 controller pilot data link communications (CPDLC).

Senior avionics sales rep Mike Morgan explains that this was the first time Duncan Aviation had installed the Collins CMU-4000+ CMU for FANS-1/A and ATN-B1 with the Pro Line 21 system into a Falcon 50EX.

"Dassault was working on a CMU-4000+ STC for this installation, and it was proposed to use this project as the conforming aircraft," says Morgan, who also revealed that the new owner had concerns about the serviceability of the outdated cabin management system. To mitigate these concerns, the team installed the Alto Cadence CMS.

During the process of quoting new LED lighting, the team was approached by Aircraft Lighting International about installing its new multi-coloured LED lighting system. The customer was receptive, making this the first time ALI multi-coloured LED lighting was installed in an aircraft at Duncan Aviation.

The aircraft also received a new Collins Aerospace Synthetic Vision System.