Falcon 900LX – The French, followed by an Italian and an American.

Shot over The Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Coast in 2014, this making-of snippet is an unusual take on the normal glossy business jet promotional videos we see nowadays, many often computer-generated.

Kudos to Dassault for creating and releasing this very real 3-minute behind the scenes version to accompany the actual official marketing video of about 1 minute. The long version of the making-of video is just over 5 minutes and can be seen on the Dassault Falcon website.

Amazingly, the French manufacturer used the Aermacchi MB339 (the Italian military jet) and the B25 Mitchell (the American bomber aircraft) to take photographs and shoot the videos of the Falcon 900LX (the French corporate jet).

What is truly extraordinary is that the B25 Mitchell, a WW2-era bomber aircraft first introduced in 1941 and officially “retired” in 1971, was used to follow and photograph one of the most modern business jets in the world, and take those airborne photographs through a hole in the rear of its fuselage with the photographer attached to a safety “harness”.

There were almost 10,000 B25s built so there’s likely to be quite a few enthusiasts around who can still fly the B25 and take a photo or two for creative aircraft marketers like Dassault.

It is worth seeing the final edited version of the marketing video and compare the behind the scenes “shoot” with the official marketing version. There may well be a “three guys walked into a bar” joke somewhere off the coast of Florida and we can only marvel at the skills and talents of all involved. Bravo.

www.dassaultfalcon.com/en/MediaCenter/MediaGallery/Pages/videoresults.aspx#k=#s=31