From Henri K blog. with more experience they now can speed up the test period
Seven months after the inaugural flight of the first prototype of its medium-haul program
C919 program , the Chinese manufacturer COMAC is about to move up a gear by preparing the second C919 to take off.
The date, according to the Twitter account of COMAC America Corp., is scheduled within two weeks to Friday, December 15th. The aircraft registered 10102, or B-001C, is expected to take off from Shanghai-Pudong International Airport, as its eldest a few months ago.
The second
(B-001C) is scheduled to take its first flight on Friday, December 15th, an exciting step in the C919 program! Let the countdown begin!
The second C919 is now on the home stretch and last Thursday conducted its first low-speed test on Pudong Runway # 5, after passing an On Aircraft Test Procedures (OATP). with success.
Nine checkpoints could be checked at the stop and during taxi, during this exit which began at 13:16 local time and ended at 14:52.
Commander WU Xin (吴 鑫), who was co-pilot on the
, was assisted by XU Yuan Zheng (徐 远征),
, and accompanied by an observer and two test engineers.
Note that with the experiences gained on the first prototype 10101, COMAC teams have been able to accelerate the pace on assembly lines and in trials. It should be noted that the cycle between the final assembly of the second C919 and its first planned flight is practically divided by five compared to the first of the program, from almost two years to less than five months only, at least for what it was planned.
The ground taxi tests are also cut in half - the first C919 began its taxi tests end of December 2016 and made its first flight in early May, while in less than a month the aircraft 10102 should already finish the rollings and fly away.
And since his departure on November 10 at China Flight Test Establishment , a complex located on the outskirts of Xi'an and specialized in the certification of Chinese civil and military aircraft, the first prototype of C919 has also increased the pace of its tests in flight.
After two weeks of rest, the plane resumed its wings on 23 November and has since achieved six qualifying flights. Not all data are publicly available, but most of these flights are longer than two hours.
In all, the C919 # 10101 has accumulated twelve test flights including six in Shanghai, and six in Xi'an.
To be continued.
Henri K.
