MRJ finally makes it to the U.S. for type certificate testing

Japan’s first home built airplane for fifty years and its first jet, the MRJ90, successfully completed its ferry flight and landed at Grant County International Airport, Washington at 5.44 local time, Wednesday September 28. The jet left Japan’s Nagoya Airfield 1.28pm local time on Monday September 26, stopping at New Chitose Airport, Sapporo in Japan, Yelizovo Airport in Russia, and Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport in Alaska, en route.
This is the first of four test aircraft to be flown to the U.S. and to expedite the flight testing process, Mitsubishi has created three engineering bases, one at Moses Lake Flight Test Centre within Grant County International Airport, Seattle Engineering Center, and Mitsubishi headquarters in Japan. Having made its first test flight in November, the aircraft has been undergoing tests ever since, with the two intended ferry flights to the US aborted in August after problems with data monitoring the air conditioning system.
Mitsubishi Aircraft is a subsidiary company of Mitsubishi Heavy and has built the MRJ with the intention of directly challenging two market leaders, Embraer SA in Brazil, and Bombardier Inc. in Canada, in the 70-90-seat jet category. However, with Bombardier now focusing on the 160-seat C-Series, this will leave a door open for Mitsubishi who have had to delay delivery of the first MRJ90 by a year, to 2018, for system software upgrades and other design changes.
Orders for the aircraft stand at 443 including options, with SkyWest Inc. its largest customer with 100 firm order and 100 on option. Current book price for the MRJ90 is US$43.7 million.