After a series of high-speed taxi tests witnessed by a panel of 25 aviation experts, including those from the Chinese Aviation Administration of China and AVIC who carried out a technical review of events, The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, (Comac) has announced that its C919 jet will be ready for its maiden flight in May or June this year.
According to Comac: “This signifies that the C919 is one step closer to its first flight… and [high-speed taxi testing] is the last task that the C919 must complete before it can fly.” However, this will very much depend on whether the plane manufacturer discovers any problems during current testing. The rejected take-off test, they added, may also be challenging.
Aircraft 101 began taxi tests on December 28, having now taken more than three months to complete low- and medium-speed taxi tests. Its first low-speed taxi tests threw up some “component-level issues” which, while not insignificant, were not major roadblocks for the programme according to some sources.
While Comac is under tremendous pressure to produce China’s first narrow-body commercial jet, company chairman Jin Zhuanglong has made it apparent he would rather the project be “a little late” to ensure that safety and aircraft quality isn’t compromised. Originally the maiden flight was anticipated for the latter part of 2016.
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