Homegrown jet takes to the skies in Shanghai

China’s homegrown C919 large passenger jet on Tuesday underwent test flights in Shanghai, and will be later moved to a testing base in East China’s Shandong Province.

An industry analyst said this shows that the plane is undergoing normal and stable progress before it will be put into commercial use.

The C919 jetliner did test flights at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport at 7:05 am, domestic news site chinanews.com reported.

The report said that the C919 “prototype 102 test aircraft” will finish stability tests, systematic inspections and test modifications in Shanghai and will be shifted to a testing base in Dongying, Shandong Province, in the near future.

“The C919 model is undergoing tests based on its own pace and it seems that the procedure has been smooth and stable,” Qi Qi, an independent industry analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Qi said that the Chinese-made passenger aircraft needs to go through many tests before it can acquire airworthiness certification from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, which is expected around three years from now. For now, test pilots are focusing on adjustment and optimization work, said Qi.

On Friday, the first and second prototypes of the C919 aircraft have made additional test flights in Shanghai and Xi’an, Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, according to a post on Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC)’s Weibo account.

The C919 project is steadily advancing, with test flights, static tests and other related optimization work proceeding with orderly progress, the post noted.

As China’s first domestically produced narrowbody passenger jet, the model will go through a hard and long process and meet some challenges before it goes into the market, which is quite normal, Qi said. “We should have confidence in it and give it some time,” he said.

The C919 aircraft underwent its successful maiden flight on May 5, 2017, at Shanghai Pudong International Airport.