What’s next for the Cseries, now that it has successfully taken off?
Bombardier aiming at one-year deadline for flight testing
Excellent. Well done. The 2½-hour maiden flight looked fab Monday. The event hit all its marks — the smooth takeoff and landing, the low-noise engine, the slow, preening flypast. All the exultation, the backslapping and even the occasional tear were honestly and well-earned.
But — and pardon us for asking — what have you done for us lately, Bombardier Inc.? It’s a cruel world. With Monday’s first flight of its CSeries safely and successfully under its belt — albeit 8½ months late — the rapturous attention rightly accorded the blessed event must inevitably turn to more mundane matters.
And that would be the practical question of the next deadline, another improbably tight one of 12 months, this one for entry into service — or EIS in aviation lingo.
And company executives were ready, answering the avalanche of questions Monday about the tight deadline to conduct the 2,400 hours of the flight-test program with the same expression: The 12-month program is “still the plan.”
Not that everything up to now has been a breeze — nor, conversely, that the tough slogging has been done and it’s all a cinch from here on in.
An aircraft’s development leading to first flight does much of the heavy lifting. But a great deal of critical work remains to be done — namely the flight-test program involving five flight-test aircraft for the CS100 110-seat airplane and two more for the CS300 130-seater, hundreds of flights totalling more than 2,400 flight hours, followed by product certification and program completion.
Company chairman Laurent Beaudoin told The Gazette right after the maiden flight’s touchdown Monday that “it’s pretty difficult to confirm (whether the company will have enough time by next September). Let’s wait two or three months and see how (the test-flight data) go.”
“But so far, our program has been totally acceptable compared with Boeing (Co.) and Airbus (SAS). And for us, it’s a brand new segment, a brand new plane with lots of software, which brings in a lot more complexity.” “The proof will be in the air.” Chuck Ellis, the prototypical chief test pilot who spoke after the flight in measured, understated tones that contrasted sharply with the festive, even jubilant atmosphere, said that “in many ways, we didn’t learn anything new. But we validated what we did know.”
The flight-test group will pore over the flight’s data for the next few days — after a well-earned rest Tuesday — but the real data that could confirm Bombardier’s oftstated reductions in fuel consumption, greenhouse gases and noise will come later, Ellis said.
He told The Gazette later that the fly-by-wire system had performed “just fine,” but that it had been set at the lowest level of its capabilities for the inaugural flight. The system that has worried Bombardier executives for a couple of years will be ratcheted up gradually over the year-long program.
Robert Dewar, vice-president of the CSeries program, said that only FTV3 and FTV4 — the third and fourth test aircraft — will be “wired for performance.”
“It’s-mid-way-through-the-program (in about six months) that we’ll get validating figures,” Dewar said.
Guy Hachey, president of Bombardier Aerospace, noted how quiet the new-technology Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engines were — saying that some people missed the takeoff roll because of the reduced noise from the jet engine, designed to be four times quieter than comparable engines.
Company officials were also wellrehearsed on answering another question that is frequently being asked: When will Bombardier decide to build larger CSeries, going even more directly against the world’s two aircraft giants?
“At the moment, we’ll concentrate on the CS100 and CS300,” Beaudoin said with a laugh. “I think we have a mission right now with those two.”
“Anyway, that’s for the next generation.”
His son Pierre, Bombardier’s president, also said: “Our whole focus right now is on the CS100.
“We’re talking about (Bombar- dier’s estimate of) 7,000 aircraft in that category over the next 20 years, and we’re targeting over 50 per cent of that. No competitor aircraft will be in that category for another five years at least, and we’re the only ones with an all-new aircraft.”
Hachey also said all his attention was on the current program.
Mike Arcamone, president of Bombardier Commercial Aircraft, repeated the phrase, adding: “But we’ll continue our assessment of the market later. We’ll see, but that’s way out in the future.”
The CSeries is the world’s first all-new plane in the 100- to 150-seat class in 50 years, when Douglas Aircraft green-lighted the DC-9 on April 8, 1963. That plane became a workhorse for airlines worldwide and is a classic.