China’s C919 jet completes 3rd test flight
SHANGHAI: China’s home-built C919 passenger jet completed its third test flight yesterday, data from plane-tracking website Flightradar24 showed, bringing the Asian nation a step closer to its goal of becoming a global civil aerospace player.
The flight comes 36 days after its previous test.
The plane took off at 7.37am yesterday from Pudong Airport, here, and landed at 11.25am, well past the tracker’s initial estimate of 8.56am, according to Flightradar24. The aircraft maintained an altitude of around 10,000 feet during most of the flight as it circled above the city, the website’s data showed.
The C919, which will compete with Boeing Co’s 737 and the Airbus SE A320, is a symbol of China’s civil aerospace ambitions and President Xi Jinping’s push to upgrade the country’s manufacturing capabilities.
Commercial Aircraft Corp of China Ltd (Comac) vice-president Shi Jianzhong previously said the time between the C919’s future test flights would be much shorter than the nearly fivemonth gap between the C919’s first and second flights.
Plans for the third test flight, however, were delayed due to bad weather, said a Comac official last month.
The C919 was not expected to enter commercial service before 2020, said Chinese-owned aircraft leasing company Avolon in a report on Monday.