BEIJING—The configuration of the first prototype of the Comac C919 program has been frozen in preparation for a first flight next month, say industry sources.
The timing of the flight almost rules out the possibility of the Chinese state manufacturer meeting its internal target of making the first delivery of the 158-seat airliner in 2019.
Philippe Petitcolin, CEO of major C919 supplier Safran, told Bloomberg on March 17 that the first-flight target was now April.
Taxi tests began in December. By the middle of March the aircraft had used the thrust reversers of its CFM Leap 1C engines but had not begun high-speed taxi tests, says one source. Suppliers are under pressure to complete minor work, such as making adjustments to systems, in order to make the aircraft ready, but they will not receive new demands for changes before the flight, say the sources.
Aviation Daily last year reported that Comac would probably miss its declared target of flying the C919 in 2016, and later that the most likely time was April.
The first C919 was rolled out in November 2015, officially said to be complete but not actually so. When the program was launched in 2008 the first delivery was due in 2016. Early in development, the target for first flight was June 2014.
Accordingly, development to date is running 34 months late, but the first delivery will be delayed by a greater period because Comac has also lengthened the planned duration of the flight testing campaign from the original two years.
A year ago, Comac had an unstated target to make the first delivery in 2019, but not early in that year. That assumed a 2016 first flight.
Handing over the first aircraft before 2020 now seems most improbable, because the first aircraft has still not flown, the second has not been assembled and the program history suggests that the inexperienced state company could easily hit more delays.
Shortly after Mitsubishi Aircraft's MRJ regional jet first flew in November 2015, that similarly inexperienced commercial aircraft company expected to need 32 months for flight testing and pre-delivery preparations. The period has now been stretched to about 50 months, maybe more, but for an unusual reason that Comac will reasonably expect not to encounter: nine years after program launch, Mitsubishi Aircraft has found it needs to make significant changes to its design.
Although the first C919 prototype’s configuration has been frozen, it is quite different structurally to the final C919 design. Comac discovered during static testing that it could lighten the aircraft, mostly because the wing was unnecessarily strong. The resulting design change came too late for the first two prototypes but the other four will follow the lighter design.