The Bombardier CSeries aircraft is on a bit of a roll at the moment, with Bombardier confirming that Gulf Air will be taking 10 CSeries aircraft, with options for 6 more. Meanwhile, Russian lessor Ilyushin Finance has finalised an agreement with Bombardier that will have them purchase 32 CSeries aircraft with options for 10 more.
So far, Bombardier has received 177 firm orders from nine customers for the CSeries – both in CS100 and CS300 models.
However, that’s not the really big news. The really big news that the first CSeries aircraft has left the hanger at Montreal Mirabel and has been handed over to the test flight crew. The test frame – FTV1 – has been through a six week software test cycle to identify issues, with no first-flight stoppers from the testing.
So it’s outside… ready for testing – according to this picture that has been uploaded to Wikipedia:
FTV-1 sitting at Mirabel Airport. Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CS100-FTV1.jpg – Image Alexandre Gouger
More images of FTV1 can be found at Airliners.net:
- http://www.airliners.net/photo/Bombardier/Bombardier-BD-500-1A10-C/2267140/M/
- http://www.airliners.net/photo/Bombardier/Bombardier-BD-500-1A10-C/2267210/M/
There is still substantial work to be done before the CSeries is ready to fly – with first flight on track for late June (missing the Paris Air Show by a week or so). Whilst this may be the case, there has been development work which might appeal to Low cost carriers about raising the seat limit on the CS300. Currently the CS300 is rated for 135 passengers, but there are redesigns afoot to attempt to to raise it to 160 passengers.
The CSeries is one of the big new plane stories of the year so far. The other… is the A350 – and that’s been taxing around under it’s own power today…
June is shaping up to be a very interesting month in new aircraft indeed!