Last year’s milestones in the air transport arena climaxed with the first flight of the Airbus A350-1000 on November 24 over southwestern France. The event marked the start of an intensive campaign of testing involving three prototypes scheduled to fly 1,600 hours over an estimated 10-month period before expected certification in the second half of this year.

The largest of the new three-member series of composite-bodied airliners, the A350-1000 measures some 240 feet long and carries 366 passengers in a typical three-class configuration. Powered by 97,000-pound-thrust Rolls-Royce Trent XWB 97 turbofans, the A350-1000 carries some 40 more passengers than the baseline A350-900, which entered service with launch customer Qatar Airways on Jan. 15, 2015.

The first A350-1000, MSN059, now assesses flight envelope limits, handling qualities, loads and braking. The second aircraft to fly, MSN071, will also evaluate performance, specifically braking, powerplant, systems and autopilot. Airbus plans to equip the third and final aircraft to fly, MSN065, with a passenger interior to evaluate cabin and air systems. MSN065 will also perform the “early long flights” and route proving.

On the opposite end of the Airbus size range, the first Pratt & Whitney PW1100G-powered A320neo went into service on Jan. 25, 2016, with Lufthansa Airlines. The model entered service despite certain engine operating restrictions—namely extended start time intervals—that prompted original launch customer Qatar Airways to cancel the first four of its deliveries.

Roughly six months later the CFM Leap-1A-powered A320neo received type certification from the EASA and FAA, allowing for first delivery to Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines in mid-2016. As of the end of November, Airbus had delivered 32 A320neos.

The A320neo’s big brother, the A321neo, flew for the first time powered by CFM Leap-1As on February 9 from Hamburg, Germany. Originally planning to fly the first A321neo with its PW1100G geared turbofans, Airbus switched the flight-test sequence as Pratt worked on a machining problem and software adjustments related to the aforementioned operating restrictions on the smaller A320neo. The first A321neo powered by Pratt & Whitney engines completed its maiden flight exactly a month later, marking the start of PW1135 flight-testing on Airbus’s largest narrowbody. Despite the switch in first-flight sequence, Airbus planned to deliver the Pratt-powered A321neo around the new year, just ahead of the Leap-powered version in the first quarter.

Boeing’s answer to the A320neo—the 737 Max—began its flight-test program on January 29 last year in Renton, Wash., with first flight of the three-member series’ baseline model, the 737 Max 8. Boeing expects a four-airplane flight-test campaign to culminate in FAA certification and delivery to a still unnamed launch customer—widely expected to be Southwest Airlines—in the third quarter of this year.

Apart from the newly designed CFM Leap-1B engines and major avionics upgrades, several aerodynamic changes including the addition of a pair of “dual feather” winglets will deliver up to a 1.8-percent fuel efficiency improvement over the current “in line” design, according to Boeing.

Having now collected orders for some 3,300 Max jets, Boeing will build the first airplanes exclusively on a new production line at its factory in Renton, Wash. The new line will allow the team to isolate assembly of the first 737 Max from the rest of production to help it learn and perfect the new construction process while the Renton factory continues to turn out 42 airplanes a month. Once mechanics validate the production process, the company will extend Max production to the other two final assembly lines in Renton.

Using the reworked floor plan, Boeing plans to accelerate production three times by 2019, when the rate reaches 57 airplanes a month.

Occupying roughly the same seating category, Russia’s answer to the Max 8 and A320neo—the Irkut MC-21—rolled out of its assembly hall in the Siberian city of Irkutsk on June 8 last year. The milestone, passed roughly six months later than previously scheduled, nevertheless marked what the Russian company considers a vindication of sorts for a program some in the West have disparaged as an overly ambitious attempt to compete with the likes of the Boeing and Airbus narrowbodies. The grand unveiling re-established a project timeline for the Irkut MC-21 that by December 2015 appeared less than completely firm, given the failure to roll out an assembled airframe as promised by that time. During the rollout Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev referenced plans for first flight “within a year,” and UAC officials acknowledged that a previously quoted target for the end of 2016 might prove optimistic unless all goes exactly to plan.

In fact, few manufacturers, even in the West, can claim total fidelity of their respective program plans. In Bombardier’s case, the C Series CS100 entered service last year with launch customer Swiss International Airlines on July 15 following at least two years’ worth of delays and cost overruns totaling some $2 billion. The 110- to 125-seat narrowbody received validation of its Canadian type certification from the U.S. FAA and EASA on June 16, during the same week the program’s five flying test aircraft surpassed 5,000 hours in the air.

Of course, Bombardier believes Swiss will find the Pratt & Whitney PW1500G-powered CS100 worth the wait. By the end of October the three airplanes that had entered revenue service had flown 1,100 hours that Bombardier characterized as “trouble-free.”

The Canadian airframer expects no less of the 130- to 150-seat CS300, the first of which it delivered to Latvia’s Air Baltic on November 28. The aircraft entered service on a route between Riga and Amsterdam on December 14. On November 23 Transport Canada and the European Aviation Safety Agency granted the CS100 and CS300 Same Type Rating (STR) status. According to the manufacturer, the approval will save operators “significant” costs and reflects the 99 percent parts commonality that the two aircraft share.  

For Bombardier’s long-time regional jet competitor from Brazil, commonality benefits among the Embraer E2 E-Jets will manifest themselves more profoundly in operation than on the production line. While the three airplanes—namely the E175-E2, the E190-E2 and E195-E2—will use three different wing designs to maximize aerodynamic efficiency, they’ll all react identically to their predecessors in flight thanks to the new fly-by-wire flight controls. The first 100-seat E190-E2 rolled out of the factory in São Jose dos Campos, Brazil, on February 25 and took off on its maiden test mission on May 23. The flight came at least five weeks earlier than the second-half 2016 time frame Embraer had last reported.

The program calls for the use of four flight-test airplanes, the first three of which Embraer had flown by August 29. It plans to fly the fourth—equipped with a full interior—early this year. While Embraer outfitted the first three airplanes identically to aid in schedule flexibility, plans called for the airplane it flew in May to perform mainly low-speed testing and flight quality and the second airplane primarily high-speed testing. By the end of the campaign the first two airplanes will participate in takeoff and landing performance testing, while the third concentrates on systems.

Embraer CEO Paulo Cesar Silva told AIN that the early first flight won’t likely translate into delivery to the E190-E2’s launch customer—the identity of which remains undecided—earlier than the quoted mid-2018 target. “I wish, but my engineers here are saying they would like to use the full time to get an even more mature aircraft at EIS,” said Silva.

Meanwhile, the competing Mitsubishi MRJ-90 continues on its path to maturity following four years’ worth of delays. After 10 months of testing in Japan, the MRJ-90’s first flight-test article landed in Moses Lake, Wash., to start U.S.-based trials. The trip marked MRJ FTA 1’s third attempt to fly to the U.S. to begin a planned regimen of testing out of Moses Lake, where Mitsubishi has established a new engineering facility from which to base flight-testing of the first four prototypes.

As of November 22 four prototypes participated in the certification program, following first flight of FTA-3 from Nagoya. The flight took place three days after Mitsubishi MRJ FTA-4 arrived at Moses Lake to join FTA-1 for its U.S.-based flight-tests.

The milestones show progress by a flight-test program that has struggled to meet targeted schedules since FTA-1 flew for the first time in November 2015. In October Mitsubishi confirmed press reports out of Japan that it had communicated with MRJ launch customer All Nippon Airways about another possible delay in first deliveries in response to “technical reasons.” If the manufacturer fails to deliver the first airplane by mid-2018, it would mark the fifth major delay for the program.  

​Outlook for 2017

For most of the world’s major airframe OEMs, this year will provide no respite in terms of preparations for more program milestones, ranging from first flight of the Embraer E195-E2, Airbus A330-900neo and Boeing 787-10 to start of production of the 777X. By then the Chinese expect to have entered the mix, flying the Comac C919 for the first time, while the Irkut MC-21 enters flight-test, along with the Boeing 737 Max 9. Meanwhile, Boeing expects the 737 Max 8 to enter revenue service while both the Pratt & Whitney- and CFM-powered versions of the biggest member of the A320neo series, the A321neo, starts airline operations early in the year.