Mistubishi MRJ

#era13 Sub-assembly of the first MRJ90 fuselage completed. Final assembly to begin at end of October.

— Bernie Baldwin (@BernieBaldwin) October 3, 2013

Wing join to fuselage scheduled for April - 1st flight of MRJ on Q2 2015. #SGAirshow pic.twitter.com/1BLZv92dpJ

— Tim Robinson (@RAeSTimR) 12 Février 2014

The fuselage of the first aircraft, an MRJ90, has been assembled, says Mitsubishi Aircraft President Teruaki Kawai. In September, when Aviation Week visited one of the production plants, major modules were structurally complete but not joined or fitted with equipment. The center fuselage section had by then been attached to the center wing box.

The outer wings are now structurally complete, Kawai says. “They are ready to ship to Komaki South” for final assembly of the first prototype, which is due to fly in the second quarter of 2015, as it has been since the program’s third delay was announced in August. Entry into service remains targeted at early 2017, more than three years late due mainly to two major problems with certification procedures.

The second airframe, for static testing, is under construction. The second and third flight-test aircraft have advanced to the stage of building up major assemblies; altogether, five are planned. Chinese manufacturer Comac is trying to make up for slippages in its C919 commercial aircraft program by adding a sixth aircraft to its flight testing plan, but Mitsubishi Aircraft has not considered that move.

Two MRJ90s will be flight tested in Japan and two in the USA. Flight testing of the MRJ70 will not begin until the MRJ90 is certified. The average size of the most demanded regional airliners has drifted up since the MRJ was launched on April 1, 2008, so the MRJ90 has higher priority than the MRJ70. The proposed but unlaunched 100-seat version, the MRJ100, depends mainly on demand from Europe, which Mitsubishi Aircraft says remains weak. Besides, the company clearly has a big enough task getting its initial models into service without further delay.

The originally planned steady production rate for the MRJ was five aircraft a month, but three customers are awaiting 165 aircraft that were originally supposed to begin joining airline fleets about three months ago. Last year the company said that to alleviate that problem a production rate of seven, eight or even 10 a month was possible. Now Kawai says “Ten per month might be a good number.”

First MRJ right wing delivered for final assembly. Looks like the regional jet is slowly but surely taking shape: pic.twitter.com/xJSIzmKI5E

— mavistoh (@tohmavis) April 14, 2014