Bombardier C-Séries (partie 1)

The 90-min. flight was similar to the 2.5-hr. first flight on Sept. 16, says Bombardier, with flight-test aircraft FTV1 retracting its gear and reaching a speed of 230 kt. and altitude of 12,500 ft.

The flight was “exceptionally clean”, says Rob Dewar, Bombardier vice president and general manager for CSeries. There was a single snag on the first flight, an erroneous message from an aircraft subsystem.

Explaining the gap between first and second flights, the company says it took time to “meticulously review the 14,000 data points collected on the first flights, to reconfigure some parts of the aircraft and make software upgrades for the next flights.”

Bombardier says second flight involved “value-added tests” and was not simply a repeat of the first flight. These tests included a flyby to allow flight-sciences engineers on the ground to record the first noise data.

With a conditional order for 12 CS100s, Porter needs to convince the Toronto City Council, Toronto Port Authority and Canadian federal government that the CSeries is quiet enough to justify lifting the ban on jets from downtown Billy Bishop Airport.

Porter’s proposal calls for lengthening the island runway to allow it operate the 110-seat CS100 on cross-continent services to destinations such as Vancouver, Florida and the Caribbean. A decision by the city is expected in December.

Bombardier, meanwhile, says the pace of CSeries flight testing is now expected to pick up. The second of five CS100 test aircraft, FTV2, is “following closely behind” FTV1, but a target flight date has not been revealed.