Mistubishi MRJ

Mitsubishi Aircraft and suppliers are considering a faster production ramp-up and higher build rates for the MRJ regional jet to compensate for program delays and anticipated demand.

The MRJ is already up to two years late. Originally scheduled for entry-into-service at the end of next year, the program initially was delayed to the first quarter of 2014 and now is promised for the second half of the Japanese fiscal year 2015, which could be as late as March 31, 2016.

The delay is the result of incomplete documentation for the MRJ’s manufacturing process and engineering analysis. The mistake, announced in April, requires new parts to be made and the checking of documents against production process specifications.

Completing these tasks and starting production are the biggest challenges facing the program, says Hirohide Takaseki, director of strategic planning in the project management office, and Mitsubishi Aircraft has hired additional engineers and seconded more from other manufacturers, which Takaseki would not name.

Mitsubishi Aircraft also has established the project management office to promote communication and cooperation between its various engineering divisions.

But there were other issues with the MRJ program, says Takaseki, noting that the project team was behind in detailed airframe design. Project engineers are still studying how to optimize the design, and have a deadline to build a prototype that will make its first flight in the last quarter of 2013.

The addition of options to the deal underscores SkyWest’s statement this
year that that it might want more than 100 MRJs. The problem, however,
is that Mitsubishi Aircraft, struggling with development delays, cannot
deliver more than the first 100 this decade. If the options are taken
up, the aircraft that they cover will be delivered from 2021.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. plans to erect a new plant so its
subsidiary, Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp., can produce a new small jet
currently under development, company sources said Thursday.
Mitsubishi Heavy intends to secure a 7.8-hectare site neighboring an
airport in Toyoyama, Aichi Prefecture, for the factory, which is
expected to help invigorate the regional economy by creating new jobs.
The firm hopes to start building the plant as early as fiscal 2014.

The Aichi Prefectural Government intends to develop the site, which
it owns together with the central government, as an aircraft production
base and to invite companies to bid for the land. Mitsubishi Heavy
intends to win any bidding war.

Orders for the Mitsubishi Regional Jet have reached 325 units, and
Mitsubishi Aircraft plans to boost them to 1,500 within the next two
decades. It also aims to raise the production pace to 10 units per month
around fiscal 2020

Speaking with AIN during June’s Paris Air Show, Mitsubishi Aircraft director of marketing Yugo Fukuhara detailed the certification plan, which calls for some 2,500 flight-test hours over the course of close to two years. He said the first aircraft, MSN10001, will test basic flight characteristics, possible expansion of the altitude and airspeed envelopes, major systems and runway performance, including hot-and-high analysis at a still undetermined location in the U.S.

The second airplane, MSN9001, will serve as a ground-test airplane and assess static strength. The company plans to use the third airplane and second flight-test example, MSN10002, for general flight performance tests; the fourth, MSN10003, will prove detailed flight characteristics and test avionics; the fifth, MSN10004, will perform systems and interior tests, natural icing, extreme temperature tests and community noise tests, again at undetermined locations in the U.S. Finally, MSN10005 will test autopilot performance and flight characteristics with simulated ice shapes.

At the time Fukuhara spoke with AIN, assembly of the first airplane’s fuselage, wings, vertical tail and horizontal tail had progressed to near completion at MHI in Nagoya.

Meanwhile, oversight of the program’s U.S. partners, until recently conducted exclusively in Japan, has moved to Mitsubishi Aircraft America’s offices outside Chicago. There, Mitsubishi has established a so-called quality cost delivery (QCD) division to allow for “smoother handling” of the MRJ program’s qualification tests and inspection.

Expected to improve material procurement and schedule management and result in what Mitsubishi calls more effective operations overall in the U.S., the division expands the scope of responsibility of the Chicago office’s supply chain management team. Next, a QCD division in Europe now under consideration would perform the same kind of oversight of Mitsubishi’s partners on that continent.