Early this morning, COMAC, which is responsible for the development of domestic large aircraft, announced through its official Weibo that the C919 aircraft has completed the certification test flight.

  The C919 large passenger aircraft is a large jet civil aircraft developed by my country in accordance with international civil aviation regulations and with independent intellectual property rights. It has 158-168 seats and a range of 4,075-5,555 kilometers. It has accumulated 815 orders from 28 customers.

  On May 5, 2017, C919 successfully made its first flight, and then officially entered the stage of test flight certification.

In the past five years, 6 C919 aircraft have been tested and certified in different subjects in Shanghai Pudong, Shaanxi Yanliang, Jiangxi Nanchang, Shandong Dongying, Inner Mongolia Xilinhot, Xinjiang Turpan, and Gansu Dunhuang.

  The official announcement of the completion of the certification and test flight work means that the certification work of the C919 aircraft has entered the final stage, and it has begun to sprint towards obtaining the type certificate.

Plan to deliver the first aircraft within the year

  According to the reporter's understanding, obtaining certification is the premise of aircraft delivery. Before obtaining certification, the bureau also needs to continue to review various technical reports of C919, and finally decide whether to issue a type certificate.

  On March 1, 2021, China Eastern and COMAC officially signed a C919 large passenger aircraft purchase contract, becoming the world's first launch user of the domestic large aircraft C919.

  According to the agreement, China Eastern will introduce 5 C919 aircraft in the first batch. After the introduction of these 5 aircraft, Shanghai will be the main base to encrypt routes from Shanghai to Beijing Daxing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Xiamen, Wuhan, Qingdao, etc.

  According to the reporter's understanding, the C919 aircraft ordered in the early stage are mainly from domestic users. In addition to China Eastern Airlines, there are also domestic airlines such as Air China, China Southern Airlines, Sichuan Airlines, and aircraft leasing companies such as ICBC Leasing and China Bank Leasing. Among them, ICBC Leasing takes 100 aircraft. The number of orders has become the largest purchaser of C919 aircraft at present.

  At the beginning of this year, Wu Yongliang, deputy general manager of COMAC, said in an interview during the two sessions in Shanghai that the C919 project is still in the stage of airworthiness certification and is expected to be delivered in 2022.

According to the reporter's understanding, COMAC has also submitted an airworthiness application to the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for the C919 aircraft to prepare for potential export orders, and has been accepted by EASA.

  As the main review body of the C919 aircraft, the Civil Aviation Shanghai Certification Center has also revealed that EASA has also participated in multiple certification reviews of the C919 aircraft before.

Obtaining China's type certificate first is one of the steps for the C919 aircraft to obtain the EASA airworthiness certificate and export it.

Serialization of domestic aircraft

  Prior to this, the three major state-owned airlines, including China Eastern Airlines, had already received the domestically produced regional aircraft ARJ21 aircraft.

  It can be said that the ARJ21 aircraft, which has been delivered to customers for commercial operation, has laid a solid foundation for the verification and test flight of the C919 aircraft. The technical difficulties of a number of key test flight subjects such as natural icing test flight.

  In addition to the three major airlines, private airline China Airlines (002928.SZ) also signed an "Aircraft Sale and Purchase Agreement" with COMAC to purchase and receive a total of 100 ARJ21 series and C919 series aircraft from COMAC, which will be delivered within ten years from 2020 Finish.

Of these, 50 are identified as ARJ21 series aircraft, and the other 50 are wholly or partly C919 series aircraft.

  In addition, Henan Aviation Investment signed a memorandum of cooperation with COMAC, and will be the start-up user to purchase 50 cargo aircraft from COMAC, of ​​which 25 are confirmed orders.

This signing also means that COMAC's domestic aircraft has taken another step towards serialization.

  Shortly after the first flight of the C919 aircraft, the Sino-Russian International Commercial Aircraft Co., Ltd. (CRAIC), a joint venture between COMAC and Russia's United Aviation Manufacturing Group (UAC), also announced the establishment of Pudong, Shanghai. The joint venture will be responsible for China and Russia. Operation of the joint development of the new generation long-range wide-body aircraft C929 project.

  In recent years, relying on the C919 large aircraft project, civil aviation-related industries are also accelerating their deployment to Shanghai Pudong New Area, and gradually formed a commercial aircraft industry cluster in Zhuqiao, a special aerospace industry cluster in Lingang, and Zhangjiang South. The district’s civil aircraft design and R&D agglomeration area and the spatial layout of upstream and downstream related industrial clusters distributed in Waigaoqiao, Zhangjiang, World Expo and other regions.