Bombardier flew the first CSeries prototype aircraft on 6 November for the first time in more than five months.
The flight test vehicle (FTV-1) has been grounded since 29 May when an engine oil lubrication system malfunction caused an uncontained failure of the PW1500G geared turbofan.
The ground test incident damaged the fuselage of FTV-1 and led to a 100-day hiatus for the flight test fleet while P&W and Bombardier developed a fix.
FTV-2 returned to flight in early September, shortly before the anniversary of FTV-1’s first flight on 16 September 2013.
FTV-4 also returned to flight in mid-September.
Within six weeks of returning to flight test, FTV-2 and FTV-4 accumulated more than 130h of test flights.
The return to flight of FTV-1 leaves only FTV-3 left on the ground among the fully assembled fleet of CS100 aircraft. Bombardier is installing production-representative systems and hardware in FTV-3 to support the certification test phase.
Meanwhile, Bombardier plans to fly FTV-5 for the first time by the end of the year. FTV-5 is the first test aircraft with a full interior, which allows the aircraft to be used for functional and reliability testing in the last phase of the airworthiness certification campaign with Transport Canada.
Bombardier plans to deliver the first CS100 to an unspecified launch operator in the second half of 2015.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
