McDONNELL Douglas (MDC) is immediately "ramping up its resources" as a result of the ValuJet order and will add up to 450 design and development staff by mid-1996, says MD-95 deputy programme manager, Jerry Callaghan.
A further 1,500 assembly line jobs will also be created, starting in 1996 to support the start of assembly in May 1997.
The first airframe will be completed before January 1998, when the first shipset of BR715 turbofans is due in Long Beach.
First flight is scheduled for the second quarter of 1998, with planned simultaneous US Federal Aviation Administration and European Joint Aviation Authorities certification a year later.
The first MD-95 will be delivered in the second half of 1999, with production rising from 12 a year to 18. This would rise to 24 a year if the airline exercised some of its options in the first few years of production.
MDC is now preparing to cut the fuselage of the static prototype at Long Beach (a former Eastern DC-9-30), to insert a 1.5m plug forward of the wing to stretch it into a representative MD-95. The extra length adds two seat rows (compared with the DC-9-30) and helps balance the heavier tail-mounted engines.
Release of drawings has passed the 70% mark and "... we will now speed up that activity", says Callaghan, who adds that 90% release should be achieved by mid-1996. "It's a steep gradient to climb," he says. Many of the original 1960s vintage blueprints are being used for the MD-95 structure although entirely new areas such as the engine pylon and empennage interface will be digitally modeled and designed using a three-dimensional system.
Wind tunnel tests for the take-off, cruise and landing configurations, are also largely complete and "all basic parameters are validated".
Source: Flight International
