Possible problem with C-Series?

The Bombardier C-Series made its first flight last month, having passed ground testing, including vibration testing. The aircraft was grounded for over a week after the first flight before making a second flight. Now the aircraft has been seen outside the hangar facility instrumented up, going back through vibration testing.

Flight tests stopped on October 3rd. Vibration testing consists of suspending the aircraft off the ground, and monitoring vibrations based on input on various portions of the airframe in the simulated flight.

Since first flight over a month ago, the aircraft has only made two more flights. By comparison, the A350 had reached 92 flight hours in the first month of testing.

The first CSeries test aircraft has re-entered a series of ground vibration checks less than a month after completeing first flight, Bombardier revealed today.

A nearly 3min clip posted on the company’s YouTube channel on 16 October provides the first update on the test programme since the first test aircraft (FTV-1) stopped flying on 3 October.

The video shows the FTV-1 test aircraft parked inside a hangar and covered in test instruments.

Alexandre Rathé, a structure dynamic engineer for Bombardier, says on the video that the aircraft is undergoing ground vibration testing.

www.flightglobal.com...

reply to post by Zaphod58


Bombardier, surely? Embraers next gen regional jet is still in the drawing board.

reply to post by waynos


Yeah, Bombardier. Sue me. I didn't sleep much last night, it was too quiet.

Fixed that.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Apparently the problem was with a minor part shaking loose on the landing gear.

Bombardier keeps insisting that everything is on schedule and the 27 day break between flights was planned into the schedule, but the fourth test flight just occurred yesterday. They're six weeks into the certification program, requiring at least 2400 hours, and have completed just 10 hours of flight testing.

A second aircraft is due to fly "within weeks" which will help, but despite what they're saying, I don't see this program going well right now.