Comac C919 to be certified in Canada for cold weather operations

Certification flight tests of natural icing conditions for China’s C919 aircraft are to be conducted in Canada in October.

The certification flights will be conducted out of London International Airport near Toronto with support provided by training and flight test provider ITPS (International Test Pilots School).

The campaign was due to start in March, but was postponed due to Covid-19 related travel restrictions.

ITPS is providing logistics as well as a test pilot and meteorologists services in support of the trial after winning a tender. ITPS has previously provided support and test pilot training to the C919 project.

One of the six prototype C919s Comac has will be used for the certification flights out of London Airport. The test campaign is scheduled to be conducete dduring March 2021 but may be delayed to the fall of 2021 depending on Covid-19 and other factors, said ITPS.

The C919 is China’s first aircraft to compete directly with Boeing and Airbus. It can carry up to 168 passengers and has a range of up to 5,555km (3000 nautical miles).

At the end of November, Comac said that the design for the C919 had been frozen and that the aircraft’s development program was entering the certification phase. Development of the C919 started in 2008.