Boeing has successfully test-flown the stretched version of its 787 Dreamliner as the planemaker tries to move forward from battery fires that culminated in worldwide grounding.
The 787-9 jet landed at 4.18pm at Boeing Field in Seattle. It has room for 290 passengers, 40 more than the original 787-8 jetliner, and about 300 more nautical miles of range.
Boeing hopes it will be more profitable to sell, and for its customers to operate, than the current production model.
In its maiden voyage the 787-9 was scheduled to run detailed tests of its flight controls, part of a nine-month programme. The aircraft used for the tests would eventually be delivered to Air New Zealand in mid-2014, Boeing said.
The jet flew at a speed of up to 366 knots (421mph) and altitude of 20,000ft (6,096 metres), according to flight tracking website Flightaware.com. The trip took it over Puget Sound and then the eastern part of Washington state.
Boeing has unfilled orders for 936 Dreamliners, worth about US$217bn at list prices, or nearly eight years' worth of production at its target construction rate of 10 per month, which it aims to hit by the end of 2013.
About 41% of the orders, or 388 planes, are for the 787-9. Boeing began selling an even longer version of the jet, the 787-10, in June, and has orders for 50 of them. The rest are for the 787-8.
The 787 series has been dogged by problems – overheating and fires related to its next-generation lithium ion battery system caused several emergencies and led to grounding of the jets worldwide.
After they were allowed back into the air, another of the planes was at the centre of drama when a fire broke out near its emergency beacon system, prompting American authorities to issue an airworthiness directive requiring checks on the electrical wiring.
A day before the stretched Dreamliner flight, Bombardier successfully flew its CSeries jetliner, kicking off a renewed effort to sell the all-new narrow-body plane amid questions about its development cost.
The plane brings the Canadian-based company into direct competition for the firist time with the smallest airliners of Boeing and Airbus.
The CS100 test aircraft gently touched down in clear, chilly weather beside the Bombardier plant in Mirabel, Quebec, at 12.23pm on Monday. "It flew very well," said Bombardier chief test pilot Chuck Ellis. "It's a very, very nice airplane."
At a press conference Bombardier said an alert had gone off for one of the subsystems during the flight, without providing details.
The "advisory message" did not affect the plane and would not have required the pilot to land even if the plane had commercial passengers aboard, Ellis said.
Photograph: Christinne Muschi/Reuters
Montreal-based Bombardier, which also makes trains, is staking a claim in a niche: the single-aisle, 100- to 149-seat class that is midway between the size of so-called "regional" planes and the larger commercial jetliners of Boeing and Airbus.
Bombardier says it can corner half of that market over the next 20 years. Brazil's Embraer SA, the world's number three planemaker, leads in sales of smaller, regional jets.
CSeries sales are at 177 firm orders, far short of Bombardier's goal of 300 by the time the plane enters service in 2014.
Critics say the Canadian design for the medium-haul jet made of lightweight composite materials ignores a trend towards larger aircraft seating 150 people or more as air traffic expands and carriers offer more seats.
Bombardier says its plane will have a 15% cash operating cost advantage, 20% fuel consumption advantage and will be the world's quietest commercial aircraft.
The new jet faces an ambitious 12-month deadline to enter commercial service, and tough sales competition from Boeing's Dreamliner as well as Airbus's A319neo and A320neo models, according to analysts.
The first flight was delayed three times over the last nine months and the plane still faces considerable work in testing, certification and setting up production.
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