First Delivery Of The Regional Airliner Pushed Back Two Years

The first delivery to a customer of a Mitsubishi MRJ regional airliner has been pushed back two years, according to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

The company announced on Monday that the first delivery of the Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ) from mid-2018 to mid-2020. The change is due to revisions of certain systems and electrical configurations on the aircraft to meet the latest requirements for certification.

MHI recently established the MRJ Business Promotion Committee, chaired by Shunichi Miyanaga, President & Chief Executive Officer of MHI, to oversee the continued development and long-term business performance of the MRJ, effective on November 28, 2016.

"Since the historic MRJ first flight in November 2015, we have made significant progress in both engineering and test, and now three aircraft are in flight test in the United States," MHI said in a news release posted to the company website.

"Going forward, under the MRJ Business Promotion Committee’s oversight, we will continue to make prompt decisions and remain firmly committed to the development of the MRJ to offer our customers an aircraft with world-class performance and compatibility with latest industry certifications."

The design changes will not affect aircraft performance, fuel consumption, or functionality of systems, the company says. "We will continue with ongoing flight test program with current test aircraft configuration and obtain certification flight test data of performance, flight characteristics for type certificate. The design change will not affect aircraft structure and we have already completed static structure test with ultimate load (150% load) successfully."

(Source: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Image provided)

FMI: www.flythemrj.com/news/date/img/Advancing%20the%20MRJ%20project_e.pdf