Bombardier Cseries thread

O

Ockie

Resident Lead Bender
Joined
Feb 16, 2008
Messages
55,085
Reaction score
7,315
Location
Henceforth AKA OckieMoto :-)
Bombardier’s CSeries Could Make Maiden Flight This Week

trv-art-Bombardier-CSeries-2-20130308112946465275-620x349.jpg


This could well be the week that Bombardier’s CSeries makes its eagerly anticipated first flight. Speaking to AIN on the eve of last week’s Paris Air Show, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft president Mike Arcamone reported that his engineers have been busily subjecting the first flight test vehicle (FTV1) to simulated flight conditions. At the same time, the company has been preparing a Global 5000 chase airplane to evaluate flight conditions on the day of the first flight, which Arcamone indicated could be achieved before the end of this month.

In Canada, Bombardier has spent the last couple of weeks performing final systems installations on FTV2, the second of five test airplanes scheduled to be airborne within the next three months. Arcamone explained that the first production CSeries has started to take shape. Wing production is under way at Bombardier’s subsidiary in Belfast, Northern Ireland, while workers at Shenyang Aircraft in China have started building the first rear fuselage sections, and cockpit preparations are advancing in the airframer’s own plant in St. Laurent, Quebec.

When the CSeries FTV1 was unveiled in March, Arcamone confirmed that Bombardier had managed to resolve a number of concerns over supplier performance. The most notable improvement seems to have been at Shenyang, where fuselage sections are now being produced at a rate of one per month. “They are now meeting and exceeding our quality standards even better than expected,” he said. “I know there was a lot of heartache surrounding Shenyang. But we now have complete confidence in the capabilities of our Chinese partners.”

Arcamone revealed that he expects Bombardier to be building 120 aircraft per annum within the next three or four years. The company expects to have completed construction of its dedicated CSeries assembly building at Mirabel near Montreal next year.

Bombardier did not add to its CSeries sales tally during the Paris show, but Arcamone predicted that the company will have logged firm orders for at least 300 aircraft from 20 customers by the time of the airplane’s scheduled entry into service in the middle of next year. By the end of this year, he expects these totals to have reached 200 and 18, respectively. The airframer now holds orders for 177 CSeries twinjets, including a recent conditional deal with Russian leasing group Ilyushin Finance for 32 of the larger of the pair of CSeries variants, the 135- to 160-seat CS300. Arcamone indicated that demand now seems to be shifting toward the larger model, especially from low-cost carriers.
Click to expand...

Looking forward to this maiden flight also. Hope it stays on schedule and it will be on youtube like the A350
 
Bombardier files for permit for first CSeries flight

Bombardier Inc. has submitted its paperwork to Transport Canada to get a flight permit for the first flight of its new CSeries aircraft.
The Montreal-based manufacturer is expected to provide an update on the new aircraft program Wednesday, including the date of its first flight.
The maiden flight is still expected by the end of June. The exact timing of the flight will be left to the flight crew’s discretion and will largely be based on weather and other conditions, including data collected by a chase plane, a Global business jet, that will be sent up before first flight to test the atmosphere.
Transport Canada must also issue a flight permit for the aircraft.
Kelly James, Transport Canada spokeswoman, says the ministry is in the midst of reviewing Bombardier’s application.
“Department officials are in the process of reviewing the application to determine that all criteria are met,” Ms. James said in an email.
 
Bombardier CSeries first flight delayed until the end of July

Wednesday, Jun. 26, 2013
Bombardier CSeries first flight test vehicle undergoes ground testing at the company's Mirabel, Que., facility Handout
Bombardier Inc. said Wednesday the first flight of its new CSeries aircraft will be delayed by a month and will now happen by the end of July.
The company gave little in the way of an explanation for the delay other than to say that it was needed for some “additional software upgrades” to improve system maturity and functionality.
Up until last week, the company had insisted the first flight was on schedule for the end of June.
“Only five years after launching the CSeries airliner, we’re approaching our maiden flight – a historic moment for Bombardier and a game-changing moment for the industry,” said Mike Arcamone, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft president, in a statement.
The news follows a tough week last week at the Paris Air Show for the CSeries program after the company failed to win a single order for the new 110-to-145-seat aircraft.
Guy Hachey, Bombardier Aerospace president, said last week at the air show that the company’s pilots and safety group had requested a “few little upgrades” to the CSeries software before they got into the aircraft.
But he said he only expected that process to take a day or two to complete.
There are currently 177 orders on the books for the CSeries. But management has repeatedly said they expect that number to grow to 300 by entry into service in mid-2014.
Bombardier had originally planned the first flight for the CSeries by the end of 2012, but the company announced a six month delay to the program last November after some issues arose with certain suppliers.
Click to expand...

:cry:
 
Bombardier delays first flight of CSeries for third time

cseries.jpeg

(Reuters) - Bombardier Inc delayed the maiden flight of its CSeries jetliner for a third time on Wednesday, promising the flight "in the coming weeks" instead of July, a move likely to rattle airlines that have stepped up to buy the all-new plane.

"This might make people a bit jittery... This is a new market for them. A lot depends upon the confidence of customers," said aviation industry expert Richard Aboulafia, a vice-president at consulting firm Teal Group Corp.

The delay casts new doubt on Bombardier's ambitious mid-2014 entry-into-service target for the CSeries. Aboulafia expects entry-into-service sometime in the first half of 2015.

The first flight will be the culmination of a five-year, $3.4-billion development program for the CSeries, a fuel-efficient plane that is the first all-new narrow-bodied jetliner in decades.

Bombardier hopes eventually to corner 50 percent of the lucrative 100- to 149-seat airliner segment with the plane.

The Montreal-based company has announced 177 firm CSeries orders so far, far short of its target of at least 300 firm orders by the middle of next year. It failed to firm up new CSeries business last month at the Paris Air Show, which saw splashy news and big orders from its competitors.

"We are concerned that management credibility may be impacted with each subsequent delay, and should additional issues crop up over the course of the CSeries program, the benefit that investors are willing to provide could diminish," RBC analyst Walter Spracklin said in a client note, but added that a delay of a few weeks is not material from a cost and development perspective.

Bombardier shares, which had climbed nearly 11 percent since it announced a one-month delay last month, fell as much as 3 percent to C$4.92 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Wednesday before paring losses.

Bombardier said that it was in its final stages of testing ahead of the first flight, but "highly technical" last steps were taking longer than anticipated. It said it expects to receive a flight test permit from Transport Canada in the coming weeks.

"Not welcome news, but it's still sounds like these are fairly small tactical stumbles," Aboulafia said. "But it's tough to tell because they're not exactly being transparent with the process."

Bombardier said in June it needed more time for additional software upgrades and that the inaugural flight would happen by the end of July. The first delay, due to an unspecified supplier problem, occurred last year.

The CSeries is Bombardier's bid to compete against bigger rivals Airbus and Boeing. Bombardier says the plane will have a 15 percent cash operating cost advantage and a 20 percent fuel burn advantage over existing planes in the same class.

The plane can seat between 110 and 130, and a reconfigured version of the larger version will be able to seat 160. It is designed to be quiet, and some fans have dubbed it the "whisper jet".
Click to expand...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/24/bombardier-cseries-idUSL1N0FU0QP20130724
 
I've never heard if this jet before. Can you please explain what makes this different as to the usual airbus/boeing croud?
 
agentrfr said:
I've never heard if this jet before. Can you please explain what makes this different as to the usual airbus/boeing croud?
Click to expand...

Airlines have been asking for something bigger than the current regional jets but not as big as your a320s and b737's to serve the smaller regional routes. More seating and in some cases range than the current crop of 50-70 seat CRJ's and ERJ's. AFAIK it is meant to be a direct competitor to the Embraer E170 & E190.
 
Last edited:
Bombardier makes the CRJ200/700 and the Dash8Q400 that SA Express uses locally. This is their first venture into 100+ seat aircraft but is facing strong competition from the likes of Embrear, Sukhoi, Mitsubishi and to a lesser extent the smaller Airbus 319 / Boeing 737-700. They are making a lot of bold statements about the performance of the new aircraft and it is in the running to be selected by SA Express for its fleet upgrade due in the next few years.

My money however would be on SA Express getting Embrear's instead because it has been around longer and is also part of BRIC..
 
kat06sa said:
AFAIK it is meant to be a direct competitor to the Embraer E170 & E190.
Click to expand...

No ... more aimed at smaller A319 and 737-700 . The Bombardier C300 will be able to carry up to 160 people in the new configuration made available at the Paris Air Show ... so this puts it in direct competition with Airbus and Boeing. Even the new Embrawer 2nd Gen E-Jet's wont be able to carry 160 people ... unless they stretch it further down the line.
 
Ockie said:
No ... more aimed at smaller A319 and 737-700 . The Bombardier C300 will be able to carry up to 160 people in the new configuration made available at the Paris Air Show ... so this puts it in direct competition with Airbus and Boeing. Even the new Embrawer 2nd Gen E-Jet's wont be able to carry 160 people ... unless they stretch it further down the line.
Click to expand...

Oops, was thinking of the C100. C300 is the bigger brother and does go up against the heavy hitters. There were rumours last year about SAX having a look at them. Heard nothing since.
 
They basically span the whole range now from 100 seaters to 160 seater, but I think their main focus is on the smaller capacity side..

Rumors are strong for a sax embraer fleet.. Just saying..
 
Bombardier to Reassess CSeries Service Entry After Flight

By Frederic Tomesco - 2013-07-31T20:44:15Z
Bombardier Inc. (BBD/B) signaled that it may need to push back the timeline for the commercial debut of its CSeries aircraft, its largest model ever, after postponing the jet’s first flight for a third time last week.

That delay means the planemaker will have to reconsider the goal of getting the CSeries in service with airlines within a year of its maiden flight, said Philippe Poutissou, vice president of marketing at Montreal-based Bombardier’s commercial aircraft unit.

“We are basically a few weeks away from flying the aircraft,” Poutissou said yesterday in a telephone interview. “Once we get the aircraft up in the air, we will also reassess where it is we are with respect to the entry into service.”

Resetting the schedule for commercial flying would add to the reverses for the CSeries after an inaugural flight once set for December 2012 slid to June, then to July and now to August. The latest shift was to allow time for reviewing flight systems and integrating software, Bombardier said July 24.

“It’s a hugely complex program, and they’re running into snags,” David Tyerman, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity Inc., said today in a telephone interview from Toronto. “All of these aircraft programs are complicated. Things can go wrong.”

‘Many Activities’

Poutissou, asked whether Bombardier wants to wait for the first prototype to fly before confirming the timetable for entry into service, said: “Absolutely. We stick by our program schedule, but of course we have many activities to get through before we can deliver the airplane, and we are going to make sure we do them right.”

Bombardier’s widely traded Class B shares fell 3.3 percent to C$4.96 at the close in Toronto, their biggest decline since Feb. 21. That pared Bombardier’s year-to-date advance to 32 percent.

The company may face fresh questions from analysts about the status of the $3.4 billion CSeries program when it reports second-quarter results tomorrow. Excluding some costs and gains, profit is projected to be 9 cents a share, the average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 21 analysts.

Chief Executive Officer Pierre Beaudoin is counting on the CSeries as a catalyst for almost doubling annual revenue during the next decade. Designed to carry as many as 160 passengers in the largest variant, the plane is a step up in size from Bombardier’s signature regional jets and seeks to crack the Boeing Co (BA).-Airbus SAS duopoly on narrow-body airliners.

Order Tally

The delays in getting the jet airborne aren’t the only challenge. Bombardier has amassed only 177 firm CSeries orders, typically for handfuls of planes at a time instead of the hundreds or scores of jets common for established Boeing and Airbus models.

Bombardier is targeting 15 CSeries deliveries in 2014, rising to 45 in 2015, Chief Financial Officer Pierre Alary said at a conference in New York in March.

Tyerman said he now expects Bombardier to start delivering the jet in 2015’s first quarter, six months later than his original assumption. Pushing out shipments to 2015 “wouldn’t necessarily be a huge deal but if things really start to drag on, then at some point that increases the chance that they’ll have to pay out late delivery penalties,” he said.

Bombardier needs to get the plane in the air “relatively soon” so flight-test data can be shared with prospective buyers, Peter Arment, a New York-based analyst for Sterne Agee & Leach Inc., said today in a note to clients. “There are a few larger campaigns that would like to see the CSeries data before signing off on new narrow-body orders.”

Arment rates Bombardier as buy, as does Canaccord Genuity’s Tyerman.

The CSeries will cost about 15 percent less to operate and burn about 20 percent less fuel than existing competitors, Bombardier has said. The plane will feature composite materials and the new geared turbofan engine from United Technologies (UTX) Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney.

To contact the reporter on this story: Frederic Tomesco in Montreal at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at [email protected]
Click to expand...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...ssess-cseries-service-entry-after-flight.html
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X