Aircraft Profile: Bombardier CRJ Family
Developed from Bombardier’s Challenger corporate jet, the GE CF34-powered CRJ family comprises four sizes of regional jet and business aircraft variants. The original CRJ100 flew in May 1991 and entered service with Lufthansa CityLine in November 1992. Longer-range -ER/LR models followed and were available for the later CRJ200, which has the same airframe but improved CF34-3B1 engines. The 44-seat CRJ440 is dimensionally identical but with reduced capacity to comply with US pilot scope clause restrictions. It entered service with Northwest in January 2002.
Production of the CRJ100/200/440 was discontinued in January 2006, although Bombardier has extended the line with the Challenger 850 27-seat Corporate Shuttle and 16-seat executive jet based on the CRJ200LR.
The 70-seat CRJ700 stretch has a larger wing and more-powerful GE CF34-8C1 engines. It flew in May 1999 and entered service two years later as the baseline Series 701. The 86-seat CRJ900 – a minimum-change stretch of the CRJ700 equipped with more-powerful GE CF34-8C5 engines - entered service in January 2003. A more spacious version of the CRJ900 equipped with 75 seats, is dubbed the CRJ700 Series 705 (CRJ705) entering service with Air Canada Jazz in May 2005.
Improved versions of the CRJ700/900 are available, dubbed “NextGen”.
The 100-seat CRJ1000 is the latest addition to the family, making its first flight on 3 September 2008. Certification and service entry is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2009. The additional capacity is achieved by the insertion of a 1.58m fuselage plug forward and 1.37m aft.
