Comac has taken delivery of the wing-body fairing section that will be installed on its first C919 flight test aircraft.

The Chinese airframer says development of the part, manufactured by Hafei Aviation, started in 2012. It admits however that due to the complexity of the part's manufacturing process, various issues were encountered in the processing of the composite parts, as well as in work coordination.

It adds that the delivered wing-body fairing will soon be installed on aircraft 101.

Comac is working on rolling out the first C919 flight test aircraft by end-2015, and to fly the aircraft next year. Final assembly of the airframe has been largely completed and systems are now being progressively installed on the prototype.

The total number of commitments for the C919 stands at 507, with the latest from Ping An Leasing for 50 C919s inked at the Paris air show in June.

Source: Cirium Dashboard