The three major civil engine manufacturers will all seek to take part in Bombardier’s long-awaited CSeries aircraft programme, says Pierre Beaudoin, president Bombardier Aerospace, speaking at a briefing on the eve of the show. “All of them have expressed interest and will participate in the bid,” he says.
When the CSeries was being proposed for service entry in 2010, only Pratt & Whitney Canada said it was prepared to develop a new powerplant for the 100-150-seater aircraft. The others, like CFM, were interested but “they kept telling us that their technology was not ready for 2010, but that it would be ready by 2013”, says Beaudoin. “We felt it was a better decision to wait and be in line with the available technology,” he says, adding that this is something its customers want too.
Beaudoin insists that the CSeries can still be developed for the original cost of $2.1 billion, especially as it will be using manufacturing partners in low-cost countries like China and Mexico.
ECONOMIC CASE
The aim is for the CSeries to have an all-composite wing but the economic case for the fuselage barrel, to be built by China Aviation Industries subsidiary Shenyang Aircraft, shows it should be made from aluminium-lithium alloys.
Beaudoin says Bombardier’s plan is to make a decision on whether to launch the CSeries in 2008. The project still has 50 people working on it.
Discussing the length of time it has taken for Bombardier to bring the CSeries to market, the company’s chairman Laurent Beaudoin, says: “We were the first one to develop a regional jet, and in fact the first one to develop the Q400, a high-speed turboprop, and the first one to launch a large, long-range business jet in the Global Express. So we’ve been quite innovative.” Now the company is doing the right thing by trying to understand the market and be in step with its requirements, he says.
Source: Flight Daily News
