Sukhoi has conducted the maiden flight of Aeroflot’s first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in the Russian flag-carrier’s colours.
Aircraft 95008 performed the 50min sortie from Dzemgi Airport outside of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where the aircraft are manufactured, on 31 January.
“In 2011 we plan the transfer of a few more [Superjet] aircraft to customers,” says the airframer.
Test pilot Leonid Chikunov says the aircraft did not suffer any major failure of its control and safety systems during the two-and-a-half-year flight-test programme, which led to Russian type certification last month.
He says the twinjet is easy and comfortable to fly. Chikunov also reveals that the aircraft experienced a birdstrike involving five gulls during a flight at Moscow Zhukovsky, two of which were ingested by one of the type’s PowerJet SaM146 engines, but that this was not reflected by the aircraft’s operation.
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Russia’s United Aircraft, in its preliminary figures for 2010, lists 155 Superjets on its order portfolio, which also claims 96 Antonov An-148s, 51 Tupolev Tu-204/214s, and 190 MS-21s – the airframer’s latest family – along with three Ilyushin Il-96s.
Last year United Aircraft delivered just seven commercial airframes, four of them An-148s which went to Rossiya.
Two of the others were Tupolev Tu-204s for financial firm VTB-Leasing and North Korea’s Air Koryo, while the remaining aircraft was a Tu-214 for the Russian presidential air fleet.
United Aircraft says the number of aircraft delivered to customers was reduced as a result of some deliveries being transferred to the first half of this year.
Source: Flight International
