Comac ARJ21

Development

In 1985, Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing Company, now a part of Comac, launched a "troubled" partnership with McDonnell Douglas to co-produce the MD-80, a similar-looking small jet aircraft. After producing 20 MD-80s, the joint venture eventually collapsed, but China refused to return the tooling used. According to Western analysts, the ARJ21 is "heavily derived" from the MD-80, including its 1980s-era airframe which features a distinctive "double-bubble" fuselage cross-section. However, Chinese media state that the ARJ21 is an indigenous design.

The development of the ARJ21 (Advanced Regional Jet) was a key project in the "10th Five-Year Plan" of China. The project officially began in March 2002 and was led by the state-owned ACAC consortium. The maiden flight of the ARJ21 was initially planned to take place in 2005 with commercial service beginning 18 months later. The programme became eight years behind schedule.

The design work was delayed and the final trial production stage did not begin until June 2006.

The first prototype (serial number 101) rolled out on 21 December 2007, with a maiden flight on 28 November 2008 at Shanghai's Dachang Airfield. The aircraft completed a long-distance test flight on 15 July 2009, flying from Shanghai to Xi'an in 2 hours 19 minutes, over a distance of 1,300 km. The second ARJ21 (serial number 102) completed the same test flight route on 24 August 2009. The third aircraft (serial number 103) similarly completed its first test flight on 12 September 2009. The fourth aircraft (CN 104) flew by November 2010. By August 2011, static, flutter and crosswind flight tests had been completed.

The ACAC consortium was reorganized in May 2008 and became a part of the then-newly formed Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (abbreviated to Comac).

Key flight tests and CAAC certification

AC104 returned to China on 28 April 2014, after completing natural-icing tests in North America. This was the first time a turbofan-powered regional jet independently developed by China had flown abroad to carry out flight tests in special weather conditions. At the same time, other flight-test aircraft covered more than 30,000 km across Asia, America, Europe, and the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Natural-icing tests are required for airworthiness certification, and conducting these tests outside China showed it was feasible to do certification tests for civil aircraft in other countries.

The first production aircraft flew on 18 June 2014. and AC104 completed an airspeed calibration flight on 30 October. Route-proving started on 29 October 2014, and AC105 made 83 flights between ten airports in Chengdu, Guiyang, Guilin, Haikou, Fuzhou, Zhoushan, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Yinchuan and Xianyang. The cumulative flight time was 173 hours and 55 minutes. By November 2014, AC104 had completed 711 flights in 1,442 hours and 23 minutes. Certification tests included stall, high-speed, noise and simulated and natural icing. AC105 returned to Yanliang airport on 16 December 2014, from Xi'an Xianyang International Airport after the last function and reliability flight. This completed the testing for the ARJ21-700 airworthiness certificate.

The ARJ21-700 received its Type Certification under Chapter 25 of the Chinese civil aviation regulations from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), on 30 December 2014. The certification program for the CAAC required 5,000 hours.

An ARJ21-700 completed a final demonstration flight on 12 September 2015 before being delivered to a customer.

Introduction

On 29 November 2015, COMAC delivered the first ARJ21-700 to Chengdu Airlines. The first commercial flight took off from Chengdu Shuangliu Airport on 28 June 2016, landing in Shanghai two hours later, one day after its commercial flight was approved by the CAAC. During the summer schedule period of 2016, i.e. until 29 October 2016, the ARJ21-700 was scheduled to operate three weekly rotations between Chengdu and Shanghai Hongqiao. 85 flight segments were operated by ARJ21 (81 by B-3321, four by B-3322).

Further developments

In June 2018 an ARJ21-700+ was proposed for 2021 with weight and drag reductions. Subsequently, a -900 stretch version was designed to accommodate 115 all-economy seats, similar to the Bombardier CRJ900, Embraer E175-E2 or Mitsubishi MRJ90.

Structurally conservative and designed for hot and high operations, the ARJ21's 25 t (55,000 lb) empty weight is higher than initially targeted in 2002, and also higher than competing aircraft. In 2018 an executive version was in final assembly and a cargo variant was proposed.

Freighter conversion program

The ARJ21 COMAC Converted Freighter (CCF) conversion program began in May 2020; the type certification and testing program was completed in December 2022 and the type certified by the CAAC on 1 January 2023.

The first two ARJ21 converted freighters (B-3329 and B-3388) were delivered to customers on 30 October 2023. The two airframes were initially delivered to Chengdu Airlines in 2018 in the passenger configuration and were subsequently withdrawn for the CCF program in 2021.