Bombardier CRJ

Development

Origins

The CRJ family has its origins in the design of the earlier Canadair Challenger business jet. During the late 1970s, the relatively wide fuselage of the Challenger, which could seat a pair of passengers on each side of a central aisle, was observed by some Canadair officials to suggest that it would be somewhat straightforward to produce a stretch of the aircraft for the purpose of accommodating more seats. Accordingly, in 1980, the company publicised its proposal for an expanded model of the aircraft, designated as the Challenger 610E, which would have had seating for an additional 24 passengers. However, such a lengthening did not occur as a result of work on the program being terminated during the following year.

Despite the cancellation of the 610E, neither the concept or general interest in the development of an enlarged derivative had disappeared. During 1987, the year following Canadair's sale to Bombardier, design studies commenced into options for producing a substantially more ambitious stretched configuration of the Challenger.

In July 1988, Canadair targeted a $13-14 million unit price, for a demand of over 1,000 by 1999.

The 48-seat jet would be stretched over the Challenger by a 128 in (3.3 m) forward plug and a 112 in (2.8 m) aft plug.

Over 300 mi (480 km) routes, the faster climb and cruise gave it a one third time advantage of 50 min compared to similarly sized turboprops.

The higher cost per seat of the regional jet, of $270,000 each compared to $186,600, would be balanced by its higher productivity.

During the spring of 1989, these investigations directly led to the formal launch of the Canadair Regional Jet program; it had been decided to retain the "Canadair" name despite the firm's purchase by Bombardier. The program was launched with the aim of selling at least 400 aircraft. SkyWest Airlines, a regional airline was the first US-based customer, placing an order for 10 aircraft in 1989 before the program was officially launched.

The Regional Jet program benefitted from the support of the Canadian government. Reportedly, the break even point for the type was considered to be relatively low amongst its contemporaries; it has been speculated that the bankruptcy and purchase of Learjet by Bombardier during 1990 had allowed for the development costs of the Challenger to be written off, which in turn had the impact of substantially lowering the cost of the Regional Jet program. In addition, the projected operating costs of the CRJ was lower than some of its turboprop-powered rivals, including the Fokker 50, the ATR-42, and the Bombardier Dash 8.

On 10 May 1991, the first of three development aircraft for the initial CRJ100 variant performed its first flight from Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, starting a 1,000h flight test program with three prototypes. During the following year, the type was awarded airworthiness certification; on 29 October 1992, initial deliveries to customers occurred later on that year. On 26 July 1993, the first prototype (C-FCRJ) was lost in a spin mishap near the Bombardier test center in Wichita, Kansas.

Further development

The initial model was followed by the CRJ100 ER subvariant, featuring 20 percent greater range, and the CRJ100 LR subvariant, which possessed 40 percent more range than the standard CRJ100. This sub-variant was developed with the purpose of more closely conforming with the requirements of both corporate and executive operators. A cargo door retrofit has been developed for the installation of former passenger-configured aircraft to extend the useful life of early-built CRJ100s.

The CRJ200, is almost identical to the earlier CRJ100 models, except for the adoption of more efficient GE CF34-3B1 engines; these engines had lower fuel consumption while providing improvements in performance with increased cruise altitude and increased cruise speed. Bombardier had specifically designed the new model to provide better performance and efficiencies than any of its nearest competitors at that time. SkyWest Airlines was the launch customer for the CRJ200, conducting the first revenue flight of the type on February 15, 1994. There would also be a CRJ200 freighter variant, designated as the CRJ200 PF (Package Freighter), which was developed in cooperation with Cascade Aerospace on the request of West Air Sweden.

During 1995, Bombardier embarked on design studies and a detailed market evaluation on the topic of producing a substantially enlarged derivative of the CRJ200. These efforts quickly transitioned into a $450 million program to produce such an aircraft, which was produced as the CRJ700. Many areas of commonality, such as the design of the cockpit, were retained between the CRJ200 and its newer, larger brethren, but various new systems and structures, such as an all-new wing, were incorporated into the design as well.