On September 29, 2022, at an official ceremony at Beijing International Airport, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) awarded a type certificate for the C919 medium-haul passenger aircraft developed by the Chinese state-owned civil aviation company Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC). It became the first aircraft of this class created in China. The aircraft is certified in the basic version according to the airworthiness standards CCAR-25 CAAC, harmonized with the American standards FAR-25.
The first serial model of the Chinese passenger aircraft SOMAS C919 (serial number 10107, registration number B-001J), 2022 (c) CGTNNarrow-body C919 aircraft in the passenger capacity class of 158-190 seats (that is, similar to the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320, the main variant of the C919 capacity is 168 seats)
It was developed and produced by the State Association of Civil Aviation SOMAS, specially created in China in 2008, for which the C919 became the first full-fledged project. In fact, all the structural elements of the aircraft are either manufactured at various enterprises of the Chinese state aircraft corporation AVIC, or imported, and only the final assembly is carried out at the SOMAS facility in Pudong in Shanghai. The C919 is the first mainline passenger aircraft created in China after the unsuccessful and remaining non-serial Y-10 aircraft, built in the number of three prototypes in the early 1980s.
The C919 aircraft is equipped with two CFM International LEAP 1C engines, and in the future it is planned to be equipped with Chinese CJ-1000A engines also created under the auspices of SOMAS. Bench tests of the CJ-1000A prototypes were started in 2018, but flight tests of this engine have not yet begun.
The first flight of the first flight prototype C919 (serial number 10101, registration number B-001A) took place in Shanghai on May 5, 2017. The first flight of the second prototype C919 (serial number 10102, registration number B-001C) took place on December 17, 2017, and the first flight of the third prototype (serial number 10103, registration number B-001D) took place on December 29, 2018. During 2019, three more C919 flight prototypes were built (serial numbers 10104, 10105 and 10106), and thus the total number of experimental machines involved in the tests was six. Certification flights within the framework of the tests were completed on July 3, 2022. In general, the testing and certification process was delayed, and the certificate was received by C919 with a delay of about a year from the last planned dates.
According to official COMAC data, the portfolio of orders and options for the C919 currently includes 815 aircraft (including 349 in supposedly "firm" contracts) from 28 Chinese air carriers and leasing companies. The first production aircraft C919 (serial number 10107, registration number B-001J) made its first flight in Shanghai on May 14, 2022 and it is expected that by the end of 2022 (also about a year late) it will be transferred to the launch operator One-Two-Three Airlines - a subsidiary of the Chinese airline China Eastern Airlines, and it will begin operation in the first quarter of 2023. The start of actual deliveries of serial C919 is expected from 2023.
The ceremony of awarding the type certificate for the Chinese passenger aircraft SOMAS C919 by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). Beijing, 09/29/2022 (c) SOMAS
