Nagoya, Japan –MRJ’s flight test aircraft no. 2 (FTA-2) carried out its first flight on Tuesday, May 31, 2016. After taking off from Nagoya Airport at 10:04am, FTA-2, which is painted markedly with red stripes, flew toward airspace off the Pacific coast and confirmed its basic characteristics and functionality during a nearly 130-minute flight. FTA-2 reached a maximum speed of 250kts (about 460km/h) and altitude of 27,500ft (about 8,400m). FTA-2 will carry out flight tests primarily to confirm MRJ’s future performance.
Having completed one month of planned modifications, FTA-1 resumed flight tests on Friday, May 13, 2016. With FTA-1 and FTA-2, Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. officials say the company will carry out multiple flight tests on a daily basis in Japan. Having achieved steady progress in MRJ development, the manufacturer continues to conduct tests in Japan to get the aircraft ready to leave for Washington State in the U.S. as early as the end of July, where full-scale flight tests are scheduled to take place.
Source: Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp.