New Russian jet takes to sky in bid to rival Airbus and Boeing

Russia on Sunday held a successful test flight of its new MC-21 medium-haul passenger jet that it hopes will revive its troubled civil aviation industry and challenge giants Airbus and Boeing. The plane, whose prototype was unveiled last June, flew for 30 minutes at a height of 1,000 metres and a speed of 300 km per hour, said its makers, the Irkut Corporation aircraft manufacturer. The plane took off from the Siberian city of Irkutsk where the Irkut company is based, said Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, writing on Twitter. Rogozin, who oversees aviation and space, wrote as he watched at the scene: "We're flying!" President Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti state news agency that Rogozin "by phone reported to Putin that our medium-haul plane took wing, carrying out its first test flight." The president of Irkut, Oleg Demchenko, said that "today is a historic day for our staff and for all the big team that worked on creating the MC-21." The jet was piloted by two of the country's most decorated test pilots, Oleg Kononenko and Roman Taskayev. Kononenko, who has been awarded the Hero of Russia medal, said that the "flight assignment was completed fully" and the "flight went normally."<br/>