Mitsubishi may add extra flight test aircraft for delayed MRJ project

Mitsubishi is considering building 1, or perhaps 2, extra flight test aircraft to help it through its certification process for the heavily delayed Mitsubishi Regional Jet. There are already 5 flight test aircraft, 4 of which are based at Moses Lake, Washington state in the US; the fleet has so far accounted for 940 hours of flight time, Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp program director Alex Bellamy said. Those 5 aircraft, all MRJ90 models, are being used to close out the various areas that have to be certificated by Japan’s Civil Aviation Bureau. Although a definite decision has not yet been made, “The quickest and easiest way to do that is to build another aircraft,” Bellamy said. Building a second new aircraft would give Mitsubishi additional capacity to close out the tests as quickly as possible. <br/>