China’s home-grown C919 reaches new heights with flight to ‘roof of the world’

China’s first home-grown narrowbody civilian aircraft flew to the capital of the Tibet autonomous region for the first time on Thursday, reaching one of the highest airports in the world known for its challenging weather patterns. A C919 “smoothly landed” at Lhasa Gonggar Airport in far western China after travelling for about two hours from Chengdu in the southwestern Sichuan province, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. The airport serving the Tibetan capital of Lhasa sits at around 3,650 metres (11,979 feet) above sea level in the Himalayan mountain region, giving it the moniker of the “roof of the world”. Low air pressure means planes should be in top shape, Guangzhou-based aviation analyst Li Hanming said. “The change of air pressure due to elevation requires extra performance to take-off and land safely,” Li said. “The lower air pressure makes it harder for jet fuel to burn, thus reducing [an aircraft’s] thrust and negatively impacting aircraft performance.” The C919 would conduct “research and development test flights” on the Tibetan plateau to check “key” systems, including avionics, the Xinhua added, referring to the on-board electronics systems for communications and navigation. The aircraft would also receive “high-plateau airport adaptability inspections”. In December, the Shanghai-based Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) and the Lhasa-based Tibet Airlines agreed to develop a plateau-suited model of the aircraft. Comac said in February that it had signed a deal with Tibet Airlines to make 40 of the narrowbody C919 designed for high-altitude plateaus.<br/>