The Embraer E190-E2 completed its first flight on May 23, an event originally scheduled for the second half of this year. The aircraft took off from Embraer’s facility in São José dos Campos and flew for over three hours.
The flight occurred just three months after the E190-E2 made its public debut at a rollout ceremony at the factory in late February. The inaugural flight marks the beginning of the certification campaign for the aircraft, the first of three new second-generation E-Jet models. The E190-E2 is scheduled to enter commercial service in 2018.
The first flight evaluated aircraft handling and performance characteristics, with the crew analyzing a large number of flight parameters, including speed, altitude and landing gear retraction. This was made possible by the high level of maturity that the E2 reached during program development through the extensive use of digital modeling simulations and ground and static tests that employed rigs and an iron bird.
“There are always a lot of expectations with a first flight and today’s was no exception. The flight was very smooth. We were able to significantly open the flight envelope by flying at Mach 0.82, climbing to 41,000 feet and retracting the landing gear and flaps, and engaging the fly-by-wire in normal mode. All of these demonstrate that the E190-E2 project is very mature and robust, and exceed all performance targets” said Embraer Captain Mozart Louzada.
The E190-E2 that flew is the first of four prototypes that will be used in the certification program. Two additional aircraft will be assigned to the E195-E2 certification process that will lead to entry into service in 2019. The new model has the same number of seats as the current-generation E190, but has 400 nautical miles greater range, enabling flights up to 2,800 nautical miles.
