Yesterday (23rd), the mainland's self-developed large amphibious aircraft AG600 obtained the first type inspection approval, marking that this type of aircraft officially entered the Civil Aviation Administration of China certification and flight test stage.
The type inspection approval letter is issued by the Civil Aviation Airworthiness Certification Center of China, which means that the AG600 aircraft has reached a considerable maturity level, and has completed sufficient ground tests and flight tests, which is expected to meet the safety and airworthiness requirements, and can support the pilots of the Civil Aviation Administration to carry out verification test flights.
Zhang Yingchun, head of the AG600 type qualification review team: The type inspection approval TIA is a prerequisite for the approval of the flight test of the bureau, and the issuance of TIA marks that the bureau can carry out the ground inspection and certification test flight of the aircraft. Its significance marks that the work of type qualification certification has entered a new stage.
The approval test flight of the bureau is one of the important certification work contents that must be completed before the Civil Aviation Administration issues the aircraft type certificate by completing a series of planned flight test subjects to check and judge whether the aircraft design meets the basic requirements of the certification. This stage is also the most challenging and the most difficult stage to find problems before the type of aircraft obtains the airworthiness certificate.
Hu Hai, Deputy Director of the Project Management Office of the Civil Aviation Airworthiness Certification Center of China: We have fully learned from the successful experience of the C919 model qualification certification, we have set up a model and certification committee, and invited 23 experts from the Airworthiness Department, regional administrations, civil aviation colleges and universities, etc., as our technical support and decision-making institutions, to provide strong support for the key problems of the AG600 model to promote the solution.
AG600 is a large-scale special-purpose civil aircraft independently developed to meet the urgent needs of forest fire fighting and water rescue, and is a major aviation equipment urgently needed for the construction of the national emergency rescue system, which can effectively improve the capacity of the mainland's emergency rescue aviation equipment system.
What is a test flight approved by the Bureau?
After the successful first flight on land in 2017, AG600 began its long test flight road, and the current full-state new configuration AG600M fire extinguishing type has completed the test flight of many important subjects and entered the stage of test flight approval by the bureau. So what is the bureau's approved test flight? Let's find out.
The birth of an aircraft needs to go through the stages of demonstration, design, trial production and test flight, and the test flight has the longest cycle, the most requirements, the greatest risk and many types in all links. The test flight is a test flight with the participation of test pilots and flight engineers from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, which is used to verify the flight test data of the AG600M aircraft. According to the regulations, the AG600M aircraft has completed the necessary ground inspection and flight test before the bureau carries out the certification test flight.
Wang Chenghua, Chief Flight Engineer of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China Flight Test Center: The approval and flight test of the bureau is a link that must be passed in accordance with the airworthiness procedures of civil aircraft. A verification of the aircraft's performance, stability and operating procedures, as well as the operation of the equipment on board, and the verification manual submitted by the applicant indicating the conformity test results.
Wang Chenghua introduced that before entering the bureau's approval test flight, AG600M aircraft has completed the test flight of high-risk subjects such as airspeed calibration and benchmark stall speed through research and development test flight, indicating compliance test flight, etc., and the test flight team has a relatively comprehensive understanding of the performance of the aircraft, which is of great help to efficiently complete the bureau's approved test flight and obtain the aircraft type certificate as soon as possible.
Wang Chenghua, Chief Flight Test Engineer of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China Flight Test Center: It can be put into the market if it passes the test pilot, that is, through the bureau's examination and approval of the test flight, and finally issues a certificate to this type of aircraft.
According to reports, with the previous test flight experience of domestic civil aircraft such as ARJ21 and C919, the time taken by the bureau to approve the AG600M will be relatively short, and it is expected to be completed in about 4 months.
The AG600 has been tested in several places
It is understood that a total of 4 AG600M aircraft are currently conducting test flights at multiple airports in the mainland. What are the test flights of them? Why do you want to try several planes together?
After years of test flights, AG600M has completed important flight test subjects such as high cold, high temperature, high humidity, water take-off and landing, as well as typical fire extinguishing task scenarios and actual combat verification test flights in Yanliang, Pucheng in Shaanxi, Jingmen in Hubei, Hailar in Inner Mongolia, Nanchang in Jiangxi, Anshun, Liupanshui and Xingyi in Guizhou, Xichang in Sichuan, etc., and verified the power plant, flight control system and other systems of the aircraft.
Zhao Yuhe, Deputy General Manager of Aviation Industry Corporation of China Tongfei South China Company and Head of AG600 Test Flight Site: The test flight must be verified under the most severe conditions to ensure that it can cover all kinds of typical scenarios when it is running in the future and in the use of users.
Zhao Yuhe introduced that the four aircraft jointly carried out test flights can effectively improve the efficiency of test flights, they are challenging different test flight subjects, which are currently progressing smoothly, and are constantly refreshing the test flight speed record of the continental aviation industry.
Zhao Yuhe, deputy general manager of Aviation Industry Corporation of China Tongfei South China Company and head of the AG600 test flight site: The work of AG600 certification and flight test should be said to have entered a fast lane, which also marks that the state of the aircraft has gradually matured, the configuration has been basically frozen, and the test flight has been stably verified.
The reporter directly hit the test flight of the "unusable fuel" subject
At the test flight site, the CCTV reporter of the main station exclusively hit a high-risk subject test flight of the AG600 aircraft, what was the situation at the scene at that time, let's take a look.
At the National Civil Aircraft Test Flight Center in Pucheng, Shaanxi Province, a large amphibious aircraft "Kunlong" AG600M, independently developed by the mainland, took off.
Zhao Sheng, special test pilot of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China Flight Test Center: The subject of our flight this time is to reduce the fuel supply of the aircraft engine to a minimum until it stops, and then the aircraft returns to the field to verify the minimum fuel supply of the aircraft when one engine is stopped. The purpose is to see how much fuel there is, and the engine will stop.
About 200 meters away from the tower is the monitoring hall of the test flight mission, where the staff is mainly responsible for monitoring the status of the aircraft, ensuring the safety of the aircraft, and confirming the flight data.
Shi Jiawei, flight test engineer of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China Flight Test Center: We have to monitor in real time until the plane slides back to the tarmac and then turns off the car, so that we can preliminarily complete the work. After the flight, we have to make a comment, and the subject personnel should discuss the results of the flight on the day with the pilots and crew, including the commanders and people of various professions, which will help us analyze and process the data after the flight.
After about two and a half hours of flight, the plane landed smoothly and successfully completed the test flight of the sortie.
Source: CCTV news client