The new medium-haul Russian Tu-204SM aircraft built by Ulyanovsk aviation plant is completing the tests under severe climate and weather conditions, press-service of Tupolev Company. AEX.ru
Tu-204SM aircraft (№64151) performed series of runs on the runway covered with a layer of water. The tests have been carried out in a special pool mounted at the airfield of Gromov Flight Research Institute (Zhukovsky, Moscow Region). These tests are aimed at evaluation of safe operation of the jet under conditions of tropical showers.
«The motion of water flows, caused by interaction between the jet’s landing gear and water, and their impact on the flight safety have been evaluated during testing. The results of the runs have been recorded by video cameras located near the pool. The testing was carried out by the crew formed by chief pilot of Tupolev Company, Viktor Minashkin, and leader test pilot of certification testing – test pilot of GosNII GA’s Flight Test Center, Igor Chernov, under the supervision of specialists of certification centers, engineers of Gromov Flight Research Institute, GosNII GA and Tupolev Company», - the company noted.
Tu-204SM performed 8 runs on the wet runway with different speeds (over 50 km/h) and demonstrated good results by all the parameters. The jet will undergo the final testing of this cycle soon - landing under conditions of real rain. According to the aircraft’s chief designer, Oleg Alasheev, such tests require serious methodic preparation. In particular, the specialists of the Flight Research Institute have developed the test-procedure for the testing onboard of testbed aircraft Tu-154 “from the ground up”.
The series of certification ground and flight tests under conditions of low and high temperatures have been completed earlier by Tu-204SM jet. The total duration of flights performed in the network of high-temperature testing was 44 hours 17 minutes. The evaluation of work of hydraulic, control and air conditioning systems have been carried out during testing. Alasheev said: «The maximum passenger comfort is provided by the fail safe performance of air conditioning and automatic pressure control system that is why a great work in the area of temperature survey in the passenger cabin has been done. Theresultsarepositive».
At present Tu-204SM is undergoing ground testing for fail-safe performance. «This is one of the key stages of certification testing aimed at comprehensive verification and objective assessment of the jet’s operating performance with various combinations of systems, devices and modules», - the aircraft’s chief designer said.
Tu-204SM has performed a total of 285 flights in the network of certification testing.
