On 20 July 2018, the second MC-21-300 test aircraft, participating in the flight test program, flew from Irkutsk to the airfield “Ramenskoye” of Flight Research Institute n.a. M.M. Gromov (Zhukovsky, Moscow Region). The flight lasted 6 hours.
The plane was piloted by the crew of:
- the commander, 1st class test pilot Vasily Sevastyanov;
- the co-pilot, 1st class test pilot Andrey Voropayev.
Vasily Sevastyanov said, "the flight proceeded in normal mode, all systems operated fault-free."
The flight test program of the second MC-21-300 aircraft started on 12 May 2018, at the airfield of the Irkutsk Aviation Plant, a branch of Irkut Corporation. While performing flights from this airfield with a total duration of nearly 14 hours, the aircraft reached altitude of 12,000 m, speed of 0.8 M, true speed of 850 km/h.
Within the framework of flight tests, the following works were performed:
- stability and controllability characteristics of the aircraft in various high-lift configurations with extended and retracted landing gear were confirmed;
- the measuring system of altitude/speed parameters was calibrated to match them with their actual in-flight values;
- various modes of power plant operation were verified, including in-flight shutdown and restart of the engine;
- aircraft systems operability was checked.
Further testing of two MC-21-300 test aircraft will be carried out on the basis of Flight Testing Facility (FTF) of Yakovlev Design Bureau.
To support test procedures in FTF, the new hangar has been constructed, ground maintenance facilities have been developed, the highly efficient system for collection/processing/analysis of flight data has been created. New technologies for processing of flight test results ensure high information value of flights, as the on-board measurement system allows recording more than 30,000 parameters in each flight.