By Skies Magazine | September 21, 2015 Estimated reading time 3 minutes, 27 seconds.
Noise sensitive city centre operations will be catered to by the C Series. Here, the CS100 is seen against Toronto high rises near Bombardier’s Downsview Airport.
On Sept. 9, Bombardier’s CS100 flight test vehicle five visited Bombardier’s DeHavilland Site at Toronto Downsview Airport (Downsview) for an employee and media event. Approximately 4,000 employees work at the Toronto plant, all anxious to see their company’s newest product, and more importantly, see it fly. Media attended in large numbers, and mingled with company dignitaries and guests, and had the opportunity to tour the aircraft.
Bombardier Commercial Aircraft president Fred Kromer, and C Series vice president Rob Dewar provided attendees with a program update. They stated the C Series program has successfully completed over 85 per cent of its flight test program to date, and is very close to achieving certification. Critical test regimes such as water ingestion and community noise testing have successfully been completed, and results are looking to be on target or better than expected according to Bombardier.
C Series FTV5 made two quiet passes over Toronto Billy Bishop City Centre Airport on September 10 after departing the Downsview event.
A flying display took place at Downsview with takeoff, several passes, and landing by the CS100 and alternating with the Bombardier Q400 demonstrator on an identical track and speed. These manoeuvres illustrated that the noise from the C Series is in the same magnitude as, if not quieter, than the turboprop Q400.
CS100 FTV5 is seen carrying out a flypast demonstrating its low noise level characteristics for employees and media at Downsview.
Subsequently after leaving Downsview on the way home to Mirabel, two flypasts were carried out at Toronto Billy Bishop Airport (YTZ), the home of Porter Airlines. The success of the C Series noise levels will dictate whether Porter will be able to press forward in its bid to have the Tripartite agreement at YTZ revised. This agreement prohibits jet operations at Billy Bishop due to noise levels. Porter placed a conditional purchase order with Bombardier for twelve CS100s and 18 options on April 9, 2013. The deal is contingent on the Tripartite agreement revision to allow jet traffic below a certain noise threshold to operate to YTZ. If it comes to fruition it will make Porter the first Canadian carrier to operate the C Series, as it was for the Bombardier Q400. The CS100 flypasts over YTZ on Sept. 10 were a benchmark in the path towards progression of the Porter order.
