Standing in -20 degree weather alongside runway 24 in Mirabel Ernie Arvai captured the first flight on video. The flight had been delayed one day because of inclement weather. In the end, the sky cleared but it got no warmer. This may go down as the coldest first flight on record.
Ernie spoke with Canada’s BNN about the aircraft today also – Play
From the video it is obvious just how quiet the Pratt & Whitney GTF is – its remarkably quiet. There can be little doubt that aircraft using this engine will be welcomed at airports with neighboring dormitory communities. Bob Deluce at Porter called the CSeries the”Whisperliner”. He’s right. This eerily quiet aircraft could probably serve Billy Bishop in downtown Toronto with less noise impact than exists at present.
Thanks for the video, no sound editing, the real thing. The first flight was almost 5 hours! Bombardier sure gained a lot of maturity with the other 4 FTV CS100. Its now time to promote these great airplanes.Great job Bombardier.
What a great day for Bombardier & Canada
Good Luck, Hope to complete the certification on time.
@Ernie Arvai
Apparently people were heading back to the hangar because they thought the flight was delayed. I imagine that is what happened to you. But my understanding is that this was a miscommunication problem as the aircraft took off when it was supposed to. And since the flight lasted more than five hours it means everything went quite well. If they had been able to refuel inflight they would probably still be up there! 😉 All in all a great day for Bombardier.
Not returning to the hangar just getting some heat inside one of the 2 buses that got us there since we’ve been already waiting outside for a good 40 minutes and the wind was the killer. The Buses were a bit away, 300 feet maybe, we were on taxi B4. As you can see the CS300 did use about about the distance from the threshold of runway 24 and where it connects with taxi B4. B4 is half way in the 12000′ runway, so it left the ground in less than 3000′, excellent again for a first flight.
Sylvain, I saw many people heading back prematurely to the hangar thinking that take-off had been delayed. Many of them had to run back to the tarmac not to miss the take-off roll.
If I recall correctly you are the one who said that the crickets were louder than the CSeries, but I expected the GTF engines to make more noise with this kind of very low temperatures. I must admit that I was surprised one more time by how quiet this aircraft is on take-off even when the air is extremely cold. This bodes well for operations in restricted areas all year round.
Hi again. We could not head back to the hangar since we were on taxi B4 escorted all around us by airport security. Only way to move back was with one of the two buses. All the people along the Bombardier fence were employees from the buildings.
Yes about the crickets it was me.
I’m on twitter @sylvainfaust and youtube videos under VE2FET.
Thank you!
Sylvain
Yes, I already follow you like a chase plane! 🙂