Textron Aviation announced that the third test aircraft in the Cessna Citation Longitude program recently completed its maiden flight. Test pilots Corey Eckhart and UJ Pesonen, along with flight test engineer Mike Bradfield, successfully tested several systems over the course of a flight that lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes. The aircraft will be used in the systems and avionics development program, and also to collect and reproduce data from flight simulators.
In addition to the three test planes, Cessna started the new assembly line flow, with the first four Longitude aircraft destined for customers in production currently underway. These aircraft are being built using the same tools and advanced manufacturing techniques that were applied to the test aircraft, Cessna said the purpose is to improve accuracy and quality on the assembly line.
“The speed with which our team is achieving these milestones is an important indication to our customers of the maturity of the aircraft's systems and the proficiency of our processes,” said Brad Thress, senior vice president of Engineering.
The third aircraft s the test program less than six months after the first Longitude, which originally took place in October 2016. So far, the first two aircraft in the flight test program have completed 125 flights, logging over 250 hours of testing . Citation Longitude certification is scheduled for later this year.
