In 1985,
Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing Company, now a part of Comac, launched a "troubled" partnership with
McDonnell Douglas to co-produce the
MD-80, a similar-looking small jet aircraft. According to Western analysts, the ARJ21 is "heavily derived" from the MD-80, including its 1980s-era airframe which features a distinctive "double-bubble" fuselage cross-section. The development of the ARJ21 (Advanced Regional Jet) was a key project in the
"10th Five-Year Plan" of
China. The project officially began in March 2002 and was led by the state-owned
ACAC consortium. The maiden flight of the ARJ21 was initially planned to take place in 2005 with commercial service beginning 18 months later. The programme became eight years behind schedule. The design work was delayed and the final trial production stage did not begin until June 2006. The first prototype (serial number 101) rolled out on 21 December 2007, with a maiden flight on 28 November 2008 at Shanghai's Dachang Airfield. The aircraft completed a long-distance test flight on 15 July 2009, flying from
Shanghai to
Xi'an in 2 hours 19 minutes, over a distance of 1,300 km. The second ARJ21 (serial number 102) completed the same test flight route on 24 August 2009. The third aircraft (serial number 103) similarly completed its first test flight on 12 September 2009. The fourth aircraft (CN 104) flew by November 2010. By August 2011, static, flutter and crosswind flight tests had been completed. The ACAC consortium was reorganized in May 2008 and became a part of the then-newly formed
Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (abbreviated to Comac).
Key flight tests and CAAC certification AC104 returned to China on 28 April 2014, after completing natural-icing tests in North America. This was the first time a turbofan-powered regional jet independently developed by China had flown abroad to carry out flight tests in special weather conditions. At the same time, other flight-test aircraft covered more than 30,000 km across Asia, America, Europe, and the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Natural-icing tests are required for airworthiness certification, and conducting these tests outside China showed it was feasible to do certification tests for civil aircraft in other countries. The first production aircraft flew on 18 June 2014. By November 2014, AC104 had completed 711 flights in 1,442 hours and 23 minutes. Certification tests included stall, high-speed, noise and simulated and natural icing. AC105 returned to
Yanliang airport on December 16, 2014, from
Xi'an Xianyang International Airport after the last function and reliability flight. This completed the testing for the ARJ21-700 airworthiness certificate. The ARJ21-700 received its Type Certification under Chapter 25 of the Chinese civil aviation regulations from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), on 30 December 2014. The certification program for the CAAC required 5,000 hours. The first commercial flight took off from Chengdu
Shuangliu Airport on 28 June 2016, landing in
Shanghai two hours later, one day after its commercial flight was approved by the CAAC. During the summer schedule period of 2016, i.e. until 29 October 2016, the ARJ21-700 was scheduled to operate three weekly rotations between Chengdu and Shanghai Hongqiao. 85 flight segments were operated by ARJ21 (81 by B-3321, four by B-3322).
Further developments In June 2018 an ARJ21-700+ was proposed for 2021 with weight and drag reductions. Subsequently, a -900
stretch version was designed to accommodate 115 all-economy seats, similar to the
Bombardier CRJ900,
Embraer E175-E2 or
Mitsubishi MRJ90.