Embraer 190 Flies

The 98- to 108-seat Embraer 190 officially began its year-and-a-half-long flight-test campaign on March 12, when the first prototype took off from Embraer’s São José dos Campos, Brazil assembly facility for a 2-hour 45-minute mission. Crewed by pilot-in-command Eduardo Menini, flight-test chief pilot Luiz Carlos Rodrigues and flight-test engineer Fabio Costa, the largest airplane ever built by the Brazilian manufacturer performed a range of systems- validation tests and confirmed many
of the flight characteristics common to its predecessors, the Embraer 170 and 175. Expected to gain FAA certification during next year’s third quarter, the Embraer 190 program has already drawn firm orders for 110 airplanes, the first of which the company plans to deliver to New York-based discount airline JetBlue.