The technology in Embraer’s newest business jet series, the Legacy 450 and 500, enables detailed exploration and development to take place much further ahead of first flight, according to Eduardo Camelier, chief test pilot for the Brazilian manufacturer. “We are flying this airplane before first flight a lot more than we did with the E170,” he said. Camelier was project pilot for the E170 program and he is intimately familiar with the airliner’s fly-by-wire (FBW) system and the development and testing needed to certify that airplane.
With powerful, inexpensive computers at their disposal, it is much easier for aircraft developers to replicate an airplane by building an engineering test simulator. This is especially true with FBW designs. The Legacy 450 and 500 are even better suited to simulation, being Embraer’s first design and also the first business jets ever to use a full closed-loop FBW flight control system on all flight controls. On the 170, he said, “We started flying simulation about a year before the first flight. [With the 450/500], maybe two or three years before first flight we were already flying. We’re doing a lot more testing on this airplane.”
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