Embraer flew its Legacy 450 mid-light business jet for the first time on Saturday and all went well, according to the company. The flight was a success, said test pilot Eduardo Camelier. The full fly-by-wire system, with side stick flight controls, made the flight very smooth. With the advanced avionics suite, the aircraft operation was very easy and intuitive. The first hop of the multi-colored aircraft lasted about 1.6 hours and explored the basic flight characteristics. Production versions of the aircraft will explore Cessna’s dominance of this market segment.
The 450 takes on Cessna’s mid- to upper-range products and does it with fly-by-wire controls and other features like Rockwell Collins’s new EVS-300/HGS-3500 head-up display. As we reported in October, the 450 will be assembled in Melbourne, Fla. In the meantime, certification is expected to take another year but the first flight was on schedule. The aircraft has 2,500-nm range and seats up to nine passengers.
