By Bjorn Fehrm

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Introduction

April 20, 2016, ©. Leeham Co: Last week we started our analysis to see whether Bombardier could stretch their C Series aircraft program from two members covering 100 to 135 passengers (in two class configuration) into a three aircraft family that would cover up to the main segment of the present single aisle market, the 150-160 seat segment.

We found that the main problem area seems to be the margin for rotation at take-off with a longer CS500 fuselage, a similar problem that affects the Boeing 737 MAX 9. There are several ways to attack such a problem in an aircraft like the C Series. We will now investigate the different options and what influence these would have to the cabin capacities for such an aircraft.

Summary

• To create a CS500 that would cover the main single aisle seating segment (that of 150-160 seats two class), Bombardier would have to do rather modest changes to the present CS300.
• The stretch would introduce a longer fuselage but the wing could stay pretty much the same.
• The longer fuselage brings some challenges. The C Series has the wing and therefore main landing gear in a forward position for efficiency reasons. This limits the rotation angle for a longer CS500.
• We go through the options for handling this problem and its consequences for the CS500 cabin capacity.