The No 102 C919 plane takes off at Pudong Airport in Shanghai, East China, July 12, 2018. After its first long-distance flight from the final assembly line in Shanghai, the plane landed at Dongying Shengli Airport in East China's Shandong province. China's C919 large passenger plane project has entered into a new major phase with intensive flight tests in multiple sites around the country. [Photo/Xinhua]

The second prototype of the C919 aircraft, China's first domestically produced narrow-body passenger jet, made its first long-distance test flight from Shanghai to Dongying, Shandong province, on Thursday, indicating that the C919 will start a period of intensive test flights at different testing bases simultaneously.

Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC), its manufacturer, said the C919 aircraft will enter a new stage of intensive test flights and research and development. The aircraft model will face the challenges of taking some highly risky test flights including those under complicated weather conditions.

The 102 prototype test aircraft of the C919 took off at 2:57 pm from Shanghai Pudong International Airport and flew for one hour and 46 minutes, before it landed at Shengli Airport in Dongying, and the aircraft will transfer to the testing base in Dongying to take various tests from now on, according to COMAC.

The 102 prototype test aircraft mainly does ground tests and flight tests covering areas such as the examination of the power system, fuel system, power supply system and environmental control system.

According to its plan, COMAC will put in six test aircraft to take test flights, including those during icy, high temperature and severely cold conditions. In addition, another two aircraft will only undergo ground tests, including static and fatigue tests.

The No 102 C919 plane taxies at Pudong Airport in Shanghai, East China, July 12, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]

Now, Shanghai will serve as the main testing base for the C919. Xi'an of Shaanxi province, Dongying of Shandong province and Nanchang of Jiangxi province will serve as the auxiliary testing bases, COMAC said.

Meanwhile, the 101 prototype test aircraft of the C919 successfully finished its static test on limit loads in Shanghai on Thursday afternoon.

The aircraft was tested under 150 percent load conditions and it maintained for three seconds while the tips of the wings distorted nearly 3 meters, which is in line with expectations. This shows that the fuselage structure meets the requirements, and it will lay a solid foundation for the aircraft to get an airworthiness certification, COMAC said.

So far, 815 orders from 28 customers throughout China and abroad have been placed for the C919, and it is expected to be put into use in the market in 2021.

The No 102 C919 plane takes off at Pudong Airport in Shanghai, East China, July 12, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]