Promising that Global 5000 customers won"t have to act as flight-test teams, Bombardier brings the Global 5000 to Las Vegas with not only its U.S. type certificate—issued on Sept. 20—but with a new interior featuring new levels of integration and redundancy. "We have treated the cabin the same way that we treat the green aircraft," says Marc Bouliane, manager of product planning for Global programs.
The aircraft here [it was due to arrive on Monday] will be the first Global 5000 to be delivered to a customer. Formal delivery is expected in January 2005, but Bombardier will then lease the aircraft back from its Middle East customer and use it as a demonstrator, returning it to the customer later that year.
Rockwell Collins" Airshow 21 cabin electric system (CES) controls the new interior, and Rockwell Collins is leading the integration effort. The entire system is equivalent in size and complexity to the flight-deck avionics of many aircraft, according to Rockwell Collins senior staff engineer Clifford Klein, and uses similar hardware to the company"s mission-critical systems. Bouliane says that the second Global 5000 started dedicated cabin flight-tests in July and will complete 200 to 250 hours by the end of this year.
Like flight systems, the CES "is designed to survive any single fault and keep functionality," says Klein, with dual Ethernet local area networks and dual central computer cabinets. A touch screen control in the galley manages the data distribution system and monitors the operation of the LED lighting and the all-new potable water and waste management systems, and the system has a central maintenance function similar to that of the airplane itself. Most elements of the Airshow 21 system are installed on the green airplane, and it is designed with room for expansion "so we don"t have to pull up the floorboards" to add functions in the future, says Klein.
Bombardier has built 150 Global aircraft and "is doing very well" with the new Global 5000 and Global Express XRS. The two aircraft are selling at roughly equal rates, says Bouliane.
