On the morning of October 14, 2017, a domestically designed and manufactured ARJ21-700 aircraft landed in Dongying Airport, Shandong Province. This remarkable test flight marked a success of domestically-produced Beidou navigation satellite system on domestic feeder passenger airplane for the first time. The test integrated Beidou and Large Aircraft, the two major state projects that have a bearing on national economy and people’s livelihood, and ushered in a new era of the application of domestic satellite navigation system in domestic civil aircraft.

The test flight was carried out in strict accordance with relevant ICAO standards and related technical requirements, and successfully accomplished three important flight test verifications, including airborne Beidou Navigation Satellite receiver function and performance verification, performance verification of Beidou Ground-based Augmentation System on realizing category-I precision approach, and verification of Beidou short message function applied in transport aviation. The test results proved that the performance of Beidou Navigation Satellite System in civil aviation could reach the equivalent level of similar systems in the world, and some of its parameters were the leading ones in the world.

The success of this test flight realized the combination of four domestications, which means to integrate the domestic navigation satellite system, domestic ground-based augmentation system of civil aviation navigation satellite and domestic airborne navigation system into the platform of large domestic civil aircraft, and collect a great quantity of experiment data for subsequent efforts in compliance with international civil aviation standards, and tests and verification for its application and promotion in global civil aviation. Beidou Navigation Satellite System has for the first time completed a test application in domestic civil passenger aircraft, and it is also the first time for domestic civil passenger aircraft to use domestic navigation system, both of which are of milestone significance for the integration of the two national major projects.