Officials from Bombardier, China Aviation Industry Corp. (AVIC) and Shenyang Aircraft Corp. (SAC) hosted a ceremony today in Shenyang, China, marking the start of construction of the factory where AVIC subsidiary SAC will build the fuselage for the C Series airliner.

The 226,042 sq-ft facility, to be located at the Shenyang National Aviation and High Technology Industrial Base in the Dongling District, joins two other new C Series installations already under construction. Last September Bombardier celebrated the groundbreaking of the
first C Series building in Quebec. Located in Mirabel, 45 minutes north of Montreal, the Complete Integrated Aircraft Systems Test Area (Ciasta) will test aircraft systems for reliability and functionality one year before the first prototype aircraft flies. Last November construction got under way on the company’s new wing manufacturing and assembly facility in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

SAC delivered the C Series program’s first test article–
an aluminum-lithium fuselage test barrel–to Bombardier’s Saint-Laurent, Quebec site on Aug. 19, 2009. Bombardier uses the test barrel to demonstrate manufacturing and engineering structural concepts before the C Series’ final design phase begins later this year. Engineers have so far subjected the barrel to 40,000 simulated flight cycles of testing.