Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with&nbsp;New Jersey Monthly&nbsp;magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.

Senior Editor

Gregory Polek

The first Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ) will fly some time during next year’s fourth quarter, roughly a year later than last anticipated, according to a new program schedule summary issued by Mitsubishi Aircraft on Wednesday. As a result, the 92-seat MRJ90—the larger of a pair of models under development and the first scheduled for introduction—would not reach the market until the summer “or later half” of the 2015 Japanese fiscal year, which runs from April 1, 2015, to March 31, 2016.


The announcement comes a little more than two months after the company first revealed a <a href="http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ain-air-transport-perspective/2012-02-15/mitsubishi-mrj-program-face-fresh-delay">“rescheduling” of the program</a>—during February’s Singapore Airshow. At the time, it appeared a confluence of events raised concerns among Mitsubishi executives about the program’s progress, but none on hand for the show would reveal the reasons for the delay.


A statement sent from Mitsubishi Aircraft to AIN by e-mail on Wednesday offered a somewhat opaque explanation.


“Mitsubishi Aircraft is conducting meticulous quality check of each process for not only manufacturing the aircraft but all development processes,” it said. “Our main partner, [Mitsubishi Heavy Industries], is conducting what we call [a] 4M Check [man, machine, material, method] for the processes under the Mitsubishi Aircraft control management framework.”


Second, the company said it “has taken time” to meet the “latest” criteria for all analysis and validation of new technologies such as the airplane’s low-drag fuselage and high-aspect-ratio wing.


“Upon developing aircraft, not only the specification of every process but also specification of verifying the validity of such processes has become required,” said Mitsubishi. “We are required to report and archive such processes in writing. Such works have taken up more time than we planned.”


In an official statement, Mitsubishi noted that the Pratt &amp; Whitney PurePower engine program continues to progress smoothly and that the partners expect the MRJ’s PW1217G turbofan to fly on Pratt’s Boeing 747 test bed by the end of this month.

Latest MRJ Delay To Last At Least a Year

The latest delay to the MRJ will last at least a year.

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