Newhouse impressed by port, Mitsubishi

Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Rep. Dan Newhouse looks out from the catwalk atop the control tower of the Grant County International Airport as three Air Force C-17 cargo jets prepare to take off.

by Charles H. Featherstone Staff Writer
| April 12, 2017 4:00 AM

MOSES LAKE — As Rep. Dan Newhouse made his way through the maze that is Mitsubishi Aircraft’s test center here, he found himself somewhat overwhelmed.

“I’ve been talking to the people from Mitsubishi for almost a year, to see the extent of their testing,” Newhouse said. “They are testing every conceivable situation they could run into.

“I fly a lot, and that makes me feel much safer,” he added.

Newhouse, in Moses Lake to meet with constituents as part of a listening tour of his district, took a couple of hours on Tuesday to take a grand tour of the Mitsubishi facility at the Port of Moses Lake, from the airplanes themselves to the flight simulator MRJ pilots are trained on.

And there is a lot of testing — enough to keep 450 Japanese and 240 Americans busy. The difficult winter in Central Washington made it possible for Mitsubishi to “conduct contaminated runway tests” and take off and land on snow-covered runways, as well as watch the effects of natural ice building on their brand new passenger jets, according to Kenji Okimoto, vice president and senior leader for corporate affairs with Mitsubishi in Moses Lake.

On the second floor, Newhouse peered through a glass window into a room that looked a little like a NASA mission control center. Engineers gazed at computer screens, each displaying a data from a different component of or sensor on the Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ) sitting out on the tarmac warming up.

Mitsubishi has two such command rooms, Okimoto said, plus a conference room company that officials can use in the event something goes wrong. Every bit of data from each of the four MRJs in Moses Lake can be displayed, recorded, played back, and analyzed.

“I didn’t realize there was so much testing,” he said. “Those pilots are definitely not on their own.”

Mitsubishi currently has four of the MRJs in Moses Lake for testing. If all goes well, the company hopes to deliver the first planes to All Nippon Airways in mid-2020.

Newhouse, who also toured the control tower at the Grant County International Airport as part of his visit out to the port, said he is impressed with the partnership Mitsubishi has with both Boeing to develop and build the MRJ and the Port of Moses Lake to test the aircraft.

“I’m delighted they are here in Moses Lake, in Grant County. This is great partnership,” he said.