Site won't load, but I assume this was just a subsonic flight, gear down, etc? A major technical milestone for sure, but I think the real trick with their proposal is the economic viability of such a plane.
I noticed that bit in the video -- gear down -- why is that? Just to avoid one possible point of failure, the gear failing to deploy properly for landing?
Not an expert, but I've seen the following commented on other test flight videos: on initial test flights, landing gear is always kept down to minimize risk. If a sudden landing is needed, gear is already down, no risk of equipment getting stuck, less mental load for the pilot to perform emergency landing, etc. Basically, when testing, you want to minimize the variables being tested. When airworthyness is validated, then you can test landing gear systems.
