China's homegrown airliner makes first paid-for flight China Eastern Airlines on Sunday conducted the first commercial flight of the COMAC C919 – the first made–in-China commercial jetliner. The C919 is a single aisle twinjet that boasts between 152 and 174 seats, and can tackle many of the missions Airbus and Boeing suggest for the A320 and 737. On Chinese micro-blogging site …
Not sure how the C919 counts as home grown. Basically every possible technical component is from the west. Engines arent French/American, landing gears is American, Flight control systems are also American and thats just the start.
If one removes all the western components there is no plane, all you have is a basic frame thats sitting on bricks.
No Apple today designs CPUs and many other core components of their devices, eg the M1 family.
China also have designed many of their own planes without western technology, the only problem is they are offer significantly poorer performance, like basically half the range and less pax.
If you bought someething and was owed $50 change, is it really the same if they give you $20 ?
Its normal to have components sourced from all over the world. Back when the C919 was first conceived it was a Global Marketplace with China both selling and buying stuff. But that was 'then'.
We are playing Cold War a bit much, though, which presupposes that countries like China can't make engines and avionics. That's a big mistake. Its a build/buy tradeoff, part of the global trading give and take. If we interfere with this flow then we're not 'denying' technology to China, we're merely giving them a reason to develop their own as the build/buy tradeoff has got disturbed. This not only cuts off their market but also generates a formidable new competitor.
We did the same thing with the Russians and their efforts to get into the modern commercial aviation market. In their case we denied them 'advanced composite technology', engines and avionics. The composites were a nuisance --- they actually pioneered composites. The engines and avionics had to be worked through but these countries know how to make these things, it was just more cost effective to outsource them.
Incidentally, one side effect of all this screwing around is that Boeing's order book from China for last year was exactly zero. This was an important market. (Although given the sad tale and the inherent design flaws in the MAX I think I'd rather take my chances in a C919 than risk my life in a MAX (they're damned uncomfortable and noisy)(pro tip -- don't try to use the restroom, you'll never get out of the thing).
Well said. The difference is that Russia still have an aerospace industry, albeit in some ways still stuck in a time several decades ago, but in others absolutely right there. With the Sukhoi Superjet, the Russians are making a lot of progress replacing the Western components. They don't have a choice; the sanctions force them to.
The Chinese will have to play catch-up, but they will do so fairly fast, because they know they won't have that much time before the screws will be tightened some more. The amount of industrial espionage in the aerospace business has ramped up a lot in recent years for no doubt this reason.
martinuser:
Its normal to have components sourced from all over the world. Back when the C919 was first conceived it was a Global Marketplace with China both selling and buying stuff. But that was 'then'.
cow:
Your comment completely misunderstands the problems between buying the cheapest light bulb because someone makes it cheaper than you can... and being forced to buy from RR because their engines are better and you havent a clue how to build em.
martinuser:
We did the same thing with the Russians and their efforts to get into the modern commercial aviation market. In their case we denied them 'advanced composite technology', engines and avionics. The composites were a nuisance --- they actually pioneered composites.
cow:
Theres a big difference between composites in todays Western aircraft and Russian composites. THey are not the same, thats part of the reason why Russian airliners replaced their old planes with the new western ones. THe western planes may have cost more but you are a getting a far better plane.
Downvoted because I'm past being tired of this "yellow Peril" nonsense. Had my fill of it decades ago.
If you want criticize the C919 as you apparently do, try citing some meaningful criticisms instead of whining that they stole it all from us. Sure large part of the aircraft are foreign built. So what? Large parts of your car, computer, and appliances are almost certainly foreign built. Most sensible people. Even most Americans figured out that wasn't necessarily a problem when they discovered in the 1970s that not only were Japanese cars a bit cheaper than American cars of the time. But (thanks largely to C Edwards Deming) they were far better built. When Ford finally managed to put together an automobile comparable in quality to Toyota and Honda (the Taurus) in the mid 1980s, it quickly became the best selling car in America.
What do I mean by meaningful criticism. The C919 is many years late and much more costly than original estimates. $100M or so vs maybe $65M (original $50M adjusted for inflation). That's almost as much as purportedly comparable Airbus and Boeing offerings. Why would anybody other than a Chinese carrier buy one? Maybe they can get costs down. And maybe they can't.
And short term -- for the next five years or so -- there are two other issues. First, while the aircraft hasn't killed or injured anyone so far, it doesn't have all that many flight hours. It'll be a while before it has a meaningful safety record. Second. Even if you wanted one, Comac probably couldn't deliver it any time soon. They don't really have significant production capacity. And they won't for a while. They are said to hope to be shipping 150 units a year by 2028.
I think that at best, the C919 demonstrates that China might have or be building the infrastructure to design, qualify and produce decent airliners, Comac might be an Airbus/Boeing competitor in the (late?) 2030s or 2040s. Or not. Time will tell.
> Downvoted because I'm past being tired of this "yellow Peril" nonsense. Had my fill of it decades ago.
What part of my comment mentioned yellow peril in anyway ?
Im simply stating the a basic truth. A porsche is not the same as a Toyota so why bullshite and pretend they are ?
> If you want criticize the C919 as you apparently do, try citing some meaningful criticisms instead of whining that they stole it all from us
What part of my post mentions the word steal or any equivalent ?
The article is trying to pretend that the plane is basically ALL Chinese technology. Not once did it mention basically all the key components are sourced from the west, thats dishonest.
Just because you buy something doesnt make you an inventor, just like me buying a Sony TV and slapping a sticker on it, doesnt mean im in competition with Sony designing my own tvs.
> They don't really have significant production capacity. And they won't for a while.
The article is not about whether they have capacity and neither was my reply.
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