Chinese Aviation Industry

KFX

KFX

New Member
Registered Member
latenlazy said:
I think the problem with your argument is the basis in which you’ve portrayed COMAC’s “reliance”. The basis of “reliance” here is not technological. COMAC went with a foreign supplier strategy for two reasons. The first was to try to pick up any production efficiencies foreign firms might have that domestic firms have yet to learn without having to go through their own growing pains. The second was to try to find ways to expedite regulatory approval in western countries. Cutting off COMAC from foreign suppliers today (which actually doesn’t make much sense in practical terms because all the foreign suppliers are producing those parts domestically, which means if there was a ban the factories would keep running even if the foreign entities couldn’t formally “supply” COMAC) won’t stop COMAC from being able to make planes. Engines excepted, all it might do is make their production potentially less efficient, and their regulatory approval in the US and EU potentially trickier. Neither of these things are good for COMAC but they don’t stop COMAC from making planes either. Even with the engines being able to find non western substitute at this point is only a matter of time.

This btw also extends to the idea that you could erase Chinese commercial aerospace overnight with a western embargo and a support ban for western bought commercial airplanes. If you forced Airbus and Boeing to pull support today what would happen very quickly is Chinese airliners would switch to domestic parts providers who could reproduce all the components that need maintenance. Remember, there are Chinese firms who are also Airbus and Boeing suppliers. The components that Chinese firms don’t currently supply to Boeing or Airbus they could reproduced domestically. Most of the parts that require maintenance are run of the mill parts that don’t require secret sauce to make functional alternatives for, or involve technical capabilities that China has but haven’t successfully commercialized. These substitute components may not be as reliable and doing things this way would probably be less efficient, but it wouldn’t be crippling the way you’ve made it out to be either. A really great example of what this looks like in practice is to observe how long Iran has maintained their fleet of American fighters without American support, and China is both far more industrially capable and richer than Iran.

All this discussion of total commercial aerospace embargo is political fantasy talk though. Such an embargo would be an own goal that could cost billions of dollars and countless high paying jobs for the US and EU aerospace sectors, some of their most productive high value industries, and even if we assumed that would be a worthwhile cost for a punitive action on Taiwan, China could retaliate by simply stopping shipment of exports to the US and EU (which of course would also cost China billions upon billions and countless jobs). These kinds of dramatic political sideswipes don’t make sense for either side.
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Very good points. Yes, China can build its own spares for most systems, but the initial shock of any USA aerospace embargo would be dramatic and messy. Still, in an extreme situation, it could happen. And - advanced apology for getting political - the Sino-USA relationship is far from warm, and isn't likely to improve anytime soon. Decoupling is real - jobs or no.

The FAA and CAAC had a huge falling out over American certification for the ARJ21. Comac thus leaned toward EASA for certification of the C919 despite all the aircraft's American content, but frankly I've not heard much about this for some time.

Can China replace all the foreign content on C919 with indigenous kit? Certainly. Even the CJ-1000A could one day power this aircraft. Getting all this to the dispatch reliability airlines need is doubtful. Yet, to your point, it will fly. It will look nice in airline livery, and patriots will celebrate.

A US analyst once quipped that it's easier to put a man on the moon than to build an airliner that airliners actually want to buy.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
KFX said:
The issue with helping Comac on the C919 and Avic with the MA700 is that technology and skills will support China's military programmes. Parker Aerospace, to name just one supplier, is providing the FBW for the MA700. This kit is essential for military aircraft, namely the H-20.
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Leaving aside everything else that you've written, this particular paragraph makes it impossible for people to take anything else you've written seriously.

Suggesting that the FBW flight control system for MA700 would be relevant to H-20, is quite wild indeed.
Furthermore, it suggests that you either do not understand the FBW systems that would have been developed by the Chinese aerospace industry for a variety of contemporary military aircraft, or you do not think they are somehow relevant to H-20 -- both of which would be fairly ridiculous positions to take.

The fact that you've chosen not to retract that line of argument and if anything you seem to have doubled down on it, is understandably concerning.
 
O

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
KFX said:
Very good points. Yes, China can build its own spares for most systems, but the initial shock of any USA aerospace embargo would be dramatic and messy. Still, in an extreme situation, it could happen. And - advanced apology for getting political - the Sino-USA relationship is far from warm, and isn't likely to improve anytime soon. Decoupling is real - jobs or no.

The FAA and CAAC had a huge falling out over American certification for the ARJ21. Comac thus leaned toward EASA for certification of the C919 despite all the aircraft's American content, but frankly I've not heard much about this for some time.

Can China replace all the foreign content on C919 with indigenous kit? Certainly. Even the CJ-1000A could one day power this aircraft. Getting all this to the dispatch reliability airlines need is doubtful. Yet, to your point, it will fly. It will look nice in airline livery, and patriots will celebrate.

A US analyst once quipped that it's easier to put a man on the moon than to build an airliner that airliners actually want to buy.
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And isn't that much better than not having any of it?

This is like having a mountain of dishes to wash. The sooner you begin the faster you get there. Or more appropriately, a mountain of study to learn and go through. The sooner you sit down and stop procrastinating, the sooner you begin picking away the problems.

China can replace all the foreign content on C919 pretty soon already. One of the issues is politics and certifying the C919 with the FAA.

It is probably easier to put man on the moon than create an airliner that is competitive with the market leaders, all on its first attempt.

The aim therefore is to begin the work and start chiseling away at the problems one by one. The end result is something worthwhile.

As for foreign content, there are some things that Chinese industry can already provide but they would be totally unproven in a commercial setting - expensive and frequent maintenance and checks required perhaps and so on. This is aside to the politics.

As for content that Chinese industry cannot provide at the moment, then foreign ones would naturally be sourced. No different to how every tech giant does rely to varying degrees on international supply chains and expertise. For China, the added value of getting these content is it can potentially reverse engineer them if possible. It is up to the supplier to choose whether or not they want to proceed with supplying knowing that this would naturally be something AVIC and the Chinese government will do if it is something Chinese industry is unable to supply.
 
O

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
At the end of this journey, however long it takes, China would have a domestic civil aviation industry that is at least competitive with the market leading duopoly. It's not even that far behind them right now, two to three generations for the most distant aspects which they source from those suppliers e.g. engines. That's roughly a 10 year gap? I mean really not even, CJ-1000A is FAR from 10 years behind from market leading tech at similar levels of readiness.

Throughout history, there have been centuries, even millennia long tech gaps between nations that can all be considered technologically capable. 10 year gap in a field where engineers spend billions to put into market technologies that offer single digit percentage improvements to efficiency, this really isn't that much. We're not talking about the latest 7nm chips vs a Pentium 1 from the 1990s kind of performance gap.

The aim here is to have all that AND take trillions of dollars from the duopoly in would be purchases. Those trillions are better spent developing AVIC's civil aviation sector when it needs it during its first steps. Imagine a tech company that earns 30% of its total annual profits from one single customer. This company reinvests 80% of its earnings back into R&D to remain competitive at the leading edge. Suddenly its biggest customer and contribution to research funding leaves for another company. It loses 30% of income almost overnight and every year henceforth it operates at that reduced capacity and reduced funding.

All this is as much to create a Chinese domestic civil aviation industry as it is to reduce sending so much money to such an aggressive and stubbornly hegemonic power. Of course, China needs airliners. It cannot simply stop purchasing American airliners. So much of its own productivity and function depends on it (a key point all the trumpster trade war fanatics constantly missed hence losing their trade war with China). But what it can do is begin the journey. 千里之行始於足下.

At the end of it, China would join one of the most elite clubs (currently only USA, France, and sort of Russia too) and finally have thorough self reliance in a very important industry. To judge its first steps for not being big, fast, or powerful enough is truly missing the point while being pitiably immature considering most of the world's leading tech nations have not even considered or attempted a step 0 on this.
 
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Fedupwithlies

Fedupwithlies

Junior Member
Registered Member
@KFX

Hey how come you haven't addressed my question regarding China leading the way in grounding the 737?

Or the fact that Boeing lied? Repeatedly?

This is actually something recurring in this forum... white supremacist trolls like sleepystudent and KFX basically just ignore me whenever I report the actual truth. I feel left out!
 
L

latenlazy

Brigadier
KFX said:
Very good points. Yes, China can build its own spares for most systems, but the initial shock of any USA aerospace embargo would be dramatic and messy. Still, in an extreme situation, it could happen. And - advanced apology for getting political - the Sino-USA relationship is far from warm, and isn't likely to improve anytime soon. Decoupling is real - jobs or no.

The FAA and CAAC had a huge falling out over American certification for the ARJ21. Comac thus leaned toward EASA for certification of the C919 despite all the aircraft's American content, but frankly I've not heard much about this for some time.

Can China replace all the foreign content on C919 with indigenous kit? Certainly. Even the CJ-1000A could one day power this aircraft. Getting all this to the dispatch reliability airlines need is doubtful. Yet, to your point, it will fly. It will look nice in airline livery, and patriots will celebrate.

A US analyst once quipped that it's easier to put a man on the moon than to build an airliner that airliners actually want to buy.
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If there’s an embargo western countries won’t be certifying the C919 anyways no matter how qualified it would be. And in such a scenario if China revoked certification of Boeing and/or Airbus and only flew Chinese planes, all other countries with services to China would have to buy the C919 for their China routes.
 
escobar

escobar

Brigadier
by78 said:
The FL-64 hypersonic wind tunnel has successfully completed the main Mach number flow field calibration, marking the completion of the first stage of the commissioning process.

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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1462641055292141569
 
KFX

KFX

New Member
Registered Member
ougoah said:
All I did was debunk your senseless nonsense.

No one cares for your senseless nonsense. You believe what you want but it's nice to debunk crap once in a while and expose your ignorance and stupidity for what it is.

Basically it goes like this.

You: "China can't even make FBW for anything. China's the worst".

Me: "Here is why you're wrong with these examples and why your empty proclamation are Jai Hind India levels of discussion".

You: "pro-China trolls are so wound up".

lol

While China mastered canards, flying wings, variable geometry, mach 20 HGVs, various HGVs and hundreds of hypersonic flights, you're here telling us how some nobody American FBW developer is the be all end all to Chinese flying wing FBW... a contractor given an unimportant slice of the propeller civil aviation industry of China because politics call for it, one that has never had any experience developing FBW for flying wings compared to AVIC with several under its belt? LOL btw China has already got at least one flying wing under its belt. How many has that American company got? that's right zero. AVIC has already got several prop aircraft with Chinese FBW for decades. What you said before about this American company being the one that is important to H-20 is mind boggling levels of trollish stupidity. All that's happened is you getting humiliated with facts because your claim is funny levels of false.

It's clear who the real troll is and who is actually wound up and deeply upset that China has enviable FBW capability second to nobody. As my previous post proves. I've yet to see the equivalent from anyone except the USA and RussiaI
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latenlazy said:
If there’s an embargo western countries won’t be certifying the C919 anyways no matter how qualified it would be. And in such a scenario if China revoked certification of Boeing and/or Airbus and only flew Chinese planes, all other countries with services to China would have to buy the C919 for their China routes
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latenlazy said:
If there’s an embargo western countries won’t be certifying the C919 anyways no matter how qualified it would be. And in such a scenario if China revoked certification of Boeing and/or Airbus and only flew Chinese planes, all other countries with services to China would have to buy the C919 for their China routes.
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Will be a while before see something like that, I reckon. Still, C919 will nab its first overseas order at some point. ARJ21 had a deal with a Thai airline some years back, but airline went out of business before it could even start up. I would expect first overseas C919 order could come from Cambodia, where most of the airlines are backed by Chinese money. Pakistan is also a good candidate.
 
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