Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd., (hereinafter referred as COMAC), is the main organization to carry out China's large passenger aircraft project, coordinate the development of trunk liner and regional jet, and realize the industrialization of civil aircraft in China. This is the third time that COMAC, as one of the sponsors, has attended the Aviation Expo/China in Beijing, whose 15th session opens on Sept. 25th, 2013, to demonstrate the recent progress of China's civil aircraft industry in its trail-blazing journey of innovation and creation.
During this aviation exposition, COMAC continues to display to the public the cabin layouts for C919 jumbo aircraft and ARJ21 regional jet hybrid class, premium economy class, administrative version, and business jet version. The fourth "COMAC Market Forecast Report (2013-2032)" since the establishment of COMAC, which forecasts the global and Chinese civil aircraft market for the next 20 years, is also issued. At the 2013 (1st) Chinese Aviation Science and Technology Conference, for the very first time COMAC gives a presentation on the pioneering airworthiness practice and exploration of ARJ-21 regional jet.
Since the outset of the large passenger aircraft project five years ago, China's civil aircraft industry has been practicing the innovation-driven strategy, which brings changes to its foundation and appearance. For the first time, the central and local governments, together with relevant flagship enterprises, made joint investments to establish the main body of this major national project.
This is an important step in system innovation. After the establishment of COMAC, according to the "One Headquarter, Six Centers" overall layout, the formation of three platforms, including Research & Design, Final Assembly & Manufacturing and Service & Support, is accelerated, and basic capabilities, such as civil aircraft R&D, final assembly & manufacturing, customer support, sales & marketing, airworthiness certification and supplier management, are developed. At the same time, the "Airframer-Supplier" model is set up and improved.
COMAC has tried its best to pool international resources to create China's own civil aircraft brand. COMAC as the main body leads the industrial-university combined civil aircraft technology R&D system in a market-oriented way. 22 provinces and cities, 36 institutions of higher learning, 242 medium-to-large companies and hundreds of thousands of workers have participated in the R&D process of the large passenger aircraft. The Shanghai-based domestic civil aircraft industry system with COMAC right at its core has made its debut and radiates across the nation and towards the world.
Under the support of new industrial development model, technology research and development system, corporate governance structure and enterprise management system, China's independently developed ARJ 21 project and C919 large aircraft project have progressed steadily. ARJ21-700 has successfully completed its maiden flight and now moved onto the verification test flight stage.
C919 has successfully passed the project appraisal, feasibility studies and pre-development phases, and completely entered the detail design and engineering development phase. From the start of this year, ARJ21-700 has finished a whole series of important verification test flights, including minimum unstick speed, large cross wind test flight, high plateau test flight, high temperature/high humidity test flight, hot climate fuel test flight, high speed characteristics and take-off performance test flight. Among all the tests, the nose landing gear emergency release test flight completed in March, a sign that a technical problem haunted the project for 3 years has been successfully tackled.
The minimum unstick speed administration certification test flight, which was finished in May, and the hot climate fuel administration certification test flight, which was finished on 10th August, were carried out in China for the first time. Representatives from FAA and CAAC have inspected the completion of various test flights on site. In total, four test flight aircrafts have completed more than 2,000 safe flights, which added to more than 4,000 hours.
C919 program is now entering the most critical stage of engineering development, aircraft body structural data has been distributed, parts and components are currently being manufacturing in Shanghai, Xi'an, Chengdu, Nanchang, Shenyang, Harbin and other places in full swing. 17 airborne systems have passed the Critical Design Reviews and 90% of the airworthiness certification plans have been prepared.
With the development of the ARJ 21 and C919 program, CAAC has established a special airworthiness certification center in Shanghai, which is the first specialized agency for large transport aircrafts, and has promoted the development of China's airworthiness certification system. During the R&D process of ARJ 21-700 and C919, COMAC has achieved more than 50 key technical breakthroughs, solved more than 100 major technical problems, filed more than 350 domestic and foreign patent application, and received more than 90 domestically authorized patents.
Mr.Jin Zhuanglong, Chairman of COMAC believes that at present civil aircraft industry of our country is still in the beginning phase. With the development of ARJ21 regional jet and C919 large aircraft program entering successively into the "deep water zone", there are both new challenges and new opportunities. Practices of experienced international civil aircraft manufacturers show that the research and development phase is with most problems and risks.
Although this will bring us a lot more pressure, it also provides us valuable opportunities to improve and enhance COMAC's capability platform, governance structure and management system and technology, industry, innovation systems of civil aircraft industry of China. COMAC will unswervingly implement the strategy of innovation and scientifically coordinate three major tasks, which are separately planning, construction, and development. More efforts will be made to establish closer "life community" with mass domestic and overseas suppliers and other research participants so that development difficulties will be tackled and new achievements will be made for the civil aircraft development of China.
