Civilian Aviation Technology

1. First, things are moving along just fine. MA-60 is being produced and exported as fast as possible, and new orders keep coming in. The ARJ-21 had over 200 orders even before anybody knew it could fly. Compare this to the 65 or so orders for the Sukhoi superjet, which many (some even on this forum) think is a better plane, and which has even flown in air shows.
2. The success of such an enterprise depends, as seen by the Sukhoi experience, on political factors to a very large extent. The West does not want to give either Russia or China the advantage of a commercial aircraft industry, because such a thing will pay for the development of technology which can be leveraged militarily (and of course commercially too). China's aviation market is not only large already but it is the one growing fastest. As long as the competition from China is partial (does not include every segment covered by Boeing and Airbus), and the two Western companies do not get blocked out totally in the segments where COMAC competes with them, they will be opposed to blocking the Chinese advance. This means that MA-60 sales will continue, that ARJ-21 will sell outside of China, and other intermediate projects will also have success. I remember seeing somewhere that there was a 4 engine turboprop project as well as a stretched version of the ARJ-21, for which they have cooperation from bombardier. By the time the 919 comes out, their aviation products will already have built up a reputation (hopefully a good one).
3. The example of the Soviet Union in the article quoted by unknauthr (post #140) is totally misleading. First, the Soviet Union did not have a market at all, whether superb or poor. Second, its civil aviation industry was successful within the Soviet bloc. It only collapsed when the Soviet Union collapsed, again, showing how political this field is.
4. COMAC 919 will start delivery in 2016, and it is impossible to predict what international politics will be like then, as things are moving too fast. But I think at least some of the current trends are unstoppable, short of nuclear war or some other form of total destruction of the planet. First among these is China's technological development. China is about to begin exporting large wind mills for power generation to the US, and will be helping Russia with high speed rail. These projects have already been agreed to. As of 2008, China had a larger base of "science and technology personnel" than any country in the world and, at its rate of growth, by 2016 it could have twice as many as the next one, while the quality of its scientists and engineers will also have improved through experience and competition with others. One can only imagine what kind of technological goods China will be exporting in 2016, and I think at least in many parts of the world, the stigma of low quality, low tech products will largely be canceled out. You have to keep in mind that as recently as 2005, the US and Europe were worried about China overwhelming the world's textile industry, while in 2009, only 4 years later, their worries have shifted to the auto industry.
5. If the world splits up politically, say among rich and poor countries, then China will have the advantage here too. Someone mentioned that the biggest markets are Europe and the US, but by 2016, the balance will have changed by a good margin, and the developing country markets will definitely be growing much faster.
6. China, in 2016, will probably still have the price advantage, so even if the world does not split up politically, China will have the advantage in the developing world.

Red Moon said:

I am totally convinced that China will have a successful civilian aircraft industry on a par with Boeing and Airbus, and that it may even surpass these.

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I think China still has a long way to go before being recognised as a manufacturer of "State of Art" civilian aircraft IMO Quality in China can be an enigma, while it makes some excellent products that can rival the best the west has to offer, the reputation of cheap inferior products, still hangs around.
A couple of years ago Air NZ was going to outsource its aircraft maintenance to one of those Asian maintenance hubs, possibly China?. It drew such a backlash from people threatening not to travel on Air New Zealand and such that the idea was dropped.Some of the fears bandied about was the standard of personnel etc. So while that type of prejudice is about I can't see them selling to many Chinese made aircraft to NZ or any other likeminded Western Country.


Also a couple of months ago Mitsubishi imported a few Great Wall vehicles to sell in New Zealand. The vehicles were condemened by a Government department as being poorly made and dangerous. They even warned people not to buy them and suggesting a second hand Japanese vehicles was a far better option.( To be fair a Korean made vehicle was also canned)

IMO a government would have difficulty in getting people to travel in a Chinese made airliner, if the national airline decided to purchase any, if the general consensus of the population is that the Chinese can't even make a decent car?

In short what Im suggesting is , that while people are prepared to consume o Chinese made consumer products, but when it comes to somthing where their life may be placed in jeprody, unh unh n... no thanks>

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Schumacher said:

bladerunner, a lot of pretty useless anecdotes you got there. Which newcomer in any kind of field doesn't need to play catchup with the incumbents ?
Instead of looking at reasons why the Chinese aircraft may or may not be a success, it seems your argument basically goes like whatever the situation it is today will stay that way, and do we even need to go through how silly such an argument is ?

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bladerunner said:

I see your point, You've really got me there But what if one earlier poster suggested was to come to fruition. Wouldnt playing hardball with certification so that Chinese aircraft could operate in the West Throw a spanner in the works?

These projections on how much aircraft China would need, what are they based on?.... old Western models? What if in due course the whole of China was networked with rapid rail criss crossing the whole country?

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bladerunner said:

I see your point, You've really got me there But what if one earlier poster suggested was to come to fruition. Wouldnt playing hardball with certification so that Chinese aircraft could operate in the West Throw a spanner in the works?

These projections on how much aircraft China would need, what are they based on?.... old Western models? What if in due course the whole of China was networked with rapid rail criss crossing the whole country?

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ba12 said:

this poor ricky guy completely missed the point. he writes trash for the uninform,wonder how he sells anything. maybe caters to cnn and the epoch times eh?

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unknauthr said:

I understand your frustration.

However, the Teal Group is a well known, widely quoted, and well respected aerospace analyst agency, for which Aboulafia is Vice President of Analysis. The Teal Group provides advice to airlines and to investors. Sometimes I agree with their assessments, sometimes I disagree with them. Either way however, we should all be aware that a lot of important decision makers - including the airline executives and the banks that are asked to finance the sale of airliners for the airlines - take their recommendations very seriously.

What Aboulafia was trying to point out are things that we should all be aware of, but which we sometimes overlook. Airliners are not purchased like consumer goods. No one goes down to the lot and picks out their favorite color and style. In this field Comac is an unkown. They have no record of delivering a safe, reliable product. They have no established history under their belt - they need to build that.

No one is going to convince the Chief Executive at United Airlines, or Air France, or British Airways to buy a Chinese product unless that product has something significant to offer them that they cannot already get from Airbus or Boeing. It will not matter to them if the purchase price of a Chinese-produced airline is less. The purchase price is peanuts compared to the life cycle cost of refueling and maintaining the aircraft. If China ever wants to become an airline exporter, they have to be willing to be a little aggressive about the technology that they are offering. A "walk before you run" attitude will win them sales at Chinese airlines that are told that they have to provide business to a domestic, Chinese manufacturer. But it will not sell anything to a foreign airline that makes its decision based on financial benefits, and risk to the airline's reputation. Who is going to gamble on a Chinese product if the Airbus product is just as good?

The truth is, Comac has a window of opportunity. Neither Airbus nor Boeing can afford to develop an all-new airline right now in the 737/A320 size class. They're too busy working out the problems with the A350 and 787 to divert resources to another new program. If Comac could offer a product that was better than the existing offerings from Airbus and Boeing, they would have a real opportunity to beat the big two to the sale. Modern wing aerodynamics, composite wing structures, next generation engine technologies - all of these promise to offer an airline with substantially lower fuel consumption than the 737 and A320 can deliver today. If on the other hand Comac offers nothing more than a "me too" airline, they will have missed an opportunity that won't come again for decades.

I have read a number of articles now on Comac's C919 - and I keep being struck by the lack of aggressiveness on the part of the Chinese developers. China's fighter industry has made enormous strides in the past twenty years - and they didn't do it by adopting a purely "me too" attitude. The last article I read suggested that Comac was still sitting on the fence with regard to whether they wanted to incorporate composite technology into the C919 wing. Yes, they spoke about composite panels, but were hesitant to commit to the kind of all-composite wing that such recent aircraft as the Bombardier C-Series already have under development.

Hello?! It's 2009. Do you want an airplane that can out-perform the A320 or not? I very much get the disappointing feeling that China's best and brightest are too wrapped up in other programs (like J-XX) to be bothered with civilian airline development. If this kind of pattern persists, China will unfortunately miss a golden opportunity to build a foundation for a new, and potentially lucrative export industry. Hopefully Aboulafia's warning will serve as a wake-up call to drive China to become a competitor in this market, not just a player.

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Pointblank said:

Not to mention that the two big players aren't standing still and letting their smaller competitors out manoeuvrer them; Boeing and Airbus are committed to further upgrades to their narrowbody airliners. Airbus just tested new winglets for the A320 series and plan to roll them out in 2012 as part of a major upgrade package. New and upgraded engines will also feature on their current models as well.

As mentioned earlier, the civil airplane manufacturing industry is highly competitive; there has only been 1 new entrant in the industry in the past 2 decades; Embraer. In those decades, we have seen many more companies like McDonnell Douglas, Fokker, etc all close up shop. Many more have moved out of the civil aviation industry and focus more on the military aspect (such as Saab Aerospace). If the Chinese companies don't get their packages right (the perfect aircraft, technology, efficiency, reliability, and support), they will never make a dent in the global aviation industry.

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