COMAC C919 - China's first modern airliner

Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
superdog said:
You're missing the point. The point is that 737MAX was forced to use a 69" diameter engine due to its low ground clearance inherited from the old 737. When the old 737 was designed Boeing didn't foresee the use of high bypass ratio turbofans, so they didn't leave enough space under the wings. They couldn't change it now because altering ground clearance requires a complete redesign of the mid section and many other aspects of the plane, which Boeing decided not to do due to time and cost constrains. A 69" engine is already better than the 61" on current 737NGs, but in comparison, both the A320neo and C919 were able to fit a 78" diameter engine. Despite they're all called "LEAP-1", the engine on the 737MAX can only achieve a bypass ratio of 9:1 (it also has slightly different LPT stage config) whereas the ones on A320neo and C919 are 11:1 and provides higher maximum thrust. So the 737MAX is clearly at a disadvantage here despite using the same engine technology. In fact, industry news has indicated that 737MAX's LEAP-1B suffers from significantly worse fuel consumption numbers than expected, much more so than the LEAP-1A/C. (
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With that said, overall fuel economy of a plane is decided by many factors including wing and body design. While the C919 has a more efficient engine than the 737MAX, it also has a larger, wider fuselage. This gave it wider seats (especially the extra-wide middle seat) and larger cargo space, but it could also increase drag. The newer and more streamlined nose design versus A320neo and especially 737MAX could offset a little bit of this. We'll have to wait and see how the overall fuel economy turns out.
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If the original argument was that certain legacy design elements of either aircraft limited their choice of engines, and that it would effect their performance in certain regards, then I would've had no problem with it.

The issue I had was with the original claim about C919 being the most modern, and subsequent claims of 737 being a design from the 70s, which was made without premise. If the premise for 737 being a claim from the 70s was on the basis of clearance for the engine and/or engine diameter alone, then sure, possibly that would work.
But when one considers the additional improvements that 737 has undergone through the decades to now, it is difficult to call C919 the most modern in a confident manner.

That leads me to my original position, which was that C919 would likely be competitive with the latest offerings in the weight class from Boeing and Airbus, but that there's also not enough for us to wholeheartedly say it is the most modern design.
 
I

I wonder

New Member
Registered Member
Another area where the C919 might be ahead of the a320 and the 737 is the aerodynamics.
The 737 was probably designed in a wind tunnel and even the a320 was designed around the era that the IBM PC was invented. The designers would have been using very primative software and hardware. Once all the moulds have been made its very expensive to change them and the aeroplane probably needs to be recertified.

I think newer planes like the a380 are designed to be unstable, with all the weight resting on the main wings rather than some weight resting on the tail planes like with older more stable aircraft. This makes for a more efficient aircraft.
 
broadsword

broadsword

Brigadier
I have no problem with Samurai's comments on this subject. In fact, I felt tempted to "like" his comments about the maintenance part because they are real issues that COMAC will have to face and so his comments could have equally come from a Chinese. I find them informative.

But more often than not, he does not come across as someone reasonable on China and tended to sound rhetorical. He has some way to go to change our mindset about him.
 
S

Schumacher

Senior Member
I wonder said:
Yes a big unknown is whether it will be certified by the west. There may be political and financial reasons why they don't want to enable their competitor. ...........
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Of course the EU & US will try to stop it. Do you think China invests in Comac without cards up their sleeves ?
They do have the second if not the biggest aviation market in the coming decades you know.
They've squeezed completion factories in China out of Airbus & now Boeing, likely they can squeeze the certs out of them as well.
If not, they'll lose the Chinese market & Comac can literally grow strong dominating the huge Chinese market alone.
Comac has said they'll aim for the international market as well and the Chinese CAA cert, or whatever they call it, is based on FAA. Global airlines will buy as long as they see C919 flying well in China and if they play the bias card or need some persuasion, remember who is the largest source of tourist dollar again.
They may find their permissions to fly to China up for review fairly frequently if they don't play ball. :)
These are games Airbus & Boeing played for ages, China has joined the game.
 
SamuraiBlue

SamuraiBlue

Captain
Tourist market doesn't have much to do with foreign airliners selecting a plane especially when the C919 can't fly direct routes to Europe and/or the US mainland from PRC.
I know that the Thailand City Airway place 10 orders.
We will know how this plane is accepted by the International airliners in next year air show held in July at Farnborough.
 
broadsword

broadsword

Brigadier
SamuraiBlue said:
We will know how this plane is accepted by the International airliners in next year air show held in July at Farnborough.
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I don't think COMAC is under that illusion of optimism of such an early acceptance. It will content with selling to local airlines and other small international private airlines for the first few years. Airbus' first jets took years to gain acceptance in a market dominated by Boeing and MD.
 
SamuraiBlue

SamuraiBlue

Captain
AeroEngineer said:
Yeah right !

Let's wait and see when will a similar japanese plane roll out and be accepted by international airlines !
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Mitsubishi Regional Jet(MRJ) already has 223 confirmed order and another 164 options mainly by foreign airliners if you must know.
The reason why they have such early success is because they had tied strategic relationship with Boeing in providing the after sales support which is essential in marketing commercial airliners.
Kawasaki on the other hand mostly abandoned their ambitions of entering this market even though they have a airframe mostly completed utilizing the P-1 as basis seeing the complexity of entering such a market requiring a massive overhead in support.
As I have said multiple times the product is only part of the whole equation in successfully marketing a commercial airliner.
 
S

Schumacher

Senior Member
SamuraiBlue said:
Tourist market doesn't have much to do with foreign airliners selecting a plane especially when the C919 can't fly direct routes to Europe and/or the US mainland from PRC.
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lol, do you mean Chinese tourists only go to Europe and US ?
Not only tourism, major commercial deals, like aircraft, are in fact related to everything.
You're from japan ? It was an exclusive Boeing market for decades even when everyone else including US themselves have already been buying Airbus.
Why do you think that's the case ? You're pretty naive if you think it's because Boeing is 'better'. :)
 
S

Schumacher

Senior Member
SamuraiBlue said:
Mitsubishi Regional Jet(MRJ) already has 223 confirmed order and another 164 options mainly by foreign airliners if you must know.
The reason why they have such early success is because they had tied strategic relationship with Boeing in providing the after sales support which is essential in marketing commercial airliners.
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My friend, please don't even put MRJ in the same discussion as C919, 737 & A320. It's a regional jet competing with ARJ and others from Bombardier & Embraer, ie segments the big 2 don't even care about.
Come back when you can get a 'strategic relationship' with Boeing on a project aiming squarely at their cash cow like C919 is.
I'll be real surprised if such a project is not shutdown by US from day one, not that I believe japan has the industrial expertise and capacity for one anyway.
 
vincent

vincent

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
No d* comparison please. Airplane market is a very very hard market to get into. New entrants are known to be money pits. Bombardier just got billions from the Quebec government and is asking the federal government the same. I'm sure Chinese government will make c919 fly regardless and profitability is not a concern because the government want to create a national champion. Basic MBA problem, new entrants to a market must offer a value proposition established players can't match or corner a market for the newbies. I think the chinese market can provide the ground for c919 to grow
 
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