Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Who did that? I say earlier in my post that having foreign component facilitate easier licensing and ease potential client domestic or foreign about reliability and maintenance . I think you are putting word in our mouth
For all those skeptic read this write up by Henri K a Aerospace executive with long years of experience in China If anyone can comment he is certainly credible
He said the main problem can be distilled to integration and management of disparate supplier and having the industrial process to speed up the fabrication of high quality component.Since it is their first time and they start from the scratch. Just like every one was saying Technical challenge is the least problem
95% is the GOAL! that they want to achieve eventually NOT NOW, by substituting one component after another after
For its maiden flight, the aircraft registered B-001A, or MLN 10101 in internal code COMAC, is piloted by a crew composed of two test pilots, one observer and two test engineers.
Captain CAI Jun (蔡俊) is a former pilot of China Esterne Airlines with 10,300 flying hours. The 41-year-old man was trained at the test pilot school in the United States and was flying mainly on the Airbus A320s and the ARJ-21 , another 90-seat COMAC aircraft. CAI has been actively involved in the development of C919, including the evaluation of the industrial model and the control rules of the Iron Bird, as well as the ergonomics of the cockpit and the writing of the various pilot procedures. His co-driver WU Xin (鑫 鑫), meanwhile, has a very similar course, with 11,500 hours of flight in his active.
During the first flight of C919, they were both assisted by QIAN Jin (进 进), a very experienced observer with 22,000 flight hours and former Boeing 777 pilot, plus the two test engineers.
The plane took off at 14:01 local time from an unopened runway at Shanghai airport, under a gray sky overcast sky, and did not move far from Shanghai. Accompanied by another plane - Embraer Legacy 600 - which contains other technicians and also some privileged journalists, the C919 has turned over a coastal area located 130 km north of Shanghai.
The aircraft evolved at 10,000 feet (~ 3048 meters) at a speed of around 180 knots (333 km / h).
The first flight of C919 ended at 15:19, that is 1:18 after takeoff. Under the watchful eye of the tens of millions of viewers who attended the first live flight, the 5 crew members got off the plane and were welcomed by COMAC staff and journalists. A time when the Chinese have waited for 50 years.
The trajectory of the C919 during its inaugural flight.
10 years of development for a 150-seat aircraft may seem long for Airbus and Boeing, the two giants on the market. But for COMAC, everything is starting from scratch, even though the company has already gained some experience with the ARJ-21 program, a smaller plane whose test flights lasted 7 years.
If we look at the course of this first C919, from its birth to its first flight, it will be noticed that the main difficulty for the Chinese is perhaps not in conceptual engineering but in the maturity of industrial processes and The management of its supply chain.
Indeed, barely two and a half years after the launch of the C919 project, the first physical model of the front cover has already been built in Shanghai. It was necessary to wait until May 2014 for the front section to leave the chain in Nanchang, followed by the other sets of the structure until the end of 2014, coming all over China - the front tip of Chengdu, Harbin gates, wings Xi'an, the front and rear sections of Hongdu, and the empennages of Shenyang. And this is not to mention some embedded systems that come from Western companies, such as the LEAP-1C engines of Snecma and General Electric for example (Airbus A320 NEO uses the LEAP-1A reactor ), to be integrated into the aircraft.
The final assembly lasted until the end of 2015, and the roll-out of the first C919 took place on 2 November 2015, knowing that in the framework plan approved by the Chinese government, it was planned to make the first flight From C919 to 90 months after the launch of the program.
The Chinese program has thus accumulated 20% of delay compared to the initial plan.
The front tip of C919
The first flight originally planned for 2016, but obviously the ground tests took much longer.The aircraft finally started its taxiing tests in December 2016, and passed the first flight technical review in late March 2017.
The C919 has the ambition to compete in the Chinese market, first of all, the Airbus A320 and the Boeing 737 , both well installed for more than 30 years. The same needs in terms of capacity and autonomy, as well as consumption, mean that the three devices have similar performances and characteristics, which can be seen here:
Comparison of section of the Airbus A320, the Boeing B737 and the Comac C919.
Airbus A320 Boeing B737-800 Comac C919
Length 37.57 m 39.50 m 38.90 m
Height 11.76 m 12.50 m 11.95 m
span 34.10 m 35.70 m 35.80 m
Distance to be crossed 6,100 km 5,765 km 5,555 km
Ceiling 12,000 m 12 500 m 12 131 m
Speed 1 004 km / h 885 km / h 900 km / h
Capacity 150 to 180 seats 162 to 189 places 158 to 174 places
Considered strategic for the country and thus obtained strong political support, the C919 program has so far registered 570 firm orders and options from 23 companies, mainly Chinese.
But the road is still long for this jewel of Chinese aeronautics. The aircraft must first complete the flight tests, which will be carried out by a total of six prototypes, in order to obtain the TC (Type Certification) from the Chinese CAAC authorities before the same certification can be considered by the US FAA authorities. European EASA.
It would probably take another 15 to 20 years for COMAC to worry about Airbus and Boeing.The C919 program should therefore be seen as the A300 at the time, which also attracted suspicions and doubts 30 years ago when the Europeans launched the project that later became Airbus.
Finally, what does the name C919 mean?
In fact, C means COMAC, the number 9 is also pronounced 久 in Chinese which means "durable" or "longevity", and 19 means 190 places, the capacity of the C919.
It is therefore understood what the project represents C929 that the Chinese have officially launched with the Russians in 2016 (see our article " ").
Henri K.
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