COMAC C919

There are different ways of measuring localization rate. It can be measured by value of the parts, number of parts, or even weight of the parts. You would think value of the parts is the standard measure but this seldom is the case in these projects. Countries often pick the metric that is most appropriate for the message they want to project.

From what I understand China basically makes the fuselage and other components of the aircraft and assembles everything. Contrary to some people I have little confidence of these in China joint ventures. As can be seen from what happened with the Russian auto industry, even if the components are assembled in your country, quite often they rely on subassemblies which are imported. When you get sanctioned you then lose the capability to make those components.

Boltzmann said:

So does anybody have the primary sources for the localization rate of the c919? I've seen various figures thrown around, like 60 or 65%, but it's unclear to me how these are measured and where they are quoted from. There's also the issue of the localization rate of the jet's sub components. IE, supposedly foreign-made pieces of the plane may be manufactured physically in China by 50/50 JV's, but what is the localization rate of those pieces themselves? I can't read technical Chinese so any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Localization

A report by Zhongtai Securities showed that the localization rate of the C919 is around 60 percent. In 2017, Wu Guanghui, chief designer of the C919, told Caixin that the plane has millions of interfaces, which are related to the connection between multiple systems such as hydraulics and avionics. He said the design scheme of the aircraft is the core intellectual property of COMAC.

"Although the localization rate of the aircraft is around 60 percent, it is still a good start," Qi Qi, a market watcher said, explaining that making planes involves global division of labor and no country can build an aircraft all by itself.

during Zhuhai air show they confirmed about localization rate. reached at 60 percent by 2021-2022.
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this 60 percent include JVs with western suppliers currently producing in mainland. now what is the percentage of those JVs. this is secret between COMAC and that supplier. nobody can tell you. but if COMAC itself confirmed about 60 percent localization it means they have core technology of that component/part

for example. at the beginning cockpit was a joint venture in between AVIC and GE. as per the current update, GE withdrew.

Cockpit of the C919 currently producing two AVIC subsidies

AVIC Shanghai Aviation Electric Co., Ltd., and Shangdian Institute is AVIC Radio Electronics Research Institute

SEEC is solely responsible for the control panel components around the pilot and the dimming control system (CPAs&DCS) work package, which is the human-machine interface for the pilot to control; at the same time, it also provides the integrated circuit breaker board (ICBP) work package at the rear of the cockpit .

SEC is responsible for the cockpit display system and A664 network switch, which are the key subsystems and components of the avionics system. The most conspicuous ones are the five large LCD screens arranged in a T shape.

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another example. landing gear system of ARJ-21/C919

it was joint venture established by Liebherr and AVIC with 50/50 shareholding started operate in 2014 in Changsha city, Hunan province

in September 2016, Liebherr and AVIC completed and deliver first landing gear of ARJ-21 in China and all core parts were imported.

in September 2018, Liebherr and AVIC assembled and deliver first landing gear of C919 and all core parts were imported.

in 2019, Chinese local suppliers have replaced key forgings parts of the landing gear like main outer cylinder forgings and outer precision wheel hubs. those Chinese companies are Erzhong Wanhang and southwest Aluminum.




as you can see. initially COMAC happily imported core components in JVs coz they didn't have choice but as China continue to climbing up in value supply chain. they started to replace parts in JVs too..

Edit - i forgot to add. 16 major Joint ventures were established in 2009-2015 time period. and there is a lot tech transfer happened during that time. all JVs were 50/50 partnership with local suppliers. western firms wanted market share and money hence happily join hands.

ACuriousPLAFan said:

I can sense a lot of sourness from this very sentence alone:


Aaaaaaaaaaanyways, and FYI - China officially entered the jet age 43 years ago.
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And that's only for the civilian side.

Kindly update yourself, please. Oh, and remember to eat something sweet once in a while - too much sourness isn't good for your health.

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Reminder the Y10 failed. They built 3 of them as prototypes but even Chinese state owned Airlines concluded that it wasn’t worth it. They may have tried in the 60s and 70s but comparing to even as far as the C919 is today? I am not trying to troll here. Plenty of aviation companies tried and even got into production with limited success then left either by choice or bankruptcy.

The story of Comac won’t be written now. It will be decided if they can establish the support base and demand outside of the boarders of the PRC and Even then beyond a small handful of nations.
If they succeed ABC triopoly. Airbus and Boeing have a fight on their hands and neither can afford more Max or A380 missteps due to the Third maker in the market offering to fill the gaps. They can’t just reengine 737 for a super max or an A330NEO II because that’s the easiest fix. They have to push bold moves that meet the costumer demands. That also means that the urge to vanity projects has to be reigned in. The A380 was a Vanity project the perfect counter to the 747… were it still the 1970s. By the 2000s it was the wrong bet. Airbus might’ve made it better had they not insisted on only building airliner version and offered a freighter. Boeing did counter with the 747-8 but they were smart enough to build off the existing aircraft and have freighters. Yet Comac still has an uphill climb they can’t afford to fall into the trap of vanity projects but they clearly need to catch up on fuel efficiency. A low procurement costs is fine but if the fuel economy isn’t competitive that’s where the airlines live. Then you have the potential market disruptors have to keep an eye on them. The A300 marked the beginning of the end of the trijet and quad jet airliners the whole market shifted though not overnight eventuality that class was done. Blended wing bodies, super and hyper sonic aircraft, could toll the death of the airliner as we know it in the not to distant future.

If Comac fail to get beyond their boarders they end up like Russian airliners. Remember them? Il89, Tu214 and Superjet 100? Used only in states that can’t get anything or worse only used for ideological reasons, increasing obsolete and suffering shortages of parts and demand. Issues that stagnate one off prototypes for decades that can only be built with the few components that break sanctions or products that promise more than could ever be delivered by limitation of the supply chain.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Reminder the Y10 failed. They built 3 of them as prototypes but even Chinese state owned Airlines concluded that it wasn’t worth it. They may have tried in the 60s and 70s but comparing to even as far as the C919 is today? I am not trying to troll here. Plenty of aviation companies tried and even got into production with limited success then left either by choice or bankruptcy.

The story of Comac won’t be written now. It will be decided if they can establish the support base and demand outside of the boarders of the PRC and Even then beyond a small handful of nations.
If they succeed ABC triopoly. Airbus and Boeing have a fight on their hands and neither can afford more Max or A380 missteps due to the Third maker in the market offering to fill the gaps. They can’t just reengine 737 for a super max or an A330NEO II because that’s the easiest fix. They have to push bold moves that meet the costumer demands. That also means that the urge to vanity projects has to be reigned in. The A380 was a Vanity project the perfect counter to the 747… were it still the 1970s. By the 2000s it was the wrong bet. Airbus might’ve made it better had they not insisted on only building airliner version and offered a freighter. Boeing did counter with the 747-8 but they were smart enough to build off the existing aircraft and have freighters. Yet Comac still has an uphill climb they can’t afford to fall into the trap of vanity projects but they clearly need to catch up on fuel efficiency. A low procurement costs is fine but if the fuel economy isn’t competitive that’s where the airlines live. Then you have the potential market disruptors have to keep an eye on them. The A300 marked the beginning of the end of the trijet and quad jet airliners the whole market shifted though not overnight eventuality that class was done. Blended wing bodies, super and hyper sonic aircraft, could toll the death of the airliner as we know it in the not to distant future.

If Comac fail to get beyond their boarders they end up like Russian airliners. Remember them? Il89, Tu214 and Superjet 100? Used only in states that can’t get anything or worse only used for ideological reasons, increasing obsolete and suffering shortages of parts and demand. Issues that stagnate one off prototypes for decades that can only be built with the few components that break sanctions or products that promise more than could ever be delivered by limitation of the supply chain.

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Russia is not a meaningful point of reference for Chinese manufacturing capabilities, at all. Let that meme die. Neither is the China of half a century ago. I understand you're not trying to troll but using CSIS reports and the like to gauge Chinese technical capabilities is just ridiculous.

The same as with the semiconductor industry to much reliance on Western suppliers for a lot of crucial components. Localization rate 60% according to Global Times.

gelgoog said:

There are different ways of measuring localization rate. It can be measured by value of the parts, number of parts, or even weight of the parts. You would think value of the parts is the standard measure but this seldom is the case in these projects. Countries often pick the metric that is most appropriate for the message they want to project.

From what I understand China basically makes the fuselage and other components of the aircraft and assembles everything. Contrary to some people I have little confidence of these in China joint ventures. As can be seen from what happened with the Russian auto industry, even if the components are assembled in your country, quite often they rely on subassemblies which are imported. When you get sanctioned you then lose the capability to make those components.

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China isn’t in the same universe as Russia with its capability to absorb technical details through JVs. If it were its JV efforts wouldn’t have spawned fully indigenous competitors. Western businesses have cried foul over Chinese JV requirements precisely because they haven’t been able to effectively shield critical knowhow and IP from being leaked, despite their best efforts.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

If Comac fail to get beyond their boarders they end up like Russian airliners. Remember them? Il89, Tu214 and Superjet 100? Used only in states that can’t get anything or worse only used for ideological reasons, increasing obsolete and suffering shortages of parts and demand. Issues that stagnate one off prototypes for decades that can only be built with the few components that break sanctions or products that promise more than could ever be delivered by limitation of the supply chain.

Click to expand...

Actually the Soviets had plenty of successful airliners like the Tu-154 and the Il-62.
They also built the first jet transport aircraft, and the first supersonic transport aircraft.

The Il-86 suffered, I think, from excessive political interference. The government sought to put it into service before the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Civilian technology was also underfunded compared with military technology. If you go to the Wikipedia page for the Il-86 they will claim that Soviet engine technology was outdated, or whatever, and incapable of making requisite modern engines of sufficient power. The people who wrote that never looked at the specifications of the NK-22 engine in the Tu-22M bomber.

The Tu-204 and Superjet 100 had issues with lack of proper financing to clients and customer support. You might also make claims with regards to some technical issues with some components in the Tu-204. The non-automated cockpit which requires a third crewman and the lack of lifetime of the PS-90 engines. But the truth is the major deal breaker was lack of financing. A lot of Russian companies just initially leased second hand Western aircraft at residual prices. The Russian aviation industry could not compete with that.

Oh right. The Russian aviation industry itself came up with its own solutions to those problems despite lack of airline interest like the Tu-204SM or the PS-90A3 engine. They still aren't selling. And in fact the Tu-204 aircraft which were exported to Cuba and North Korea lack such improvements. They are basically the original model.

The newest supplier list for C919, compiled by Weibo @国产民机走向商业成功之路.

The Chinese view on these things is that you first bring them in on JVs and then over time you learn how these things work and what are needed to satisfy customer requirements and then you are able to replace them.

Longer term, most of these items have some version of domestic suppliers, since China has large transports that need a lot of the similar subsystems. As your domestic subsystems make investments for C919 & other civil aerospace programs, that cost can be spread out to your military programs and lower costs all the way around. That's why Chinese shipbuilding is so efficient. Can you imagine the cost issues that American military aerospace programs will run into if Boeing has to exit civil aerospace? That would devastate major Boeing suppliers like Spirit Aerosystems and just certain scale cost advantages that American military aviation programs still have.

Think a lot about this. C919 will bring in a lot of Chinese suppliers that will replace certain Western ones. COMAC has a very important role in cultivating domestic supply chain.