COMAC C929 Widebody Airliner

Totoro said:

I believe size choice was/is also flawed. It would have been better for commercial sales if middle of market sized plane was the goal. So something in between b757 and b767.

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On the contrary I think a B757/767 sized plane would be too small of a "jump" or offering from the C919. As it currently stands a three-class seating on the CR929-600 is aimed at 260-280 seats, which puts it in the B789/A359 range - so not as big as a you'd think, definitely not B77W/77X or A35K sized. I'd say the current plan serves the right amount of "plane" to provide the long-range needs of major airlines in China and Russia, alongside the smaller operators.

It'd be more sensible to offer an A321 sized C919 variant to address the B757 (180-230 seats) need in the industry once the C919 program matures and engineers get enough experience. Similarly a shorter CR929 along the size of a B767/B787 (220-250 seats) variant can be offered using that line of thinking.

Just my two cents as a commercial pilot anyway

Atomicfrog said:

I don't see a lot of partner who will bring knowledge to make a widebody with China, beside Russia.

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gelgoog said:

If the UK and France, with their massive egos, can cooperate in a civilian transport airplane so can Russia and China.

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This is not really about technological aspects. This is about politics. You have to understand that russia and china are not like UK and France or the US and japan for that matter. They are not stable democracies like the latter. They cant trust each other. They are not even nowhere near equals in terms of economics, like the UK and France are.

gelgoog said:

This airplane will arrive a lot later so if it is that much obsolete from the onset it won't be competitive at all.

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Regardless of what happens, china´s aeronautic industry wont be competitive for a very long time. I dont think that they have illusions about that.

Orthan said:

This is not really about technological aspects. This is about politics. You have to understand that russia and china are not like UK and France or the US and japan for that matter. They are not stable democracies like the latter. They cant trust each other. They are not even nowhere near equals in terms of economics, like the UK and France are.

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The democracy part is BS. Most democracies in the developing world are not stable by definition; the developed democracies are increasingly unstable. China is one of the most stable countries in the world, just don't believe Western propaganda.

Agreed with the rest of the statements though.

Orthan said:

Regardless of what happens, china´s aeronautic industry wont be competitive for a very long time. I dont think that they have illusions about that.

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It would be unrealistic for any other country to even think of developing its civilian aircraft industry. China will be the exception though, because of its huge market, the most comprehensive industrial base barring none, and the will of the government and its people - that is, the stable government not subject to election cycle as in the so-called democracies. To be sure, it will take a lot of investments, time and setbacks, but then again, the Chinese never expected it would be easy. You would not aim to be the most powerful country in the world by doing easy things.

Wangxi said:

Fear, fakes and pledges as CRAIC CR929 inches forward

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Weird article:

"It is also rather apparent that COMAC is unable to manufacture composite wings on its own – the feature is lacking in their newest C919 airliner, putting it behind the main competitors – the Airbus A320neo and the Boeing 737 MAX – in both performance and fuel efficiency."

Except the only narrow body jet with composite wings is in fact the MS-21 - both the 737MAX and A320Neo have conventional metal wings just like the C919. The latter might well fail to match their economics, but if that happens lack of composite wings won't be the reason.

weig2000 said:

The democracy part is BS. Most democracies in the developing world are not stable by definition; the developed democracies are increasingly unstable. China is one of the most stable countries in the world, just don't believe Western propaganda.

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Is it? There are multiple aspects of stability, and economically the likes of France and the UK are still a lot more stable than Russia, for example. Even in terms of politics, Western democracies are remarkably resilient when you consider that they undergo what amounts to "regime change" at regular intervals. The perceived stability of systems like China, Russia and (to an extent) Turkey is based entirely on suppressing such disruptions - but on the other hand, if they DO happen, the result is generally catastrophic. Unlike democracies, their institutions are not built to accommodate it, so they generally fall apart completely in such an event.

As for the sizing of the CR929, aiming it squarely at the MoM segment could have been interesting indeed. Part of the reluctance at Boeing and Airbus to develop a clean-sheet entry has been that the projected market is large, but possibly not large enough to profitably support two competing aircraft families. Airbus was additionally wary of cannibalizing A321(X)LR sales, which sits at the lower end of the niche and proved to be a blockbuster. Their dithering created an opportunity for a third party for which none of these considerations applied, and (though I realize this is hindsight talking) the pandemic is likely to intensify the downward trend in long-range aircraft size. Or at least the danger of hurting an existing product did not apply to the Chinese side - the Russians have the MS-21-400 in the pipeline (and should have pushed it more vigorously for all the same reasons).

Tirdent said:

Weird article:

"It is also rather apparent that COMAC is unable to manufacture composite wings on its own – the feature is lacking in their newest C919 airliner, putting it behind the main competitors – the Airbus A320neo and the Boeing 737 MAX – in both performance and fuel efficiency."

Except the only narrow body jet with composite wings is in fact the MS-21 - both the 737MAX and A320Neo have conventional metal wings just like the C919. The latter might well fail to match their economics, but if that happens lack of composite wings won't be the reason.



Is it? There are multiple aspects of stability, and economically the likes of France and the UK are still a lot more stable than Russia, for example. Even in terms of politics, Western democracies are remarkably resilient when you consider that they undergo what amounts to "regime change" at regular intervals. The perceived stability of systems like China, Russia and (to an extent) Turkey is based entirely on suppressing such disruptions - but on the other hand, if they DO happen, the result is generally catastrophic. Unlike democracies, their institutions are not built to accommodate it, so they generally fall apart completely in such an event.

As for the sizing of the CR929, aiming it squarely at the MoM segment could have been interesting indeed. Part of the reluctance at Boeing and Airbus to develop a clean-sheet entry has been that the projected market is large, but possibly not large enough to profitably support two competing aircraft families. Airbus was additionally wary of cannibalizing A321(X)LR sales, which sits at the lower end of the niche and proved to be a blockbuster. Their dithering created an opportunity for a third party for which none of these considerations applied, and (though I realize this is hindsight talking) the pandemic is likely to intensify the downward trend in long-range aircraft size. Or at least the danger of hurting an existing product did not apply to the Chinese side - the Russians have the MS-21-400 in the pipeline (and should have pushed it more vigorously for all the same reasons).

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China is building huge composite panel for Boeing for a decade now. AVIC Chengfei build the composite rudder for the 787 for example... Not sure why they would not be able to build wings ?

Tirdent said:

Weird article:

"It is also rather apparent that COMAC is unable to manufacture composite wings on its own – the feature is lacking in their newest C919 airliner, putting it behind the main competitors – the Airbus A320neo and the Boeing 737 MAX – in both performance and fuel efficiency."

Except the only narrow body jet with composite wings is in fact the MS-21 - both the 737MAX and A320Neo have conventional metal wings just like the C919. The latter might well fail to match their economics, but if that happens lack of composite wings won't be the reason.



Is it? There are multiple aspects of stability, and economically the likes of France and the UK are still a lot more stable than Russia, for example. Even in terms of politics, Western democracies are remarkably resilient when you consider that they undergo what amounts to "regime change" at regular intervals. The perceived stability of systems like China, Russia and (to an extent) Turkey is based entirely on suppressing such disruptions - but on the other hand, if they DO happen, the result is generally catastrophic. Unlike democracies, their institutions are not built to accommodate it, so they generally fall apart completely in such an event.

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Putting my political science hat on, it’s more the case that higher levels of development tend to generate more stability, or more so greater stability tends to enable higher level of development (societies that lose their stability also tend to slide in their development from the consequences instability), which then enables more “democratic/liberal” societies, than it is the case that democracy *causes* these things. There’s a bit of a cherry picking problem in common discourse about political systems and their common characteristics when anytime a democracy becomes unstable the default response seems to be to assert that it is no longer a democracy. It’s a bit like arguing a lung cell that becomes cancerous is no longer a lung cell. While that may be the case, we’ve shifted the treatment of the terminology from an identity or category to a state or phase. In discussions about the merits of democratic society, we have a tendency to regard democracy as an identity but we treat it, argumentatively, like a state.

Anyways, before I get slapped for an off topic violation, I’ll just say all this handwringing over composite wings is nonsensical. Commercial airlines make their sales based on their economic, not technological, parameters. The latter serves the former. The whole point of going with higher share of composites is to reduce weight and increase fuel economy. An efficient wing is more dependent on its shape and geometry than the materials it’s made from. The composites help with weight, not shape, and if anything it’s much more difficult to get the best shape with composites when you have to factor in mechanical factors like structural integrity. A plane that can be bought cheaply and provide lower operational costs will beat out a plane with more advanced features pretty much anytime for most of commercial aviation. If a hypothetical C929 can’t compete on whether it has a composite wing, it can still compete on how much composites it uses by weight, and if it can’t compete on that, that doesn’t exclude it from competing on fuel economy, and if it can’t compete on fuel economy, there are still other cost parameters it can compete on. The name of the game for civil aviation is large scale economics. That’s where the success or failure of these projects will be judged.

Tirdent said:

Is it? There are multiple aspects of stability, and economically the likes of France and the UK are still a lot more stable than Russia, for example. Even in terms of politics, Western democracies are remarkably resilient when you consider that they undergo what amounts to "regime change" at regular intervals. The perceived stability of systems like China, Russia and (to an extent) Turkey is based entirely on suppressing such disruptions - but on the other hand, if they DO happen, the result is generally catastrophic. Unlike democracies, their institutions are not built to accommodate it, so they generally fall apart completely in such an event.

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Absolutely.

I wouldn't put Russia and Turkey in the same league as China when it comes to stability. I was mostly speaking of China. Also, you have to admit that Russia and Turkey have some trappings of the western democracy, don't they?

Democracy by definition is a horrible system for many countries, particularly developing ones. Democracies in the western countries took a very long time to evolve with certain historical and cultural conditions. Most important of all, it's built upon the wealth accumulated over the centuries built on first-mover advantages, colonialism, exploitation and looting. In some sense, democracy in western countries have been the results of development, not the other way around. We're starting to see the strains in western democracy, and we shall see how resilient they are.

This is all off topic here; I was responding to Orthan's simplistic post above. I wish all democracies well, just don't take it to be universal and worse, try to impose your brands of democracy upon other countries. We should probably stop here.

Atomicfrog said:

China is building huge composite panel for Boeing for a decade now. AVIC Chengfei build the composite rudder for the 787 for example... Not sure why they would not be able to build wings ?

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Because you need different and more advanced techniques and materials for making the structures out of composites in a complex load and force bearing shape like a wing.

latenlazy said:

Putting my political science hat on, it’s more the case that higher levels of development tend to generate more stability, or more so greater stability tends to enable higher level of development (societies that lose their stability also tend to slide in their development from the consequences instability), which then enables more “democratic/liberal” societies, than it is the case that democracy *causes* these things.

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In short, I don't think there is much correlation between economic success and democracy, one way or the other (although a healthy economy will generally keep the population happy, of course). There are examples where it did foster growth and examples where it didn't, as well as examples where authoritarian regimes ran the economy into the ground and those where they enabled a meteoric rise. Personally, I find the freedom a value unto itself - no need to appeal to economics to justify it.

But yeah, we digress

latenlazy said:

The composites help with weight, not shape, and if anything it’s much more difficult to get the best shape with composites when you have to factor in mechanical factors like structural integrity.

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Not true, one way to deploy the advantage of composites is to pocket the weight saving, but equally you can use it to enable shaping which would be weight-prohibitive in metallic structures. Take a look at the aspect ratio of the MS-21 wing, indicating it's aiming not so much for weight reduction rather than lower induced drag.

The C919 was designed and so have its design specifics wrt the wing and materials set before composite wing tech was mature enough inside China. Without Russia's supercritical wing input though that could be something the 929 won't be able to expect but composite wing is something that shouldn't be doubted for a project that has barely begun and should be expected to have if it's to be competitive with Airbus and Boeing in that class.