COMAC C929 Widebody Airliner

gelgoog said:

We already knew about this a long time ago. There were press releases about it. Denis Manturov announced it.
Because China wants to proceed with program using Western components, Russia will leave the joint venture and become a supplier. Otherwise the airplane would be sanctioned. Because UAC is sanctioned. So UAC cannot be part of company structure.

I predicted this would likely happen a long time before it was announced and said as much here even.

In practice nothing changes. At least thus far all the related programs are still chugging along and technical cooperation is still happening. It is basically a change in corporate structure to make the whole program more sanction proof.

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OR:

it is also true that Denis Manturov (read my previous post) said:
“We worked with our partners in the People's Republic of China on a wide-body long-haul aircraft. Taking into account all inputs from Western countries, changes will be made to our bilateral project, ”he said in an interview on the eve of SPIEF, answering a question about the development of a long-range Russian aircraft.

News which on the one hand indicates that the collaboration for an aircraft continues and on the other that COMAC wants to do without the partnership with the Russians.
This leads me to hypothesize that:
1) China is making a choice to avoid Western sanctions, so it will try to put the C-929 into production by replacing Russian components with those of Western countries when possible.
2) But ..... cooperation with Russian companies will certainly continue because sanctions can be introduced when you least expect it, and China wants to have an alternative.

Therefore it is probable that the Russian design for a wide-body aircraft could be very similar to the CR/C-929 but named Ilyushin or Tubolev.
So if in the end COMAC will be subject to sanctions or bans for the import of components for its C-929 (it would become a serious competitor for Airbus & Boeing), COMAC have already given the alternative that I jokingly indicate as C-929-NEWS

Boltzmann said:

I'm not trying to be rude to the Russians but what do they realistically bring to the table as a supplier?

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Generally thought of the Russians as bringing a natural market for long range "regional" widebodies with the Moscow/St Petersburg <-> Far East region routes, where participation should encourage them to replace the 777s that are currently being used for such flights. I expect certification for the international China routes to take longer and be more problematic (geopolitics being played whatever the proportion of Western components in the CR929) so having a market that can quickly put more than a handful into service to rack up flight hours whilst waiting for various aviation authorities to sign off on the plane is good for development feedback and demonstrating reliability

This is all rudimentary blue sky thinking though, haven't looked at this in depth or done any route planning analysis. @tphuang @HighGround what do you guys think?

99PLAAFBalloons said:

Generally thought of the Russians as bringing a natural market for long range "regional" widebodies with the Moscow/St Petersburg <-> Far East region routes, where participation should encourage them to replace the 777s that are currently being used for such flights. I expect certification for the international China routes to take longer and be more problematic (geopolitics being played whatever the proportion of Western components in the CR929) so having a market that can quickly put more than a handful into service to rack up flight hours whilst waiting for various aviation authorities to sign off on the plane is good for development feedback and demonstrating reliability

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There's really not much to analyze here to be honest. Primarily because Russia's involvement is unlikely to bring huge benefits whereas it guarantees a lot of international scrutiny. The only real area of interest would probably be Russia's PD line of engines from Aviadvigatel, but I find it unlikely that Russia would full open up the books to China on that matter (even though I think they should and I say that as a post-Soviet republic immigrant who still loves and respects Russia).

Russia's involvement may have made sense 10 years ago, but it certainly doesn't now. And if anyone doubts this now, China's C919 program will certainly prove it to any remaining naysayers within the next few months.

Quite frankly, the less Russian involvement, the better and we really shouldn't overanalyze this.

I found this on douyin .
I think old photo . But i dont know

Does it uses carbon composite material?

Obrak43 said:

I found this on douyin .
I think old photo . But i dont know
View attachment 114836

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这是2018年底的照片

"That aircraft’s product page is still available on COMAC’s website, both on the Chinese and English versions, stating that the CR929 can seat 280 passengers and fly up to 12,000 km (6,479 nm, 7,456 mi). The “CR929 long-range wide-body passenger aircraft is a dual-aisle civil aircraft jointly developed by China and Russia,” according to the Chinese plane maker’s product page of the twin-aisle jet.

Furthermore, the visualizations on the Chinese company’s website still have the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) on the aircraft, with the CR929 name being placed where, now, the words “Comac wide-body” are spelled out. "


According to Aviation Week, "CR929 development has been defined by the Sino-Russian intergovernmental agreement, therefore any changes require a lengthy process of approvals. Engineering teams both in Moscow and Shanghai continue to work as usual. Russia’s TsAGI Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute plans to start static tests of a 22-m (72-ft.) long composite wing prototype for the CR929 this summer."


It seems like they are still discussing what to do but no decision yet.

pipaster said:

But would aircraft be able to be sold to Russian airliners with PD-35s, but many other western systems?
If there is a variant that doesn't have any western systems, it could be sold to many different countries.

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Do not count on it. One good example is US sanctions on Iran purchasing Russian aircraft like the Superjet. The US kept decreasing the maximum amount of US origin equipment that could be put on such aircraft without risking sanctions until you basically could not put any US content in them. China and Russia would likely have to replace all components of Western origin.
This is why Russia wanted to replace all Western components on CR929 after last year's Russian invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions on Russia civilian aviation. But China balked at this in order not to further delay the aircraft program. China and Russia together could do this if they wanted to. Russia makes the Il-96 and China makes the Y-20 which are aircraft with similar total thrust. There is no good reason to assume the West won't sanction CR929 once it gets closer to introduction into service regardless if China goes it alone or not either.

Anyway, UAC will leave CR929 program corporate structure. Instead of UAC being a partner in the joint structure they will become a supplier. And UAC will continue to explore options in this aircraft category, either improvements to the Il-96, or a CR929 without Western content. But the CR929 without Western content seems to have low chance of happening in any reasonable timeframe.

The Russians recently rolled out the Il-96-400M aircraft prototype for testing. This is basically a stretched version of the Il-96 which should have lower cost per seat. There have also been proposals to re-engine the Il-96 with quad PD-14M engines, or make a new wing with twin PD-35 engines. Or even make a whole new aircraft. Only the Il-96-400M has been funded. But the PD-35 engines have been funded as well and the PD-14M is a simple modification of PD-14 engine design.

This isn't that strange since Airbus A330 and A340 also used the same fuselage and one was twin engine while the other was quad engine. They even used the same basic wing design.

Russia, interview with the Director General of the United Engine Corporation Vadim Badekha
here the complete interview in Russian,
I have extrapolated the part in which the voice of the Turbofan RD-35

request
— We are going to move on to serial production of medium-haul aircraft. After all, there is a task in Russia to produce modern long-haul aircraft. What engines will be used for them?

answer
- Today, the task is clearly to create a long-range wide-body aircraft in Russia. The cycle of creating an engine is longer than the cycle of creating an aircraft. At the moment, such an engine is the PD-35 engine. This is a new generation 5+ engine with a thrust of 35 tons, which is created specifically for the Russian wide-body long-haul aircraft. We have already manufactured the gas generator for this engine. He successfully passes the test. The first engine will be produced early next year.

Right. You can find Russian news reports on the ground tests of the PD-35 gas generator that I posted (with English translation) on this forum.

There was also a news piece in Janes about it.