This Sunday was a historic day in Chinese aviation after the first entirely domestically designed commercial jetliner debuted in regular service.
China Eastern Airlines’ C919 flew from Shanghai to Beijing with 130 passengers on board, most of them guests and press. The achievement was broadcast by Chinese state television and was a cause for celebration in the country, as reported by our affiliated media, Aeroin.
Previously, China had produced jetliners that used American planes as a base: the Shanghai Y-10 had the fuselage, wings, and engines of the Boeing 707, while the more recent ARJ-21 is a modified and authorized version of the Douglas DC-9/MD-80.
See also: HNA Aviation Group’s Massive Order: up to 100 COMAC C919 and ARJ 21
Unlike them, the C919, which took off today on its first commercial flight with passengers, was designed from scratch by Chinese designers, who carried out most of the critical design of the aircraft, which are the fuselages and wings. In turn, the engines, avionics, landing gear, and hydraulic system are all Western, following the line of most foreign manufacturers.
The Chinese plane, which competes with the Airbus A320 and the Boeing 737, began manufacturing in 2011, flew for the first time in 2017 and was not certified until the end of last year, to today, more than 5 months later, carry out its first commercial flight.
The manufacturer COMAC said that more than 1,200 orders have been made, but only half of them have been revealed so far, all from Chinese airlines.
COMAC forecasts that more than 40,600 new aircraft will be delivered to the global market between 2020 and 2039, for a total of about 5.9 trillion dollars. Of them, the volume of deliveries of Chinese aircraft C919 and ARJ21 developed by the company could be around 732 billion dollars.
The C919 has versions with different numbers of seats (from 158 to 190), similarly to the Western competitors of Airbus and Boeing. The C919’s average flight range will be around 4,075 km, the maximum – 5,500 km, being able to fly at an altitude of up to 12,000 m.
See also: COMAC C919: Chinese rival to Airbus and Boeing in the single-aisle segment, closer to take off
C919 Difficulties
The development of the «A320/737 killer» was not without complications. Since its presentation in 2008, COMAC faced problems in the supply of spare parts from its suppliers and the tightening of export controls by the United States.
Since December 2020, the North American country requires special licenses to export parts and technological assistance to any company that has ties with the Chinese military. This measure particularly affected the development of the program, which had already suffered delays in its initial schedule.
Although the aircraft is assembled in China, it depends heavily on Western components. The power plant and avionics, two key elements in the development of a new aircraft, are not produced in the Asian country. As a result, the project became more vulnerable to international restrictions on exports and technology transfers.
