COMAC C919

Yvrch said:

No duh, Captain Obvious.
Yes grease is greasy , oil is oily, smoke is smokey. Very true.

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Well nobody was touching the subject so I threw it in for more in depth discussion to the matter.
Another is market size of China alone may not be large enough to sustain production and the limit may come sooner than many believes.
I attended a Flightglobal seminar last year concerning the world airliner market and they stated that the average first hand owner lifespan of 737 size airliners is around 7.5 years which is the average in break even point of initial investment against obtained sales and most importantly resales value.
An investor in the passenger airline industry focuses on the fleet's resale value so they can deduce the amount as well as the health of the asset the company owns. If C919 doesn't obtain a good resales value it means the company will not be able to refresh their fleet losing edge against their competitors that does.
This again goes back to the requirement of global training and maintenance facilities since the second/third hand market of these planes would need to go beyond PRC borders to find enough buyers competing with A&B planes.

At least part of that issue would have been solved already via the foreign partnership involvement in the form or foreign made parts in the 919 and dealings with UAC/Superjet. It's just a matter of expanding that investment. We know that Comac has a few foreign buyers so... I mean in some ways this is exactly how Airbus started out.

SinoSoldier said:

Bombardier turned out to have a management team that would rather use government bailouts to raise the salaries of their CEOs rather than help out the company itself. That, I suspect, is where the fault lies.

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is there anything not a fault in your eyes? apart of yourself of course .... just wonder

People on this thread are starting to talk in circles, so I'll add my own opinion.

There have been a few estimates thrown around regarding the size of the airplane market in China, and right now the estimate is ~7000 aircraft at > 1 trillion USD. If China doesn't begin developing the C919, all this money will go to Boeing and Airbus, to train American and European engineers and workers, to upgrade American and European factories and to do R&D in American and European aircraft institutes. All China will get for her payment is the airplanes.

The development of the C919 and the upcoming C929, and their future, more-indigenized "A, B, C..." variants means that some slice of this > 1 trillion USD will go to Chinese companies, train Chinese workers and upgrade Chinese factories and further develop Chinese R&D. This is the biggest win of the very first C919 variant -- it opens the door for the growth of the Chinese commercial airliner industry and for the development of Chinese aeronautics in general.

N00813 said:

The development of the C919 and the upcoming C929, and their future, more-indigenized "A, B, C..." variants means that some slice of this > 1 trillion USD will go to Chinese companies, train Chinese workers and upgrade Chinese factories and further develop Chinese R&D. This is the biggest win of the very first C919 variant -- it opens the door for the growth of the Chinese commercial airliner industry and for the development of Chinese aeronautics in general.

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A lot has been said about the lack of domestic subsystems. But projects like C919 is critical for domestic subsystems to be used on both domestic and foreign planes. As it is, no foreign aircraft manufacturer is going to take a chance on Chinese subsystem suppliers, because it can already sell planes without them. COMAC will eventually use domestic subsystems -- make it available as options for price sensitive buyers. And that will eventually forced foreign aircraft manufacturers to consider domestic subsystems to compete on price.

SinoSoldier said:

C919 will mostly be sold within China itself, but its greatest value will not come from any sort of imaginary market share but rather the experience from its development and project management.

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It's more than that. More than technical issues is the regulatory barrier to entry to US and EU. Currently, anyone who passes FAA will be given EU certification, and vice versa. This means non-US/EU manufacturers will be at a disadvantage. China need to pay the due of passing foreign certifications. After that, it can force US/EU to recognize Chinese certification as equivalent to their own by threatening to impose certification requirement on foreign aircraft if they insisted on requiring their own certifications on top of Chinese ones.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

If the only buys (there a few foreign ones) are Chinese then the success is artificial and the product will fail.
75 % may be accurate but how much is the Chinese domestic market vs the global.one. An isolation based market is a dead end market.

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As long as Chinese produce a competitive product, even the lack of US/EU certification is less of a problem. Used to be that most of the air travel happened in developed country, hence any aircraft without US/EU certification is a non-starter. But this is no longer the case. China probably have enough diplomatic clout to convince most of the nations to accept Chinese certification without US/EU certification -- e.g. Xian MA-60 were sold to foreign buyers without US/EU certifications. Of course, US/EU certifications are a big plus, but even the lack of it will not necessarily kill the project.

Consider China is the only other nation to have successfully developed and induct 5-th generation fighter, inability is certainly not the reason for not using Chinese subsystems on the C919.

The issue with civilian airliners is that they need approval from EASA/FAA to fly in the EU and US, and approval can be withheld to protect market share or simply out of political reasons. Using 100% Chinese components is guaranteed to get all the major aviation suppliers to write strongly worded letters to their government to ban C919 from Western's sky. By using foreign components on the C919, the foreign suppliers will be indifferent as the suppliers still get their money and retain their market share.

The other issue is logistics. Major aviation suppliers can readily supply parts to major airports around the world at a moment's notice. Chinese suppliers simply don't have that kind of supply chain. No airline will tolerate waiting up to a day for delivery for a part that could normally be replaced under an hour.

nemo said:

China probably have enough diplomatic clout to convince most of the nations to accept Chinese certification without US/EU certification

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They're necessary if you want to fly there. And flying to "western" countries is a must...

nemo said:

As long as Chinese produce a competitive product, even the lack of US/EU certification is less of a problem. Used to be that most of the air travel happened in developed country, hence any aircraft without US/EU certification is a non-starter. But this is no longer the case. China probably have enough diplomatic clout to convince most of the nations to accept Chinese certification without US/EU certification -- e.g. Xian MA-60 were sold to foreign buyers without US/EU certifications. Of course, US/EU certifications are a big plus, but even the lack of it will not necessarily kill the project.

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I think you misunderstand the Certification. It's not just a piece of Paper it's a full inspection and Safety standard set demanded of the Aircraft, Maintenance and performance.
Most Sovereign nations have some form of Aviation safety agency that sets or Accepts safety standards. The US, Canada and EU standards overlap and by Trilateral agreement are accepted across the thress so they are used as a interchangeable standard.
Many nations accept the US or EU standard so that they do not need to set their own standards.
Others Accept certifications from other nations so as to prove that it was certified. the Xian MA 60 was never push for a US or EU certification, And has had a fairly high number of accidents.

Gloire_bb said:

They're necessary if you want to fly there. And flying to "western" countries is a must...

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Actually you do not need it. Certification is for commercial passenger transport only. A plane without any passenger doesn't require it. This can be confirmed with military planes that doesn't have those required certifications and still make regular flights to various airports.

On the other hand even if there is a nation that does not require western certification, insurance firms will certainly not accept it making it a big liability risk to any airliner that flies it.