Chinese Aviation Industry

SamuraiBlue

Captain
Not necessarily, both aircraft is pretty much 99% done, so a comparison right now is pretty accurate.

People compare J20 vs F35 vs F22 vs T50 all the time even with less public information, and 3/4 of those are still in development.

My point is, if C919 and MC21 are similar in technology then the decision to partner up with Russia is a political decision, this is my personal guess.

If C919 is slightly better than MC21, then partner up with Russia is purely political

If MC21 is superior than C919 in design, then its in China's interest to partner up with Russia.

Oh brother.....
They only made maiden flight there is a long way ahead for both planes to finish development to become commercial.
Tell me how long did the ARJ21 take from maiden flight to commercial?
It's nowhere near 99% finished.
 

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
It's not just a political decision. Russia has a lot of experience developing wide body airliners, which China does not. The production process of MC-21 uses technologies that even A320Neo does not use. It's a very ambitious project. There are stuff that China can certainly learn from Russia, which COMAC clearly knows. China has plenty of money and power. Clearly as seen by this board and others, there is an intense desire to go alone on C929 or even C939. But people in charge of COMAC sees that it can't offer a competitive product to B787 by itself, that's why it's partnering up with the Russia.

Notice how it's looking to invest in Bombardier recently? COMAC knows it needs to work with others. It's about time people on the internet forum accept that.
 

timepass

Brigadier
AIRBUS HELICOPTERS BEGINS CONSTRUCTING H135 ASSEMBLY PLANT IN CHINA...

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has begun the construction of its final assembly site for the H135 lightweight utility helicopter in Qingdao, in Shandong Province in eastern China.

The final assembly site will be completed by 2018. It will assembly 100 H135s over the next 10 years for the Chinese market, where it is used for emergency medical services, search and rescue, firefighting, law enforcement and tourism.

The first Chinese-assembled H135 is expected to roll out by mid-2019. The Qingdao site will have capacity to produce up to 18 H135 helicopters per year, but Airbus Helicopters notes that this can be increased.

Airbus Helicopters CEO Guillaume Faury lauded the event, stating, “This ground breaking is a remarkable milestone for Airbus Helicopters’ global footprint and demonstrates our commitment to further enhancing our industrial cooperation with China’s rapidly growing aviation industry.”

The Qingdao site is co-owned by Airbus Helicopters and the Qingdao United General Aviation Company Limited (UGAC). Airbus Helicopters owns 51% of the plant. Airbus Helicopters is confident that China has a market potential of up to 600 lightweight twin-engine helicopters such as the H135.

The H135 is the rebranded EC135. It has a maximum take-off weight of 2,980 kg and maximum range of 609 km and maximum speed of 278 km/h. The H135 can carry up to six passengers with up to two pilots.

Although China is unable to procure Western armaments and defence systems, European vendors – most notably Airbus Helicopters and Safran Group – are collaborating with their Chinese counterparts on civil and commercial-use technology.

For example, Airbus Helicopters is also collaborating with China’s Avicopter – a division of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) – on the
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. AVIC is also collaborating with Safran Helicopter Engines on the development of the WZ-16 turboshaft engine.
 

b787

Captain
It's not just a political decision. Russia has a lot of experience developing wide body airliners, which China does not. The production process of MC-21 uses technologies that even A320Neo does not use. It's a very ambitious project. There are stuff that China can certainly learn from Russia, which COMAC clearly knows. China has plenty of money and power. Clearly as seen by this board and others, there is an intense desire to go alone on C929 or even C939. But people in charge of COMAC sees that it can't offer a competitive product to B787 by itself, that's why it's partnering up with the Russia.

Notice how it's looking to invest in Bombardier recently? COMAC knows it needs to work with others. It's about time people on the internet forum accept that.
It has to do more with producibility and profits.

more than 7000 A-320 series have been built, but less than 300 A-380 have been built
MS-21 or C919 if they have success.; they will be built in several thousands for 3 or 4 decades, the investment is lower than a large aircraft like A-380 or An-124.

Thus for Russia and China they see the large aircraft niche can bankrupt them, just remember that MD, was building the DC-10, but the larger and/or more efficient B-747, B-767, B-757 and B-777 send them to bankrupt .

So the risk is higher in aircraft like B-747 than in smaller like MRJ or E-195, because the numbers made are larger in less time, with B737 you have several thousands in several decades, more than 9000s B737s have been built so the profit has been huge, the A-380 is sold in lesser numbers to recover the investment takes longer and to make profits is riskier

To give you and example the E-170 series has been built in more than 1200 aircraft in less than 12 years, but no more than 1600 B-747s in 47 years

you can see link
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Pmichael

Junior Member
It's pretty clear that China got into this partnership with UAC because it thinks Russia has something to offer in their experience and technological expertise. People don't really need speculate for any other purposes.

Well, looking at the work share and that China will mostlikely even manufactor the Russian designed parts. I kind of changed my opinion about this deal. This is a smart way of tapping into the once Russian owned market.

China is not the junior partner here.
 

weig2000

Captain
Well, looking at the work share and that China will mostlikely even manufactor the Russian designed parts. I kind of changed my opinion about this deal. This is a smart way of tapping into the once Russian owned market.

China is not the junior partner here.

If your worry were about if China would be the junior partner in this deal, well, that worry should never have been there to begin with. Anyone with some basic understanding of China's ambition and goals in the commercial aviation space, the development history in the sector and technology and industrial foundation in place would not even contemplate such a partnership.

The real question is whether and/or why China would take Russia or anyone else as an equal partner. At issue is not if Russia has some experience or technology to offer, but who drives and controls the destiny of the program. To put in another way, today if Boeing or Airbus - which have vastly superior experiences and technologies than Russia - offers China to join one of their star development programs as junior partner, well, China would probably join, but it will always have its own separate and independent development program. In fact, Airbus has and Boeing will soon have final assembly plants in China for A320 and B737, respectively. To use another example, in the '90s, Europe invited China to join the Galileo navigational satellites program, as a junior partner obviously. China contributed hundreds of millions Euros to the program and gladly became a junior member, but it still has its own Beidou program. Europe later refused to let China participate and share the core technologies development and benefits of the program, but China has been quite successful with her own Beidou system.

Some people cite the rumors that China is interested in acquiring a stake in the struggling Bombardier C-Series as evidence that China must take Russia as an equal partner in the C929 program. I think they're confusing the natures of the two. China is interested in acquiring a stake, majority or minor, in many technology companies in many industries, but that doesn't mean China's own respective industries is hanging in threads.

Back to the C929 program, it's obvious that Russia demands an equal partnership and got it, at least on paper (Note that it was never about China demanded an equal partnership and got it; huge difference). But in reality, it's not difficult to see where the center of gravity is. Shanghai has the headquarter and final assembly line; Russia get a 100 plus people R&D center, but China has separate R&D center too. The risk to this equal partnership, IMO, is not so much the experiences or technologies that Russia or China brings to the table, but that China's and Russia's strategic interests in this program may well diverge down the road and rifts inevitably emerge to create problems and roadblocks to the program.

By the way, what ever happened to the New Development Bank, aka the joint development bank of BRICS? There was much fanfare back when it was founded a few years back, where each BRICS nation largely shares equal partnership (considering both investments, shares and management controls). Well, without China's leadership and drive, it doesn't appear going anywhere, at least compared with AIIB, and the OBOR initiative.
 
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