Chinese Aviation Industry

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
Concept passenger airliner.

View attachment 34972
In my imagination, one business case for this concept is a long range passenger plane with fewer passengers than the current jumbos. A 737 with the range of 747.

Of course, the more passenger one can pack into a inter-continental jumbo the more economical for the airline, so the 747. But if there is not big number of passengers but the route has to be served, then this concept is good for it.
 

delft

Brigadier
In my imagination, one business case for this concept is a long range passenger plane with fewer passengers than the current jumbos. A 737 with the range of 747.

Of course, the more passenger one can pack into a inter-continental jumbo the more economical for the airline, so the 747. But if there is not big number of passengers but the route has to be served, then this concept is good for it.
I remember the B747SP, a shortened Jumbo with extra fuel, to fly from NY to Tehran in 17 hours. A month ago I read about an extended range 787 that was to fly between London(UK) and Perth(Aus) in 17 hours. There seem to be problems at the airport of Perth. :(

But I dislike sitting in an aircraft for a long time. When we use airships at 200 km/h it will take a few days, but you can walk around, sleep comfortably, use internet, work, and you would need much less energy which would be provided in the shape of liquid hydrogen whose production can be integrated with an energy system not based on fossil fuels, using excess energy when that happens to be produced by wind power, solar power or whatever.
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
CFM certificates C919 engine ahead of first flight

  • 21 DECEMBER, 2016
  • SOURCE: FLIGHTGLOBAL PRO

CFM International has certificated the integrated propulsion system (IPS) for the Leap-1C with the European Aviation Safety Agency and the US Federal Aviation Administration to clear one of the key regulatory hurdles for launching the Comac C919 airliner into commercial service.

Consisting of the engine, nacelle and thrust reverser, the Leap-1C IPS marks the third version of CFM’s latest single-aisle engine family to achieve certification. The Airbus A320neo, powered by the Leap-1A and the rival Pratt & Whitney PW1100G, entered service earlier this year. CFM also received certification for the Leap-1B for the Boeing 737 Max, which remains in development.

“It has been an incredible year for the LEAP program, culminating in the certification of the third model in this engine family,” says Allen Paxson, executive vice-president for CFM.

Comac launched the Leap engine development programme in 2009, with an original entry into service target of 2016. Delays have shifted first delivery to Chinese customers back two years. Comac plans to begin flying the first C919 test aircraft by the end of this year.

The certification milestone comes exactly seven years after Comac announced the selection of the Leap-1C engine for the 130-200 seat airline family.

The Leap-1C shares identical turbomachinery with the Leap-1A engine for the A320neo, differing only in the items that interface with components on the C919 airframe.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


Congratulations :)

It won't be long somebody would say China hasn't inovated yet because C919 uses foreign engine ;) and say that Chinese engine technology is so backward even C919 wouldn't use it :p
 

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
It won't be long somebody would say China hasn't inovated yet because C919 uses foreign engine ;) and say that Chinese engine technology is so backward even C919 wouldn't use it :p

i would imagine that would only be in Chinese military forums and some "aviation experts" looking to say that China is behind. Nobody else is that obsessed about this issue. It seems pretty normal for an airliners to use engines from CFM international, since B737 and A320 series both use it.

The bigger question is whether or not LEAP-1C will achieve it's target SFC at C919 delivery. LEAP-1B was rumoured to run 5% behind its promised SFC and LEAP-1A is 2% behind. While this kind of shortfall typically gets covered by the engine producer, it meas the engine would need 1 or 2 PIPs just to achieve the original target. PW GTF for A320neo is apparently already beating its promised SFC even though the ramp up of mass production and teething problems been issues. It would not be too surprising if GTF is a few % more efficient than LEAP series in a few years. Making me wonder why COMAC picked LEAP-1C when GTF is where the future is at.
 

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
In my imagination, one business case for this concept is a long range passenger plane with fewer passengers than the current jumbos. A 737 with the range of 747.

Of course, the more passenger one can pack into a inter-continental jumbo the more economical for the airline, so the 747. But if there is not big number of passengers but the route has to be served, then this concept is good for it.
the business case for this is not very good. airlines use single aisle for sub-3000 nm routes because they are optimized for efficency in the 1000 to 2000 nm range. Airlines can pack a lot of people in all these shorter sub-6 hour flights. Anything longer, 29 inch pitch is just way too painful. You can pack a lot of people in on the 9-across 787, 9-across 350 and 10 across 777. If airlines can sell all the seats, then cost per passenger mile will be better than the single aisle plane. The major advantage for something like A321neo is that it can achieve comparable cost to B787 on sub-3000 nm routes as long as it packs the passengers in at tight spaces and it has much better turn around time. So you can use such planes for longer thin route like what a lot of US airlines do with east coast to Western Europe with B757. Anything further, a single aisle will have to dedicate a whole lot more space for storing fuel. On top of that, single aisles don't have crew rest built in so they have to block off business class seat for them. You can't install the fancy business class and first business class seat as you do on a B777. Just check out those 4 across business class seat on B77W aircraft and you would know what I mean.

Frequency and high utilization and quick turnaround matters a lot more on domestic routes vs long international routes.
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
i would imagine that would only be in Chinese military forums and some "aviation experts" looking to say that China is behind. Nobody else is that obsessed about this issue. ....
.....
It would not be too surprising if GTF is a few % more efficient than LEAP series in a few years. Making me wonder why COMAC picked LEAP-1C when GTF is where the future is at.

I believe the main reason LEAP-1C is chosen over GTF because it is French engine ... China might not want to have such trouble in the future (remember Intel XEON saga) ... and also there have been some engine cooperations between France and China

GTF might be a few % more efficient but it is not ready yet ... anyway Engine is always improving anyway ... you got to choose when available when you need it
 

B.I.B.

Captain
Beautiful plane, even if it is achieves marginal commercial success, it will be a stepping stone to better things to come with follow up model or upgrade that will threaten Boeing and Airbus dominance in this class of plane in the future.

Friends of ours have been Mercedes purchaser for decades off the same franchise holder. Last year they indicated to the Mercedes salesperson that they had decided to purchase a Lexus instead. Whereupon Mercedes turned around and made them a deal which would have been stupid to turn down.
My point here is that i think Airbus and Boeing would do the same thing to retain their customers.
 

SamuraiBlue

Captain
Reduction in wing weight, increase in space for cargo or, formerly important, fuel. You have to compare your design with your specification.
You can't reduce weight by enlarging the wings unless you drastically reduce structural enforcing beams within them in which case you'll have to reduce the amount of cargo since you have less structural strength in the wings.
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
You can't reduce weight by enlarging the wings unless you drastically reduce structural enforcing beams within them in which case you'll have to reduce the amount of cargo since you have less structural strength in the wings.

Hsve you ever heard "composite" material ... much lighter and stronger?
Most structural and body of Boeing B787 are composite/carbon fibre
 
Top