COMAC C919

Tomboy

Tomboy

Captain
Registered Member
Alfa_Particle said:
Weirdly, he insisted 20,000 hours instead of cycles which is absolutely not true.
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I also found this strange, these large commercial turbines don't really have hard capped TBO times and even if they do they aren't measured in hrs. With western manufacturers, they'd typically roll out "on condition" maintenance which basically means the engine goes through routine inspection and only when inspection has found something is the engine taken out for TBO or further inspection. So on paper if your unit works fine, you could have it on wings for far longer than the fleet average or even the advertised manufacturer's target, there is no hard requirement to take it off wings after XXX hours, except for certain hot section component which does have a hard capped lifetime usually in cycles but those typically have pretty high lifetime so it's usually not the limiting factor, ie some CFM56s have stayed on wing for over 20000 cycles while LEAPs have accumulated atleast 10000 cycles on wing on fleet leaders.

Unless CAAC does maintenance requirements differently than most/all major countries/authorities or the guy is talking nonsense here. I'm also not sure by what the 8000hrs for CJ-1000A is supposed to mean, is it the manufacturer's initial target for first shop visit time or is it actually a hard capped limit? These could imply two very different outlook on CJ-1000A's technological level and competitiveness.
 
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L

latenlazy

Brigadier
Tomboy said:
I also found this strange, these large commercial turbines don't really have hard capped TBO times and even if they do they aren't measured in hrs. With western manufacturers, they'd typically roll out "on condition" maintenance which basically means the engine goes through routine inspection and only when inspection has found something is the engine taken out for TBO or further inspection. So on paper if your unit works fine, you could have it on wings for far longer than the fleet average or even the advertised manufacturer's target, there is no hard requirement to take it off wings after XXX hours, except for certain hot section component which does have a hard capped lifetime usually in cycles but those typically have pretty high lifetime so it's usually not the limiting factor, ie some CFM56s have stayed on wing for over 20000 cycles while LEAPs have accumulated atleast 10000 cycles on wing on fleet leaders.

Unless CAAC does maintenance requirements differently than most/all major countries/authorities or the guy is talking nonsense here. I'm also not sure by what the 8000hrs for CJ-1000A is supposed to mean, is it the manufacturer's initial target for first shop visit time or is it actually a hard capped limit? These could imply two very different outlook on CJ-1000A's technological level and competitiveness.
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There is probably some achieved maximum on wing time he looked up, maybe from some marketing copy, and then there’s the *mean* time to maintenance which is a proper technical spec that requires collection of in field performance data over time. He might’ve gotten those two figures confused.

In general though mean time to maintenance is always something you can only improve over time as a product gets use out in the field, because you need to see what components are failing in regular use before you know what incremental improvements you need to make to improve service life.
 
lcloo

lcloo

Major
It is a throttle back action by the engine supplier to COMAC. It is obvious, if they can supply Leap-1A and Leap-!B in large quantity to Airbus and Boeing, why can't they supply the same amount of Leap-1C to COMAC? Of course we know who is behind this.

That's why CJ-1000A will be the future main engines for COMAC regardless how you like to compare them to Leap-1C. Once CJ-1000A takes over after next few years, Leap-1C's long term demand will be unwarranted. COMAC is not purely business, there is much geopolitics involved, initiated by US.
 
lcloo

lcloo

Major
lcloo said:
A realistic view on COMAC and China's domestic civil aviation market - 8,700 new airliners.

Reports from Boeing and Airbus estimated that China will need 8,700 new passenger aircraft by 2040. This beyond COMAC's production capability for period from 2026 to 2040. If COMAC is able to roll out average of 100 aircraft per year for the next 15 years, they will produce 1,500 aircraft, far short of the 8,700 forecasted.

Thus there will be a slot of 7,100 aircraft for foreign airplane makers.

OR, if COMAC is able to ramp up their average production to 150 aircraft per year in aggressive expansion, they could make 2,250 planes, and leave a slot of 6,450 airplanes to Airbus/Boeing/Embraer.

The market share available to Airbus/Boeing/Embraer is huge, and if their countries' administrations impose restrictions/bans/obstacles intending to slow down COMAC's development, China could shut them out of the Chinese lucrative market by various means.

Airbus is playing nicely along with China by investing heavily, setting up final assembly plants in Tianjin, and also have China friendly policies. They will be the largest winner against Boeing. And are expected to have a larger share on slots for foreign aircraft makers, due to hostile actions by US governments.

A very real means of controlling Chinese civil aviation's need for new aircraft is HSR. Already HSR is taking away a big portion of air traffics with distance of less than 1,000 km. The next generation 600km/hr high speed train is expected to enter service after or around 2030, this will expand HSR's competitiveness vs airliners to 2,000 km range travel distance.

Thus the forecast need of 8,700 new airliners could be cut down by expansion of new HSR services.

Any countries' attempt to restrict COMAC's development will result in self-damaging to their own aircraft making industry.

And lastly China's own airworthiness certificate is increasingly accepted by more foreign countries, spearheaded by South East Asian countries and Central Asian countries.
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It is not unexpected that China will buy more Boeing during Trump's visit last few days. During Trump's previous visit in 2017, China bought 300 Boeings, this time it is 200 Boeing planes.

There is still a potential of 5,000 to 6,000 passenger planes to be bought from Airbus/Boeing/Embraer until 2040. Hopefully this deal is done on condition that Leap-1C engines will be delivered as COMAC's demands.

Boeing confirms China’s commitment to buy 200 aircraft​

"China’s last order from Boeing dates back to 2017, when Trump went to Beijing at the start of his first White House term.

At that time, it ordered 300 single-aisle and wide-body planes – a mega-deal valued at US$37 billion."

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 
Tomboy

Tomboy

Captain
Registered Member
lcloo said:
Hopefully this deal is done on condition that Leap-1C engines will be delivered as COMAC's demands.
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There is nothing either side could do about it, the entire LEAP series is in shortage and understandably CFM would prioritise major customers like Boeing and Airbus over COMAC when it comes to splitting production capacity, even then Boeing and Airbus are also getting delayed orders on engines.
 
Tomboy

Tomboy

Captain
Registered Member
A.Man said:
I asked AItbout CJ-1000A engine, answer:
Here is the English version of the answer regarding the AECC CJ-1000A engine test hours.

Verification of the "6,000+ Hour" Engine Test Claim

Yes, the claim regarding the 6,000+ hours of testing for the CJ-1000A engine is based on verifiable data.

According to the latest public reports as of May 2026, the engine has accumulated a total of 6,328 hours of rigorous testing (up from 6,142 hours reported earlier this year).

Here is a breakdown of the current status:

1. The Data is Accurate, but Context Matters
The "6,000+ hours" figure comes from extreme durability tests. These include ground tests, flight tests, and 317 specific airworthiness scenarios. The data is considered reliable.

· Flight Testing: The engine completed its maiden flight on a C919 prototype in March 2025.
· Extremes: As of January 2026, it successfully passed high-altitude tests in Golmud, Qinghai (elevation 2,800m) without thrust degradation.

2. Current Timeline (May 2026)
The engine is currently in the final sprint for airworthiness certification.

· Q2 2026 (Expected): Issuance of the Type Certificate (TC) .
· Q3 2026 (Expected): First delivery to China Eastern Airlines for verification flights.
· 2027 (Expected): Issuance of the Production Certificate (PC) and parallel delivery with imported engines.

3. Why Some Remain Cautious

· Definition: The 6,328 hours refers to the total cumulative limit test time for the project, not a single engine running continuously.
· Philosophy: The chief designer has publicly stated, “We would rather be 10 years late than let an immature engine fly.” Therefore, official validation is proceeding very cautiously.

Summary: The report of 6,000+ test hours is a genuine and recent breakthrough. The C919 is now on a month-by-month countdown to receiving its "Chinese heart."
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This is just garage in garage out, it's literally just reading those shitty fake stories on Weibo or whatever English translated clickbait based on those and giving you false info. To my knowledge there are 0 official information about the exact progress of CJ-1000A other than some extremely vague hinting. While some what credible rumors are even saying TC by 2027 is already optimistic and quite alot of things for final certification has not been finalised.
 
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