How will China's new airliner fair?

[gustafson]

Fun how people act like US airlines are necessary for the Chinese to make money on a plane
THey can probably make money for a decade or more just selling to their domestic customers
Imagine if the only available airframes came from China, what would politicians be doing here? Working to create their own.

 

[standardparts]

A couple of major differences in culture though. The Japanese are a more honorable people, take immense self-and-team pride in their work, and compete vigorously but honestly.

Chinese culture is different; they want to win at all costs, and cutting corners or being somewhat dishonest is not deemed an issue as long as the results are gained.

I doubt the US FAA will ever approve a Chinese airliner. And as cheap as Americans are, I doubt many would want to fly on one.

ToolCat

"And as cheap as Americans are, I doubt many would want to fly on one."

For the most part, yes Americans are "frugal", and it's a proven fact they buy airline tickets based on price, not service. Besides, type of aircraft on the ticket is not mandatory and most people would have no clue.

 

[triumph406]

Actually, all of that knowledge is readily available, no need for theft. Boeing does not have a patent on air. And McDonnell-Douglas had contractors building large assemblies for them in the northeast at least twenty-five years ago; they probably didn't just quit when MickeyD went bellyup.

We used to gossip in that walkaround area in the aft section of a 747.

That was the good old dayes, times have changed, they don't actually need us anymore, you have no idea what china factories look like these days.

And oh yeah, I've been in shops that are joint ventures with pratt & whitney. Not the big engines but commuter jet size.

Nobody has to "steal" anything. Just give the job to guys already doing it for foreign companies.

BS, that knowledge is not readily availible. The shape and charachteristices of the wing are not public knowledge. 3rd part suppliers to Boeing,aAirbus etc may have the shape and details of a Wing or other component. But they will be covered by NDA's, and will be considered proprietary information.

For another supplier or manufacturer to get information, in this case Chinese, they have to STEAL it. Nobodies going to hand over what is in effect intellectual property.

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On the other hand you could be stupid and for a paltry cost and give away information.

Hawker was well known for being the best wing designers.

Raytheon bought the division that included the designers of the wings to jump start their small aviation passenger jet division. They also got all the know how to build carbon fiber wings from Hawker.

The Raytheon Engineers were extremely pissed because Raytheon went into a partner ship with Mitsubishi to build the wings for the passenger jet. As part of the deal Mitsubishi bought into the partnership. For what seemed a small investment (can't remember what Mitsubishi paid, this happened mid 90's) Raytheon gave Mitsubishi the wing shape, aerfoil, the structure and the knowledge to build CF wings etc etc. Knowledge that had been generated at Hawkers over decades. Just given away for a paltry value.

 

[standardparts]

BS, that knowledge is not readily availible. The shape and charachteristices of the wing are not public knowledge. 3rd part suppliers to Boeing,aAirbus etc may have the shape and details of a Wing or other component. But they will be covered by NDA's, and will be considered proprietary information.

For another supplier or manufacturer to get information, in this case Chinese, they have to STEAL it. Nobodies going to hand over what is in effect intellectual property.

----------------------------------------------------------

On the other hand you could be stupid and for a paltry cost and give away information.

Hawker was well known for being the best wing designers.

Raytheon bought the division that included the designers of the wings to jump start their small aviation passenger jet division. They also got all the know how to build carbon fiber wings from Hawker.

The Raytheon Engineers were extremely pissed because Raytheon went into a partner ship with Mitsubishi to build the wings for the passenger jet. As part of the deal Mitsubishi bought into the partnership. For what seemed a small investment (can't remember what Mitsubishi paid, this happened mid 90's) Raytheon gave Mitsubishi the wing shape, aerfoil, the structure and the knowledge to build CF wings etc etc. Knowledge that had been generated at Hawkers over decades. Just given away for a paltry value.

"The shape and charachteristices of the wing are not public knowledge."
Maybe-Maybe no. You could always borrow or purchase a specific type and reverse engineer the wing. At least the shape, airfoil, and control layouts. If your really determined, if available purchase the type you wish to autopsy and take it apart.

What was the lineage to the Hawker? Beech-then Raytheon-then Hawker? Lots of technology transfer going on I would imagine. Raytheon rode the Starship debacle all the way down but there were some huge autoclaves doing Starship work as well as some C17(?) stuff at the time so wonder if there were not lesson in carbon fiber aerospace applications not learned.

 

[Rob F.]

While China may have rep on certain manufacturing quality, my take is they were quite serious on infrastructure, and transportation in particular.

Its kind of sad how people still associate cheap consumer goods with chinas ability to make quality stuff. The corporate buyers for places like wallmart, etc ask if this item can be made for this lower price. The manufacturing facility figures out to cheapen it up to meet the price requirement and still have the item function or at least a short while. The low quality crap we get here is not because they can not make quality stuff, it is because the corporate culture wont pay for quality products so the only things they will pay for is "cheap"
Japan used to be in this boat, I remember as a kid that if we got a toy that said made in japan it was best to just get rid of it before it broke, they were just garbage.

 

[plastikdreams]

And the turbines are only at the level they are because of significant collaboration between Royce, PW, Orenda et al. To start from scratch is a corpo suicide mission. Standing on the shoulders of giants and all that.

Too bad the old-boy OEM’s are too busy circle jerking with the FAA insiders on their mountains of cash. Let’s hope some competition forces some competent innovation (not MAX innovation).

Rr ge p&w cfm etc keep me employed

 

[triumph406]

"The shape and charachteristices of the wing are not public knowledge."
Maybe-Maybe no. You could always borrow or purchase a specific type and reverse engineer the wing. At least the shape, airfoil, and control layouts. If your really determined, if available purchase the type you wish to autopsy and take it apart.

What was the lineage to the Hawker? Beech-then Raytheon-then Hawker? Lots of technology transfer going on I would imagine. Raytheon rode the Starship debacle all the way down but there were some huge autoclaves doing Starship work as well as some C17(?) stuff at the time so wonder if there were not lesson in carbon fiber aerospace applications not learned.

Yea of course that could be done, and with a lot industries is done everyday. Again you have to go out and scan a wing and do the reverse engineering. In effect your stealing some body elses hard earned effort. Doesn't mean you understand what your measuring though.

What was the lineage to the Hawker? Beech-then Raytheon-then Hawker?

Hawker came first, then acquired by Raytheon.

Beech was acquired by Raytheon, don't know if there's any connection. Beech Starship certainly an epic commercial disaster

. Raytheon rode the Starship debacle all the way down

Raytheon made the mistake of acquiring Beech and the starship. What the Raytheon Engineers I knew said, Burt Ruttan might have designed small succesful planes, but he didn't know how to scale up his designs to a small passenger plane scale. They thought Burt Ruttan was highly overated in his abilities.

Burt Ruttan didn't believe in wind tunnel testing.

 

[plastikdreams]

Rr ge p&w cfm etc keep me employed

And you can get fired for so much as having a cell phone out on the shop floor...especially since we do government engine parts. Certain machines get tarped when they are worked on by outside vendors...basically the machine is tarped all around it and the workers are escorted in and out with a representative there at all times...craziness

 

[Bill D]

The soviets made the TU-4 as an exact copy of a boeing B-29 forced to land in the soviet union during ww2. Exact including patched bullet holes and the boeing "B" cast into the rudder pedals.
Bill D

 

[triumph406]

"The shape and charachteristices of the wing are not public knowledge."
Maybe-Maybe no. You could always borrow or purchase a specific type and reverse engineer the wing. At least the shape, airfoil, and control layouts. If your really determined, if available purchase the type you wish to autopsy and take it apart.

My memory is shot to hell. I was showering last night when I remembered a 767 project I worked on 20 or so years ago.

There were/are plenty of surplus 767's. So the thought was to convert from passenger to freighter configuration.. There was company who were going to make this conversion. they couldn't get any loads data from Boeing. Not surprisisng as Boeing would have spent 1000's of hours in the wind tunnel (@$1500-$5000/hr) on testing, so theur unlikely to want to provide the data.

So the customer scanned a 767. Scanned the hingelines of all the control surfaces, scanned all the surfaces in their various positions. And then modified the scans to go from a geometry set influenced by gravity, to a shape that reflected a flying condition.

This had to be done as the FAA requires Wind Tunel testing to provide loads data to be able to calculate forces on the plane. Specifically the forward fuselage that was going to be modified with a large cargo door.

Not sure if any freighter conversions were made by this company, but there are others who do

 

[standardparts]

My memory is shot to hell. I was showering last night when I remembered a 767 project I worked on 20 or so years ago.

There were/are plenty of surplus 767's. So the thought was to convert from passenger to freighter configuration.. There was company who were going to make this conversion. they couldn't get any loads data from Boeing. Not surprisisng as Boeing would have spent 1000's of hours in the wind tunnel (@$1500-$5000/hr) on testing, so theur unlikely to want to provide the data.

So the customer scanned a 767. Scanned the hingelines of all the control surfaces, scanned all the surfaces in their various positions. And then modified the scans to go from a geometry set influenced by gravity, to a shape that reflected a flying condition.

This had to be done as the FAA requires Wind Tunel testing to provide loads data to be able to calculate forces on the plane. Specifically the forward fuselage that was going to be modified with a large cargo door.

Not sure if any freighter conversions were made by this company, but there are others who do

Watched a few vids (link below) about COMAC and China's past attempts to enter the commercial airliner market. Many years ago, according the vid, they reverse engineered a B707 from recovered wreck parts, which did not turn out well.
Some of the vid content seems a bit off but other parts make sense and no doubt explain a lot about China's route to commercial aircraft production. Hard to tell how much of any of these videos are accurate and how much is pitching some sort of spin/propaganda. (using a pic of a model kind of raises questions)

Thinking about the whole deal, by granting export licenses for all the critical systems required the United States seems not to concerned about China producing commercial aircraft--which is sort of odd considering that many of the systems they are buying most probably used in military applications.

Anyway--check out some of the guys other videos...he goes into detail regarding Mitsubishi's failed attempt which illustrates getting an aircraft certified might be the biggest part of the battle.

 

[ghost of christmas past]

Watched a few vids (link below) about COMAC and China's past attempts

I got as far as him saying that the plane only had an hour's flight duration due to being made of "heavier aluminum" and kind of threw up in my mouth.

Now if he really knew his stuff, he'd know that it should have been aricraft quality military grade billet, then it would have been light enough.

There ARE thousands of people dying in hospitals, though, unless the Chinese government can't be believed either.

Nope. These days you have to read very carefully.

There are something like 10 million deaths per year in China. That makes about 880,000 per month. What the government said was that about 60,000 of them tested positive for the current covid. That would be approximately 7%.

What they did not say was, there were 60,000 more deaths than usual that month. What the gubbermint actually said was, of the 900,000 people who died this last month, 60,000 had covid. But they did not say they died of it.

On a personal note, everyone I know has now had it. Starting in maybe late november ? EVERYONE got it. I even did. About four days feeling icky in bed. I didn't get aches and pains, some people did. Mostly what I got was a sore throat and a low-grade fever. Didn't even throw up (thank god, I hate that). Everyone I know got it, within about three weeks. Went through here like shit through a tin horn. Luckily it's not the same as it was three years ago or we'd mostly be dead. Me for sure, I guess I'm old. The mirror claims that anyhow.


For some reason it fits the current propaganda campaign to infer that millions of people are dying every day in China from covid, and they are hiding it. I do not know what this is intended to achieve but it's not true.

Something you probaly do not know : at this time there are NO journalists in China. They have not started issuing J visas again. J is for journalist. So all those bylines BEIJING are an outright lie.

And think for another second, if someone were to sneak around on the wrong visa and attempt to interview people or take photos in a hospital (how long do you thin people would allow that ? Of rooms full of dying people ? yeah right, just try it) they'd be deported before you could write your name in the snow.

Okay, I do not expect anyone to believe me on faith. A few days ago I went the long way to the yoga place (girl friend is addicted) and took some photos of different hospitals (there's a lot, 26 million people in the city). Huashan hospital (you can look it up maybe ? it's kind of famous), then the children's hospital on nanjing lu, then the district hospital a couple blocks farther down the road and another one over south of plaza 66. Here is front door to huashan



jing'an clinic counter



childrens



jing'an district hospital



and this one is over on julu lu, close to shaanxi lu



No people.

So. Why are they lying through their teeth ? I have no idea. Straight out discredit china ? No one can prove them wrong at the moment, so they can say whatever they want ?

I don't know the backstory but I do know they are full of shit. Look at the photos.

Friday is new years, the place is getting kind of excited, feels pretty happy, most of the country people already left for the villages, hard to get snacks, all the little stores closed for the holiday, lots of activity, fun. No, there's NOT "thousands of people dying", the morgues are NOT "overlfowing", what can I say ? It's the same crap as Amnesty International pulled with the Iraqi army throwing babies out of incubators, except that girl not only didn't work there but had never even been ?

Outright lies. What can I say ? Believe them or believe your eyes. If you don't believe, say what you want, if it's within a decent walk I'll take whatever photo you want (that's not an invasion of privacy).

 

[Freedommachine]

So. Why are they lying through their teeth ? I have no idea.

More importantly; what else are they lying about?

Does the Chinese gov lie to their people this much? Or do they just not talk about things they feel people do not need to know?

900,000 people dying in a month sounds like a massive number on it's own. Maybe that's normal when factoring in birth rates and total population?

Either way, I'm glad to see you were able to make it back to the place you want to be.

 

[jaguar36]

~~~~~~~Mod Note~~~~~~~~~
Folks, lets try to keep this conversation pertinent to the topic at hand (the Comac C919) , and not start arguing if or how much various governments are lying to their populace, about covid or anything else.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[adammil1]

Intellectual property theft is nothing for this aircraft we are teaching them! My company sold a lot of equipment to an Eaton joint venture to make aircraft pumps and other various parts over in China. No doubt the technology will be easily stolen! Furthermore some of the other quirks in the Chinese system is that when you go to certify aircraft parts and pieces to fly in China, not only do you need to show the test data like you do in for EASA (European equivalent of the FAA) I'm also told by people who've gone through the process that for the Chinese you need to also turn over your manufacturing process sheets, source code, blueprints and basically anything else you need to make it in China. Apparently many of the American manufacturers have been doing this for years in order to get the Chinese business. How's that going to wind up for us?

Lastly I do a lot of work in one of the big US-based

 

[adammil1]

Oops hit the wrong button and now I can't edit the post above. But the other point I was trying to make I do a lot of work with one of the major parts components manufacturers here in Connecticut. Fully unionized shop average machine operator takes home probably about 150K a year easily when when pay tops out around $40+ an hour but the guys also slow walk everything so that they're there every Saturday and Sunday on time and a half and double time making up for loss production.

I suspect for the price they pay for one unionized guy here in Connecticut China can probably man an entire shop with. So it's going to be interesting I think the Chinese are probably stolen and or been trained by the Americans on almost all the skills they need to make this thing a success. Combine that with a lower cost of labor and tons of government money this thing is a huge threat to the American/European aerospace manufacturers. Lastly let's face it after the 737 max debacle Boeing's global reputation for safe flight is nothing stellar.

One last thought on this years back I recall landing for transfer flight in Guangzhou airport on my way back from Singapore. I recall looking around at the entire airfield and realizing that all the airplanes were either Airbus or Boeing i.e nothing Chinese. In the land that makes everything today this must really piss off Chinese leadership. I have a sad feeling that the aerospace industry in this country long since somewhat insulated from Chinese competition is about to feel what every other industry has felt from China before.

 

[standardparts]

Intellectual property theft is nothing for this aircraft we are teaching them! My company sold a lot of equipment to an Eaton joint venture to make aircraft pumps and other various parts over in China. No doubt the technology will be easily stolen! Furthermore some of the other quirks in the Chinese system is that when you go to certify aircraft parts and pieces to fly in China, not only do you need to show the test data like you do in for EASA (European equivalent of the FAA) I'm also told by people who've gone through the process that for the Chinese you need to also turn over your manufacturing process sheets, source code, blueprints and basically anything else you need to make it in China. Apparently many of the American manufacturers have been doing this for years in order to get the Chinese business. How's that going to wind up for us?

Lastly I do a lot of work in one of the big US-based

China is going to buy engines, landing gear, and electronics to make their airliner possible with a chance at certification. Likely all the engines/pieces/parts they have U.S. approval to import are much the same as Boeing and Airbus is using.
So.....You can bet that if Boeing or Airbus wanted to stop China (COMAC) in their tracks they would block their suppliers from working with COMAC.
For now the upside is it will mean some jobs in the U.S. and EU. Down the road?---who knows.

 

[adammil1]

Do you really think the Chinese airlines will perform the required maintenance intervals on the engines as specified by the OEMs? I doubt it. Engines do not last forever.

GAMECO shops in Guangzhou are top notch I believe they brought in a British guy to set them up. Today they do maintenance for many of the world's airlines including some American ones too, so yes like everything else the Chinese are coming up to speed or are there.

 

[mikeylikesit]

so mostly everything china makes is a dead nuts copy of someone elses stuff ? seems they discovered gun powder some 1100yrs ago but since then what have they done

 

[ghost of christmas past]

seems they discovered gun powder some 1100yrs ago but since then what have they done

Well, they invented the toothbrush but since you don't own one, I guess that doesn't count ...