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The first plane produced by a Chinese government initiative to compete in the market for large passenger jetliners has been unveiled in Shanghai.
The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) showed off its twin-engine C919 in a ceremony on Monday attended by some 4,000 government officials and other guests at a hangar near the Pudong International Airport.
For China, the plane represents at least seven years of efforts in a state-mandated drive to reduce dependence on European consortium Airbus and Boeing of the United States, and even compete against them.
"China's air transport industry cannot completely rely on imports. A great nation must have its own large commercial aircraft," the country's civil aviation chief Li Jiaxiang told an audience of government and industry officials.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mendax on Tuesday November 03 2015, @09:05PM
The 787 hasn't done too badly. The 707 had lots of problems when it was first introduced. A quick check of the aviation-safety.net database shows 11 fatal incidents between 1959 and 1964 with 699 fatalities (if I added up the numbers right). Several of these accidents are due to pilot errors, as pilots were still acquiring experience with jet aircraft, but some were due to bugs in the design. In later years these bugs continued to crop up, resulting in fatalities.
As I recall, there has not been a single crash of a 787 since it has been in service. Problems? Sure, like the battery problems that Boeing has since rectified.
There is something that is important to recognize in the aviation industry: It learns from its mistakes. As a result, Boeing has been able to build highly reliable planes, albeit built on the dead bodies of the people killed in the accidents through which it learned about its mistakes. The track record of the Boeing 777 I think proves my point. Only one hull loss due to a proven defect in the design of the aircraft itself--no fatalities. Not bad. (Russian missiles, suicidal pilots, fires on the ground, or uncontained engine failures don't count.)
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.