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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Just after 06:00 GMT, the first C919 rolled down and off a runway at Shanghai Pudong airport, to the sounds of applause of onlookers and plenty of senior officials who showed up to celebrate a milestone for Chinese industry.It touched down 75 minutes later after a successful flight.
The C919 is a competitor for Airbus' A320 and Boeing's 737 and will offer configurations of between 158 and 172 seats. The single-aisle twin jet will have a range of up to 5,500 km.
Built by the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), the plane has taken nine years to get off the drawing board and into the air. COMAC's secured 99 firm orders for the plane, which is expected to enter service in the year 2020.
[...] There's nothing revolutionary about the C919 that you won't find in other airliners. But China's always keen to show it can match anyone when it comes to high technology, if only because politics and national pride demands that the nation be able to show it can meet its own needs.
[...] Plenty of nations worry that China's state-owned enterprises don't have to worry about little things like making a profit, which is felt to give them an unfair advantage. A story today in state-owned organ Xinhua headlined "China-made C919 no challenge to Boeing, Airbus dominance" therefore looks like a deliberate attempt to douse such worries.
But plane-makers everywhere will know that if the C919 proves a worthy rival, it will win orders because demand for this class of plane is high. Boeing and Airbus each have backlogs of thousands of their own single-aisle planes and struggle to increase production. Demand for C919-class planes is also expected to just keep climbing as flying becomes more affordable and more people around the world become prosperous enough to afford air travel, so a new entrant has a chance to cash in.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 08 2017, @01:59PM (2 children)
For all we know, the aircraft skin is fried wonton wrappers and the hydraulic fluid is sweet and sour sauce.
Somewhat more seriously I'd worry about the walmart effect where stuff that falls off the assembly line and fails QA/QC gets sent to walmart, now what happens when some AN4-10 bolt (which is vaguely like a home depot 1/4 dia 1 inch long bolt... kinda) fails heat treat and gets kicked off the line and into some Chinese plane? I mean you know thats what they do with food and clothes...
Something I find slightly amusing although off topic is people like to claim aerospace stuff is expensive but big box retailers have mastered screwing (ahem) over retail customers such that a single aerospace qualified AN4-10 cad plate undrilled from AS&S is precisely 23 cents qty 1. Vs Home depot selling a 1/4x2 zinc plate (not cad) bolt made of mystery metal for 20 cents qty 1. Mythology would have you believe aerospace bolts cost $5 each and hardware store is 5 cents and the only difference is insurance but it turns out there's a lot more different than insurance but the costs are surprisingly similar and the quality is infinitely higher for aerospace hardware. So I have a AN4-10 helping hold my kids basketball hoop together replacing a missing bolt and I don't feel all that guilty about it. I've gotten to the point in my life where torquing off the head of home depot bolts is no longer entertaining and I don't mind paying an extra 3 cents on a 30 minute repair job.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @03:52PM
The failed bolts only go into the exported planes.
I've had the bolt problem since the '70s when Japanese cars started to proliferate. My reference is to say the bolts are made of butter. The bigger frustration was in trying to find a metric bolt to replace it. No matter- SAE bolts would work, and would withstand the extra torque needed to make them fit. :-}
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 08 2017, @04:57PM
So it's just to head of to AS&S and get quality?