[Redline6800]

This is a very enjoyable discussion for sure

I feel that that the milestone years can be set at 2035 and 2050.

If China overtakes Russia in aviation (civil or military) in either of these milestone years, with some significant export successes, then it will be a very large achievement indeed.

If it does not achieve the success of Embraer at the very least, it can be considered as a very poor return on the billions of dollars they have invested.

Will China be able to sustain their spending levels over the next 50 years, without profits to reach their ambition - am not so sure. The money often runs out much earlier than we expect.

All Boeing and Airbus had to do, to destroy the Bombardier C Series was lower their prices, which ended up putting Bombardier out of business. They will do the same when faced with Chinese competition.

In terms of single aisle - the technology standard currently is the A220 which was originally built by Bombardier as a clean-sheet design with advanced fly by wire, composite wings, etc and is a truly lovely aeroplane with some great technology.

China will be able to build this type of aeroplane only by 2035, meaning they will continue to be a generation and a half behind the west. If fuel prices increase, then no one will want to buy a less efficient aircraft.

I await China's 'Chetak' to 'Pulsar' moment - it will certainly be a historical event when an Asian nation regains technological ascendancy over the west.

In the military arena, which i primarily cover, China has certainly made giant leaps but the truth behind much of their military technology is often hidden behind smoke and mirrors. The bulk of their equipment however are knock-offs of Russian products or the result of industrial espionage (no bad thing, Israel stole plans of the French Mirage III to build their Kfir).

China's closed nature, makes it hard to understand the true nature of their capability. In the military sector, the Western world is portraying China/Russia as the baddies to secure hard to come by future defence funding.

On a separate note - I do admire China for their single minded determination to achieve what they have now from the disastrous years of the 'Great Leap Forward'.

Was the cost worth in terms of the environmental damage they have done to themselves? They took in all the polluting industry from the west and poisoned their air and waters.

I hope India does not follow a similar path to economic greatness but environmental doom.

[AMG Power]

China has about 175 airports within the country and plans to build another 75 more by 2020. This is an indication of the substantial demand within the country that should to some extent feed the demand for the planes.

China is also estimated to exceed US in terms of number of passengers in about 10+ years. This is not a long cycle in aviation.

Given these conditions this aircraft should do well just catering to internal demand which the government could ensure through protection. From thereon it should not be too difficult to cater to international demand.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

Quick question for the management people here - whatever happened to the rule of three? Valid? Discredited?

Proverbial Exception to?

Jeroen

[Enobarbus]

Originally Posted by Redline6800

Respect in the aviation community cannot be gained by making copycat products of existing western platforms - either in commercial or military aviation.

In short, 2018 saw China and the US move towards a repeat of the Soviet experience: The West goes its own way with aviation, and China creates inferior clones, arriving a generation late. The ARJ21 is an inferior E-Jet/CRJ, two decades late. The C919 is an inferior A320neo, a decade late. The CR929 will be an inferior 787/A35XWB, a decade late. However, since the domestic China market is much larger than the old USSR market, they might be able to make autarky work for some time. At least for single aisles on domestic routes, that is, since twin aisles on international routes would compete with Airbus and Boeings, guaranteeing disaster for Chinese carriers stuck with a CR929."

I am not so sure that the Chinese planes will be that bad.
One aspect to be considered: China is utilizing its financial clout and is quietly acquiring vendors of significance. For example, GKN Aerospace, which is a major supplier of advanced structures to Airbus, is now indirectly owned by China. Other significant acquisitions are completed or are in the process.
Other independent vendors will be more than willing to do business and before you know it, China has a competent Airplane.

China's final products may not be 100% as good as the western ones, but close enough to make China a significant player. Especially considering their captive domestic market.

[roshithr]

Originally Posted by Enobarbus

I am not so sure that the Chinese planes will be that bad.
One aspect to be considered: China is utilizing its financial clout and is quietly acquiring vendors of significance. For example, GKN Aerospace, which is a major supplier of advanced structures to Airbus, is now indirectly owned by China. Other significant acquisitions are completed or are in the process.
Other independent vendors will be more than willing to do business and before you know it, China has a competent Airplane.

China's final products may not be 100% as good as the western ones, but close enough to make China a significant player. Especially considering their captive domestic market.

Hats off to China for at least attempting to compete against the western duopoly. Even if they are unable to sell a single aircraft outside China, the ever growing domestic aerospace market is too big and will be able to cover a few sales; they can show the world how competent are they.

Having a competent product is not everything in the aircraft industry, deliveries, services and the sustaining customer relations is the key for their success.

Chinese companies are acquiring many aerospace companies around the world, but GKNAerospace is still owned by a UK company, Melrose.

[deep_bang]

10 years ago, I would have never imagined a company like OnePlus to actually make a phone that's nearly as good as the iPhone.

20 years ago, when I heard the head of Samsung that they aim to make the best LCd/LED TVs (back when Sony was the market leader), it seemed to be just a CEOs pitch - all noise and no substance.

But changes have happened. The Chinese have failed sometimes, learnt and come back.

I have no doubt that they will be a significant player in the aviation market if they choose to.

Well, BTW isn't that true for India as well - we just haven't chosen to do so....

[sandeepmohan]

China have proved it far too many times for them to be ignored anymore.

They dominate the electronics manufacturing space.

One of the recent Episodes of The Grand Tour features China. It was mind boggling what they have done with their road infrastructure. Its as if they point a finger in one direction and say they will build a road and they do just that. No obstacle can stop them. Off course, I did not like those flash guns but that is a different subject.

They did something similar with their high speed rail infrastructure. They are as good if not better than what the Germans or Japanese build.

You can argue, question, suspect what Huawei Telecom are up to but there is no doubt that they are pretty much the dominant force in the new 5G space.

The Government stands by anything they want to do by themselves. I won't be surprised if they end up building something similar to the iconic Concorde one day.

Originally Posted by Malyaj

They are free to sell it exclusively within China and the domestic numbers may even justify this, but not being held to the high international standards may be detrimental in the long run.

I am pretty sure they will keep this in mind. No point investing so much money and man/woman hours engineering something from scratch if the target audience is going to be just the home market.

[NiXTriX2004]

Having worked In China and on the C919 project in the past, I can assure you that this aircraft will see the light of day. They are burning a lot of money and resources to get it right. This is supposedly the pet project of the Chinese premier Xi Jinping. The Chinese airlines will be forced to buy it and also the countries across Africa and Asia who owe them.
It is based on existing Boeing and Airbus designs, acquired by either hook or crook. Do not underestimate the ruthlessness of the Chinese. All the vendors enlisted for the project are well-known names in the Aviation industry. The technical know-how is not there yet but that shortfall is being bridged by hiring expats for the short term.

[RGK]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Wonderful topic.

Sir, I know that we are decades behind China in manufacturing, but as an optimist, "what are the chances of starting our own manufacturing of commercial planes? Do you think this is feasible in another 10 to 15 years?".

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by RGK

I know that we are decades behind China in manufacturing, but as an optimist, "what are the chances of starting our own manufacturing of commercial planes? Do you think this is feasible in another 10 to 15 years?".

Thank you for your question. The following is only my educated guess. Others on the forum may have more data to arrive at a better guesstimate. We are about 30 to 35 years away from commissioning our first regional jet airliner and about 15 to 20 years away from commissioning our own home designed turbo-prop feeder airliner {let's not have Saras fool us}. That's my educated guess based on my life as a first line vendor to the 2 biggies.

First we'll need to learn how to license build a regional turbo-prop third level airliner + assemble/manufacture, through license, some of the ancillary eco-system needed for some of the structural parts, fastners, seats, cabin fittings, paint, glues, air-con, pressurization systems, actuators, pumps, wiring, hydraulic lines, motors, insulation etc. The big items - engines, avionics and landing gear will remain imported or semi-knocked down for a very very long time. The secret sauce is in the immensely demanding standards imposed by the OEMs - an aircraft is an assembly of a million precision instrument like pieces.

As a country our industry, with a few exceptions, is not used to that degree of quality specifications. The next step would be to work with a friendly OEM to develop the Mark II version of that turbo-prop airliner and learn how to do - design, wind tunnel testing, prototype testing, flight safety assessments etc. 5 years after that we would be ready to design and build our own turbo-prop. Jet will come 10 years later. All this assumes the organization is the best we can put together as a country whether public sector like ISRO or NTPC or private sector. This would be a national enterprise of team work and co-operation like INS Arihant, the nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine or like the achievements of ISRO.

The current crop of HAL and DRDO have some distance to go. It is one thing to design and build a prototype that flies occassionally in controlled conditions with test pilots and quite another to commission an airliner that will reliably fly millions of times, in all kinds of weather, in the hands of thousands of pilots - some good and some only average, be maintained by ordinary ground engineers who will occasionally make mistakes and yet carry the passengers safely 999,999 times in a million.

I hope this is helpful.

[Malyaj]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

It is one thing to design and build a prototype that flies occassionally in controlled conditions with test pilots and quite another to commission an airliner that will reliably fly millions of times, in all kinds of weather, in the hands of thousands of pilots - some good and some only average, be maintained by ordinary ground engineers who will occasionally make mistakes and yet carry the passengers safely 999,999 times in a million.

The above quite sums up what it means to build an airliner.

My 2 cents:

If India is to ever manufacture a successful commercial airliner, it will need a new organization to lead the effort. HAL will simply not do. This is not to discredit them completely, but we need to start without any historical baggage. HAL has too many mandates and we need an organization who’s only mandate for its existence is - “Go and build us a world class airplane”.

We will require manpower, budgets and infrastructure expressly for this purpose and no other. We will need political leaders who are proud that we are on this journey, regardless of who started it. Leaders who will take tough questions on the chin about why a country of poor people needs to spend billions of dollars on a program meant for producing something that the ‘rich’ will use. Leaders who can understand the bigger picture.

I keep getting the government in because I don’t see any company in the private sector having the appetite or investor buy-in for something like this. It’s not just about the ticket size, but also the uncertainty. Aircraft development costs run into billions, and are the opposite of sunk costs. There will always be temptation to, even when the writing is on the wall, to want to go just a little further, simply because ‘we have come so far’.

Companies such as Tata Advanced Systems, Mahindra and even HAL do bits and pieces work for foreign OEMs, primarily as a means to discharge the latter’s offset obligations. But these are jobs with finite investments and mostly secured contracts. I hope these companies can climb the value chain one day and become integrators. In all probability, it will require them to collaborate rather than compete.

I am not a cynic, but history tells us that Aircraft integrators do not spring up from nowhere. In fact more have fallen by the way and not a single new one has emerged. The Russian OEMs have all stopped making passenger aircraft. The present day Airbus is an amalgamation of many companies that merged before it. The industry has seen more consolidation than proliferation and there is a reason for it.

[srh]

OT - I see no point in being hung up on building a commercial aircraft grounds up in India. Especially if it only going to be similarly priced/ over priced as compared to Boeing/ Airbus.

Instead, we need to look at it purely from an economic standpoint. To mitigate the current account deficit arising from imports, can be become a major participant in the (goods and services) supply chains of the big two in terms of value? Can we have an assembly line operated by the big two in India at least for the up to 180 seats category where we leverage our domestic demand and also as a cost effective reliable export base. A better approach would be to collaborate rather than to compete (quite unlike the Chinese approach).

The only space where we should make an indigenous pitch is the really small aircraft up to 40 seats (building on the Saras but involving the private sector)

[CarJunki]

Originally Posted by Malyaj

Companies such as Tata Advanced Systems, Mahindra and even HAL do bits and pieces work for foreign OEMs, primarily as a means to discharge the latter’s offset obligations. But these are jobs with finite investments and mostly secured contracts. I hope these companies can climb the value chain one day and become integrators. In all probability, it will require them to collaborate rather than compete.

Offset obligations are like protected or guaranteed business and in my experience very little futuristic capability building results from these.
This happens not because the people have less skills but management benefiting from such offset has little need to take risks of R&D investments.

[Sutripta]

Africa World Airlines of Ghana about to order two ARJ21 aircraft.
Africa World Airline essentially owned by a Chinese conglomerate.

Regards
Sutripta

[bullrun87]

According to this bloomberg piece, it will be atleast a decade till comac catches up with incumbents. Comac still lacks clearances from the FAA and European Aviation Safety Agency.


https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...-boeing-airbus




"About 60 percent of global air traffic passes through Europe or the U.S., and the two regions will still account for about half of the total by 2037, according to Boeing. As a result, it’s essential for any manufacturer seeking global relevance to get its planes certified as airworthy by the Federal Aviation Administration or European Aviation Safety Agency. 1

Without that piece of paper, aircraft are excluded from swaths of the world’s aviation market. That’s both a near-term problem — removing flexibility for global airlines in how they deploy their fleet — and a long-term one, killing off the bulk of the secondary market that carriers depend on for selling their worn-out aircraft."




"If everything goes to plan, it’s possible to see the C919 getting its paperwork in order before the start of 2022 — but at this rate, a date closer to 2025 would hardly be surprising. At current targeted production rates of around 60 a month for the A320neo and 737 Max, there will already be little shy of 10,000 competing Airbus and Boeing planes in the air by that time, and Boeing’s planned new midsize aircraft could be nearing its first deliveries.

Meanwhile, with maximum ranges about a third less than its competitors and the capacity to carry only about three-quarters of the weight of passengers and cargo, the C919 will be looking a generation out of date. Given it’s largely made of parts from conventional suppliers such as Honeywell International Inc. and General Electric Co., it’s going to be supremely challenging for Comac to find the cost savings necessary to undercut Boeing and Airbus outside China, where airlines will be more or less obliged to support the homegrown hero"