China tries to break Boeing, Airbus domination with self-made aircraft

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, April 07, 2004

China tries to break Boeing, Airbus domination with self-made aircraft

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China now pins its hopes on ARJ21, (short for Advanced Regional Jet for the 21st century), a self-designed passenger aircraft of the country's own intellectual property rights, to lead its fight against domination by Boeing and Airbus in the aviation industry.

ARJ21 is designed to be a 70-90 seats turbo fan aircraft for civil use, 32.68 meters in length. Its extended model would have 105 seats, 36.06 meters in length. The aircraft is designed for a distance from 1,200 to 3,700 kilometers.

ARJ21 is not a large mainline plane, but its birth means the opening of a new air route over China's sky along which it will fly side by side with Boeing and Airbus planes.

On December 20, 2003, manufacture of ARJ21 was kicked off simultaneously in four plants in Shanghai, Xi'an, Chengdu and Shenyang.

China capable of producing its own "Boeing" and "Airbus"

Unlike earlier planes jointly developed with foreign countries, such as Brazil, ARJ21 is a completely China designed airplane, experts said.

Although a regional jet, ARJ21 is of a higher grade that lies between feeder and mainline jets. Since it adopts general equipment of mainline jets, such as Boeing 737, its designing work is more difficult because it's harder to put equipment of the same size for large aircraft into a smaller one.

As for whether China is now capable of designing mainline aircraft, aviation expert Zhou Jisheng said in a very affirmative tone, "China is now able to make large mainline aircraft, on top of designing, China can also produce and manage mainline aircraft after cooperation with Mcdonnell Douglas on MD90. This problem has been solved".

"With the ability to produce ARJ21, we can make 150-seats single-passage aircraft like Boeing 737. If China is determined to leap further, plane like Boeing 767 (250-300 seats, narrow-bodied, single passage with seven seats in one row) is also possible. But those like Boeing 747 (broad-bodied, 10 seats in one row) is currently quite difficult for our country".

Not resigned to domination of China's market by foreign brands

The ARJ project receives support from all quarters, said Zhou. "This represents the main trend of conscience and love for the country, because people are not reconciled to domination of the Chinese market all by foreign brands. Besides, ARJ is competitive in terms of price".

"Through our market survey we found that the post-sale service of MD82 and MD90 is very good, but it's too pricey. An overhaul to a large Boeing aircraft needs more than 100 million yuan, so our airlines are also looking forward to home-made planes", another expert Zhao Guoqiang added.

"Production of ARJ is only a start. You cannot depend on the project alone to lift the whole aviation industry out of difficulties. But if ARJ turns out to be of good performance and enjoys brisk markets, we can say the industry has taken a big step forward", said Gao Liang, a noted economist in Beijing.

Civil aviation is a strategic industry of high input, high risk, high tech, long period and slow returns, so we cannot expect immediate benefits, Zhao pointed out.

By People's Daily Online

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