Apologies, clumsy fingers again. But be patient, at some a point a real post may appear.
Look out Boeing and Airbus - you're domination of Aviation may soon be over
by fulltimestudent 26 Replies latest social current
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coalize
I hope you don't think that Dassault will overtake thes two monsters !
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fulltimestudent
In May this year I posted on the development of a Chinese civil aircraft industry.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/social/current/284360/1/Do-you-fly-in-a-Chinese-Assembled-plane
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Even then, but particularly since there has been, in the west, a concerted anti-Russian media campaign. This has had the affect of forcing the Russians to turn east toward Asia, in particular India and China.
Instead of selling energy to Europe, they are clearly intending to make developing Asian economies their main market.
And, in recent developments have decided to work with China in developing civil aircraft. The Russians have excellent aeronautical engineers, their latest fighters may well outclass the F.35's that the USA has been struggling to get into full production. Additionally their very large freight plane the An-124 (similar to the Globemaster) and the still larger An-225 indicate a sophistication in airframe design that would be neccessary for the joint development of a successful civil aircraft series.
Think, Russian aeronautical engineering design experience +Chinese production skills + Chinese finance = the end of either Boeing or Airbus.
Here's some detail:
2.11.2014 14:02
China, Russia Near Deal for Wide-Body Aircraft
With dreams of rivaling Airbus and Boeing, China and Russia are moving toward joint development of a new jumbo jet By staff reporter Yu DaweiPhoto: A Chinese made Military Transport.(Beijing) —Russian and Chinese aircraft manufacturers are preparing to cooperate to help China meet soaring demand for new jumbo jets without kowtowing to industry heavyweights Airbus and Boeing.
Aviation industry officials on the sidelines of the recent Zhuhai Air Show in southern China told Caixin that the Chinese and Russian governments have agreed to cooperate on jumbo jet development, including wide-body aircraft design, research and manufacturing. Negotiations between aviation sector representatives from the two sides are still under way, but officials said they expect a final agreement to be announced next year.
Key parties for the potential deal would be state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China (Comac) and Russia's state-owned United Aircraft Corp. (UAC)
Not invited to the negotiating table were the companies that now dominate the world's jumbo jet manufacturing industry – Europe's Airbus and America's Boeing. These companies are currently among the only choices available to Chinese airlines looking to modernize or expand their fleets of long-distance, big-load aircraft.
Chinese airlines currently fly Airbus A340, A350 and A380 jets, as well as Boeing 777 and 787 models. These wide-body aircraft are commonly reserved for long distance flight and can accommodate at least 200 passengers, and as many as 800. They're also more fuel- and cost-efficient to operate than smaller passenger jets.
Chinese airlines currently fly about 170 jumbo jets combined, but will need to add at least 1,000 new, wide-body aircraft over the next 20 years to meeting rising demand for long-distance air travel, according to a Boeing report.
Some demand for new aircraft is expected to be met by China's homegrown C919, a narrow-body family of Comac passenger jets currently under development. These models are designed carry between 158 and 174 passengers, thus rivaling the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 medium-range jets.
The first, air-worthy C919 model is expected to take its first test flight in late 2015. Meanwhile, Comac has made it to the research stage of a project for an all-new wide-body aircraft that's currently called C929.
The production plan of C929 was first mentioned in 2009, when Shanghai officials released an aviation industry development report describing city plans to expand aviation manufacturing capacity to 230 aircraft annually, including 150 C919 and 30 C929 aircraft.
More recently, on November 7, the French news agency Agence France Presse said C929 production would likely begin in 2023. According to a Chinese aviation executive quoted in the report, Chia wants to begin the wide-boy aircraft production within 10 years.
So far, however, the C929 is only on paper. But China is keen to develop its own, wide-body passenger aircraft to compete with the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380. And that's apparently why Comac officials have been eyeing a cooperation agreement with Russia.
Step by Step
The first, definitive step toward a Chinese-Russian deal came last May, when Comac and UAC officials signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to jointly conduct research into wide-body, long-range passenger aircraft.
The next step came in September with an announcement by Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. He said the two countries planned to sign a contract for joint development of wide-body aircraft in October.
October came and went without a contract signing. However, Comac Chairman Jin Zhuanglong said October 19 that the China-Russia research project would be launched in 2015.
China wants jumbo jets but doesn't want to pay relatively high, Airbus-Boeing prices. A single 787, for example, can cost about US$ 200 million.
The Chinese government would also like to see its domestic aviation industry benefit from the kind of supply chain that would emerge to support homegrown jumbo jet manufacturing. Development of this niche industry would complement the country's emerging manufacturing base for narrow-body aircraft such as the C919. Eventually, China wants to see its passenger jets of all sizes accepted and flying around the world.
China's domestic civil aviation sector has been gradually phasing out small aircraft with fewer than 120 seats in favor of larger jets that can carry up to 250 passengers, according to Yang Yang, who heads Comac's market research division.
Thus, Yang said, the outlook is bright for the C919 and sets the stage for Comac's expansion into jumbo jets.
Agreeing with Wang is Dang Tiehong, Comac's deputy director of marketing, who told Caixin that wide-body aircraft will be an important aviation sector segment in the future. For now, though, Dang said uncertainties have forced Comac to move slowly toward launching a jumbo jet project.
To complement talks with the Russians, for example, Comac recently completed a study on wide-body aircraft production and submitted it to government authorities for review.
Reviving the Dream
Russia has long sought a role in China's aircraft development. In 2005, for example, a Russian aviation official expressed hopes that his country could cooperate with China in the research and development surrounding UAC's Irkut MC21 family of narrow-body passenger jets, which Russian airlines are flying today.
Then in 2012, officials at the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade signaled a willingness to work closely with China's aviation industry. Moreover, Russia's media that year reported that Comac and UAC would work together on a wide-body aircraft based on Russia's now-scrapped Ilyushin IL-96 model passenger jet.
The IL-96, which went into service in 1993, can carry up to 300 passengers on a flight of up to 11,500 kilometers, which makes it comparable to the Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 models. Later, though, the IL-96 was declared an aircraft with two many flaws and unfit for the world market. So the airliner was pulled off the market.
Russia had planned to improve the IL-96 by equipping it with more advanced, efficient engines. These plans never got off the ground, however, due to a lack of funding.
A cooperation project with China could revive the IL-96 dream. A UAC representative told Caixin that Russia would like to work with China on wide-body aircraft development based on the IL-96 model and fitted with engines made in Russia.
But there's no guarantee China would agree to a project based on the IL-96. One skeptic of such a project is Shen Kezheng, an aviation expert with Guangdong Changsheng Aircraft Design Co. who has worked on Chinese aircraft development projects.
Shen told Caixin that the IL-96 may lack the technological features needed for an aircraft to compete on the international market. For example, it's an all-metal aircraft, whereas the equivalent, 250-seat Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 are more than 50 percent composite materials.
In Shen's opinion, the proposed China-Russia cooperation would focus on a wide-body jet with about 250 seats. But to compete against Boeing and Airbus, he said, it should be built with composites. And Chinese authorities prefer non-Russian engines made by companies such as Rolls-Royce, General Electric and Pratt & Whitney.
"Russia doesn't possess advanced technology for large aircraft," said Shen. "But from Russia's perspective, upgrading a mature model (such as the IL-96) will save money. The question is whether China would be willing to do it."
A Chinese aviation industry source said China wants only the best engines, while Russia is interested in supporting its own engine-manufacturing industry. "For civil aircraft manufacturing, we shouldn't think about using our own stuff but the world's best," the source said.
Russia's aviation technology is world-class in most areas except civilian aircraft engines, said Ni Jingang, development department director at China's AVIC Commercial Aviation Engine Co.
Moreover, according to some industry analysts, China would also like to cooperate with Russia on projects involving heavy-duty helicopter technologies. But Russia's main interest is wide-body aircraft.
"Russia will not give away" technology, Shen said. "There are questions about whether they'll use the IL-96 plan as a condition (for any agreement), and whether China will accept it."
Complementary Partners
At the Zhuhai show, the Chinese Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xu Dazhe declared, "China will accelerate its development of large aircraft and heavy helicopters, and develop wide-body aircraft at the proper time."
An aviation source told Caixin that China and Russia's pending partnership in developing wide-body aircraft would focus on products that could be on the market after 2020, including a model that with long-range capacity and double aisles to compete with Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350.
AVIC's Ni said engines for such a wide-body aircraft could be based on an entirely new design, adding that his company is discussing possible cooperation agreements with overseas companies about using their advanced technologies in China's future engine development projects.
But the tone of the Russia-China aircraft relationship would likely differ from China's experience with Western aviation companies.
Liu Gongshi, a senior adviser for the China Air Transport Association, said that although many European and U.S. aviation companies have moved aircraft part or equipment production facilities to China, they have not transferred their core technologies to Chinese plants.
Before attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in Beijing in November, Russia's Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov struck a friendly tone in announcing key agreements with China.
Manturov said China and Russia in June had completed preliminary studies on a wide-body aircraft project. Those studies set the stage for the cooperation plans now being drafted.
Manturov also said UAC and Comac in September had finished work on a business plan for manufacturing wide-body aircraft, and then had submitted these proposals to government authorities in each country.
Manturov also said that Russian and Chinese helicopter manufacturers had entered talks focusing on future helicopter project cooperation. These talks had followed an agreement signed in September for the formation of a strategic partnership.
"Both China and Russia have huge demand for wide-body aircraft," Liu said. "It will cost tens of billions U.S. dollars for Russia to work on it alone. Russia has technology and China has money.
"The partnership will be complementary."
(Rewritten by Han Wei)
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zeb
What is the freight or seat capacity please?
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prologos
Airbus is weighing the necessity to cancel or thin out, slow down the production of the A 380 800 seat super carrier. The somewhat dictatorial regimes in Russia and China could make such planes viable by fiat. (not the little car).
This new oriental industry is a good idea for cheaper air travel, but when I get on a plane I want to be served with the best and that why Aeroflot, Cathay Pacific, other Oriental carriers buy Boeing, Airbus, so far.
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Zordino
So you think people will be willing to fly on a Chinese made jet liner? Think again. It's a pipe dream to think they will over take the large North American and European Aviation companies. Russian/Chinese flying death traps aren't a viable option. I wouldn't take my family on one of those jets even if they paid me 100 million dollars!
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Heartofaboy
Nor me Zordi.......... all made of fake chinese parts.
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prologos
Of course NASA personell flies soyus.
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DJS
Competition is a good thing. We shall see what this symbiotic Russian/Chinese deal can do. These two are playing nice together right now; that's got to be great for the planet in the long run - assuming world domination militarily speaking isn't on the horizon! Then it could get ugly.
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fulltimestudent
zeb: What is the freight or seat capacity please?
Havn't found the Chinese plane's data yet, but the latest version of the Russian plane (in 2008). the AN-124-150 has a maximum load of 150 tonnes plus 88 passengers.
It's rather interesting that NATO, (who could of course, have access to C-17s) have chartered six AN-124-150's
A single working example of another variant, the Antonov An-225 Mriya is generally acknowledged as the world's largest working aircraft, and is currently flying on various heavy-lift commercial assignments.
Here's a pik of it carrying a Soviet era space craft.
Photo: A Chinese made Military Transport.