This looks like 321 equivalent, not 320.
It is rather large. Looks like it is going for the top end of the scale - 321 and its Boeing equivalent.
China's first large passenger jet has successfully taken to the skies and then landed again. 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 …
"But the wider aviation industry won't feel competitive pressure, as the C919 includes parts from many established aviation companies"
Indeed - blueprints from Boeing, materials formulae from Airbus, software generously provided free of charge by BAE, who don't even know they did so... this is a Chinese plane, after all...
Do you have solid references to back these statements up, or is it just plain racism?
Given their past efforts in the world of automotive and plant machinery, I'd say it's a fair comment.
Inch-perfect clones of JCB diggers that they were foolish enough to bring to Germany
Don't send any IP to China. Ever. It'll be copied and distributed around the State engineering firms before close of play. Not that it matters - they've probably already got a copy anyway...
That Auto Express article is bizarre. With two or three exceptions of the (the A6, the ersatz Rolls Royce, and possibly the Lifan 330 which is very Mini-like) the Chinese vehicles in the list bear no more than a generic resemblance to the supposed western originals. Apply a collection of currently fashionable styling elements to a vehicle and you will inevitably end up with something that more or less resembles all the other vehicles in that class. The author appears to have merely selected whichever vehicle he thinks is most like the alleged infringer (i.e. whatever Chinese vehicle he could find a picture of) and called it a match. Even the horrible Rolls Royce ripoff really only counts as such because RR effectively owns the category of big square luxury car.
Not that I am denying the Chinese copy. But stylistic copying happens all the time. We call it fashion. The only reason we don't in this case is that we are not yet ready to start copying from the Chinese. But that will happen soon enough and then we'll change our tune.
Strange article indeed. Admittedly, most of those cars take more than inspiration from their "counterparts", lifting entire chunks of styling more or less verbatim - but I don't think any of those cars is an actual, old-fashioned, 1:1 copy of another, to be honest. At least, not any more than "Under Pressure" is identical to "Ice, Ice Baby"...
I worked with a guy who built a carding machine, and a few other bits of textiles plant, talked about whether it was worth patenting and he basically said it would be copied straight away and the patent wasn't worth the money once it reached China, and not much call for them in England.
But at the same time, worth watching these countries they are investing in STEM for a reason.
Not that I am denying the Chinese copy. But stylistic copying happens all the time. We call it fashion.
Maybe it's just me.. but when I think "copy" there's more than just style. How about engineering? The guts that are hidden? If seen more than a few things the Chinese have ripped off that on the surface look "different" yet inside is another story.
Hell... in the laser cutter world, they're ripping each other off. One maker designs a new tube or power supply and two weeks later, there's a bunch of copycat "equivalents" out there.
So why would they treat car and aircraft designs differently?
"...except that biological concepts of "race" have been obsolete for 150 years :)"
So you would also consider that races exists such as "European", "American", "Russian"..... I think not...
Grouping the entire Chinese population into one race, 1 Billion people spread over a very very large area.......
If we no longer consider Biological concepts as being part of what defines a race then the concept of race has no value. Unless of course your definition of race is the one that the "Media" loves to use when calling someone racist.. ie it can mean anything that anyone wants it to mean depending on the situation.. ie Race become a variable ......
"Grouping the entire Chinese population into one race, 1 Billion people spread over a very very large area......."
Not to mention the fact that China is effectively an empire of disparate regions and peoples and has it's own internal "racist" issues.
>In early 2015 I boarded the high speed express train from Nanning to Guangzhou; the service had opened TEN DAYS earlier.
Yeah, reading the page below, you can imagine the envy with which they view British railways...
http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/transportation/the-fastest-train.htm
The Chinese build their high speed rail lines on concrete viaducts. If you saw rust you were looking at older infrastructure. Seriously, how could you see the supports of the bridge carrying the train you were travelling in?
@SundogUK
The Chinese are doing extraordinary things with their rail infrastructure. That's not Chinese government propaganda. I try not to let my dislike of the Chinese regime blind me to the very real achievements of the Chinese as a people and a culture. Adopt that approach and you might save yourself some nasty surprises.
"The Chinese are doing extraordinary things with their rail infrastructure. "
Mostly directly copied from the Germans, French and other first world countries...
"I try not to let my dislike of the Chinese regime blind me to the very real achievements of the Chinese as a people and a culture."
Yes they have achieved a great deal via spying, industrial espionage, etc...
>Yes they have achieved a great deal via spying, industrial espionage, etc...
When China manufactures practically everything in the UK/US high street, industrial espionage isn't really necessary. Pretty sure the UK/US are more than holding their own on the spying front.
>Mostly directly copied from the Germans, French and other first world countries...
Never really understood what is supposed to meant by the 'first world' - but if you mean the West - take a look at who is bankrolling investment and international debt. It's China's money building the new UK nuclear programme, much of HS2 and Osbourne's pet 'The Northern Powerhouse' - they are also the largest US foreign creditor holding over $1 trillion in treasury bonds.
"In early 2015 I boarded the high speed express train from Nanning to Guangzhou; the service had opened TEN DAYS earlier.
There were already substantial amounts of rust showing through the paintwork on the bridge supports along the way."
I see a flaw in your logic there.
Presumably they built all of this BEFORE the service started... Didnt just throw it up the morning that the service started.
So while the service had been operational for 10 days the bridge supports were how old?
In response to the various queries.
The train stops a few times, and slows considerably crossing a couple of rivers; the rust was on the struts holding the trackbed to the concrete pylons; I saw it in several places, including on pylons for a second high speed line that goes off to the North West of Guangzhou - which hadnt been finished at the time.
There was also significant rust on the hand railings and ladders the workers take to get to the pylons (again, I could see them as the train was stopped at a station with a curved section of track ahead).
As to how long the pylons had been there before the service opened; they werent there when I last took the Nanning/Guangzhou train in early 2012; I'd have to check, but I seem to remember being told by my MiL that construction started late 2013; so yes, very fast construction of over 300 miles of track, especially as the UK takes about 25 years to lay 5 miles of track these days.
The train itself was very nice to ride in, and was set up like an airliner, with stewardess's for every carriage dressed almost identically to the Air China Southern flights I often take.
Certainly the 5 hour trip was much nicer than the 12-15 hours the old trains take.
Some of the Chinese high-speed rail tracts have had some issues, yes (cost-cutting and causing the infamous derailment amongst them), but they are at least pushing ahead with high-speed rail (and yes, they demanded to have access to the IP of Bombardier, Siemens and Alstom to build their own trains). We're still faffing about with century-old Victorian infrastructure and tinkering around the edges (that's ultimately what things like London Bridge, Birmingham New Street etc are, tinkering around the edges).
HS2 should help, but even then, we're still just mucking about amongst the incessant moaning from hoi polloi about the costs and how this is just wrong and don't we have other things to worry about and how shitty the railways really are and how those railway companies are all ripoff merchants (despite the margins in the rail business being to the tune of 2%, and the Treasury being the true rip-off merchant in all of it).
It's almost as bad as when CTRL (now known as Highspeed 1) was being built, yet how many moaners are now happy to park up at Ashford or Dartford to catch a Eurostar, or toddle on down to Folkestone to catch a Eurotunnel train across to the continent? Or better yet, catch the high-speed Hitachi Javelin service from Kent into London for work? MANY.
We should be doing what the Chinese have done... invest into our infrastructure and make it more useful for freight and for people. Right now, we're barely keeping it going for commuters.
They spent millions on "renovating" and "improving" New Street station, and all they've done is blow a hole through the floor of the Pallasades, cut a hole in the roof, and turned a train station in to yet another shopping area.
The millions spent and not one carriage of capacity added to the station, yet it's lauded as a great success.
AND DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON THAT VILE STAINLESS STEEL CRAP HANGING OUTSIDE IT.
To be fair, China's safety record on most cars isn't any worse than ours these days.
The manufacturing is good because companies such as Roewe have literally brought the design rights for cars and the entire modern production lines (ie for the Rover 75) and moved it to China lock, stock and barrel to reassemble and continue production, and have kept the design staff in the UK to do design work for their new cars.
They have trouble with the "v", so they changed the name slightly.
As for Chinese air safety, I flew one of Air China Southerns 777's out of Guangzhou in 2014, and have never been so scared in all my life; we had a 4 hour delay in Beijing while they used lump hammers to get a seat back into the upright position, and what felt like a totally broken l/h brake that caused the aircraft to swerve violently right every time the brakes were applied on landing, at Beijing and again in Frankfurt.
You could see how shit scared the cabin crew were every time we came in to land.
Taking off from Beijing was no picnic either, the aircraft cabin was visibly twisting in the air turbulence; I thought it was going to tear in half.
Since then, all my flights into and out of China have either been on Western airlines or Emirates.
"As for Chinese air safety".
According to "The world's safest airlines in 2016 (JACDEC rankings)".
Hainan Airlines was the third safest airline, ahead of both Western airlines and Emirates. Perhaps you are just a bit afraid of foreigners, the unknown.
PS. Wings and cabins twist, like ships or they break. (and the cabin was not Chinese).
Last time I looked CHINA Airlines was near the top of the LEAST safe airlines list (Turkish Airways were at the top of that list).
As for the cabin not being Chinese, I have been in and out of Beijing airport on other 777's and NEVER seen such a severe twist; the overhead storage compartments were moving +/- 10 degrees or more out of true; and I've never, never, ever felt a plane consistently veering off to the edge of the runway every time the brakes were applied; they were obviously dangerously defective, and the whole aircrew knew it - but the plane was still in service.
I went to the airport information desk and told the senor-most airport official they could locate that the aircraft was unsafe, and shouldnt be allowed to leave without the brakes being looked at..
Just because the plane wasnt Chinese doesnt mean it was being maintained to a safe level by the Chinese company operating it. Mistakes get made (look at Concorde - tyres and cockpit windscreen cock-ups), but most employees would not willingly fly an aircraft in such a condition in any western country; after the landing in Beijing, I would expect any western airline to pull the plane out of service at the aircrews report.
PS I've flown Hainan Airlines a few times, old 737s, but spotlessly maintained - at least on the inside. Very smooth flights with soft landings.
I holidayed in Hainan province (just north of Sanya), in 2008, beautiful countryside and beaches; although even then you could see the over-development in many locations around Sanya was starting to spoil the place.
You mean the same moving stairways that caused the massive fire at Kings Cross? You know... the wooden ones (that caught fire from a discarded fag end) because we couldn't be bothered to install steel ones? Yeah. Enough said.
Let the blameless one be the first to cast stones...
... the wooden ones ...
We used to have one of those in the Park St T station in Boston, not too long ago (10 years back?).
Here we are in the 21st century, I thought to myself, and I'm riding along on something that was built in the 19th. Oldest subway system in the US. Piece 'o' history, it is. I suppose it's been replaced by now.
Didn't think of the danger of fire, just amazed that it was still in service (wonder who maintained it and where they got the parts?)
Anything built back then was built to such a standard that I suspect that maintenance probably consists of adding oil and grease rather than replacement of half of the moving components. Nobody would sell spare components of course, you'd just take the existing component to a machine shop and ask nicely for a unbroken part to be machined.
I'd imagine that most commercial airliners could, if you had the guts. Concorde certainly could (about 3 mins in), though of course that 'plane was built more like a fighter jet :-)
M.
Assembled in Canada. Excellent fuel economy.
One thing that needs to be sorted out is the definition of "Dumping". When Boeing gives away aircraft at 65% off the list price, it's not "dumping" only because they didn't cross a border. If Bombardier does something similar, Boeing cries "Dumping!" only because there's a border involved.
If we're going to have free trade, then we can't have companies playing games with borders. In other words, within an integrated trading block such as NAFTA, there should be no such thing as 'dumping'. Else, forget it.
Sukhoi didn't go quiet after the Indonesia crash. The embargoes that were slapped on Russia are the problem. The SSJ is in use by Mexican and Irish airlines... However, given the embargo, this is proving to be 'interesting' for support issues.
The Bombardier CSeries has almost cost the company everything to the point where they're considering selling their train business (merging it with Siemens), but boy are SWISS and airBaltic happy with their examples so far! It'll be a slow burner... like the Embraer E-Jets (which are now practically everywhere).
:-)
Both boeing and airbus could more than likely invest enough to build a production line capable of delivering those aircraft in a more timely manner. They won't because they know they can create artificial scarseness and keep their company reliably working for longer if they they don't.
In any case I probably wouldn't fly on one of these. Because I know how chinese culture works and I know how the aviation safety culture SHOULD work. And the 2 are near polar opposites.
I would be just stupid to underestimate the Chinese, they are supported by a growing huge home market (not 1b but 1.4b) and every C919 they build will be as many off other manufacturers books.
The nine years is not bad at all, the Dreamliner was announced in 2003 with its first flight in 2009 and introduction in 2011.
The number of companies involved in building it is quite interesting too.
"Subcontracted assemblies included wing manufacture (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan, central wing box)[38] horizontal stabilizers (Alenia Aeronautica, Italy; Korea Aerospace Industries, South Korea);[39] fuselage sections (Global Aeronautica, Italy; Boeing, North Charleston, US; Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Japan; Spirit AeroSystems, Wichita, US; Korean Air, South Korea);[40][41][42] passenger doors (Latécoère, France); cargo doors, access doors, and crew escape door (Saab AB, Sweden); software development (HCL Enterprise India);[43] floor beams (TAL Manufacturing Solutions Limited, India);[44][45] wiring (Labinal, France);[46] wing-tips, flap support fairings, wheel well bulkhead, and longerons (Korean Air, South Korea);[47] landing gear (Messier-Bugatti-Dowty, UK/France);[48][49] and power distribution and management systems, air conditioning packs (Hamilton Sundstrand, Connecticut, US)".
(Talk about US built)
And I would claim the next sentence is a bit silly, of course they will feel pressure, eventually.
"But the wider aviation industry won't feel competitive pressure, as the C919 includes parts from many established aviation companies, including CFM's Leap engines".