December 01, 2008
ARJ21 is no Y-10
The ARJ21 700 series regional passenger jet produced by the China Commercial Aircraft Corp. or COMAC successfully made its maiden flight test over the weekend in Shanghai. The ARJ21 seats around 78 passengers and already has several orders including a big purchase by GE - the license holder of the aircraft’s jet engines.
This is not the first time the Chinese have made a passenger jet plane. Back in 1980 the Y-10 made its maiden flight and several were produced for domestic use. For years the rumour has been that the Y-10 was a reverse engineered Boeing 707 a model China began buying in 1972. For many reasons some of them political the Y-10 was never successful.
Today the aerospace industry like every facet of Chinese society and economy is profoundly different. State-controlled COMAC, based in Shanghai, is envisioned as traded public company sometime in the medium to long term and plans to focus next on large commercial jet planes similar in size to the A320 or Boeing 737. The roll out for the larger jets is expected sometime between 2016 and 2020. COMAC could become real competition to Europe and Boeing after that.
The ARJ21 sells for about $30 million each and GE says it should be certified for use in the USA as soon as 2010.
Labels: aircraft, boeing, jet planes
# posted by Sinomania! : 12/01/2008 03:54:00 PM
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