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FWIW, China actually did exactly this with the Comac ARJ21 - the "smaller, regional jet" already flying that was mentioned in this article. Most groups outside

FWIW, China actually did exactly this with the Comac ARJ21 - the "smaller, regional jet" already flying that was mentioned in this article. Most groups outside China believe that the ARJ21 is produced using some manufacturing tooling that was left in China after McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing) ended an early 90s program to produce MD80/MD90 series aircraft in China. It's been reported that some early plans for the airplane were actually copies of McDonnell Douglas plans with the logo changed. China, of course, denies this, but the ARJ21 is very similar in design to many McDonnell Douglas aircraft.

pdelbarba 9y ago
You bring up a good point. During the cold war, the soviet union had a lot of success just copying western airframes. While at this point A320/B737/C919 class aircraft using traditional construction have reached a design consensus, it'll be interesting to see what happens if they try composites.
- sjm-lbm 9y ago
  Yeah, and it could also be interesting to see if they can quickly acclimate to more advanced technology. Back when the C919 launched, I read some speculation that it was built from stolen A320 plans - the dimensions are suspiciously similar. At least as I understand it, though, the current consensus is that they simply copied the size because the 320 proved the market for a plane of, more or less, exactly that size. If they can do something similar with composites - learn from/reverse engineer Airbus and Boeing composite designs, but not genuinely steal plans - they might be able to skip a fair amount of the extreme pain with composites A and B have had over the past decade.
- vermontdevil 9y ago
  See Concordski
  - pdelbarba 9y ago
    Ok, maybe "success" was the wrong word to use ;) Edit: for the uninitiated, the Tu-144 was a bit of deathtrap. While it made some interesting improvements to the original design, it had numerous problems due to less advanced Soviet manufacturing.
- dingaling 9y ago
  The Soviets copied the B-29 and ... what else? The DC-3 was made under license so hardly counts as copying. Many of their aircraft had similar configurations to Western equivalents but different design aspects. Just like 707 and DC-8 in the West. On the other hand China literally copied Soviet types after the Sino-Soviet split. Tu-26, MiG-21, An-24, An-12 were all reversed engineered without tooling.
  - pdelbarba 9y ago
    To name a few notable ones beyond the B-29: Tu-144, Tu-160, Buran and Yak-38 Of course, we don't know for sure what happened with these. It's unlikely they were cloned the same way the B-29 was (rivet for rivet) but they were very likely products of the espionage environment at the time.

pdelbarba 9y ago

You bring up a good point. During the cold war, the soviet union had a lot of success just copying western airframes. While at this point A320/B737/C919 class aircraft using traditional construction have reached a design consensus, it'll be interesting to see what happens if they try composites.

sjm-lbm 9y ago
Yeah, and it could also be interesting to see if they can quickly acclimate to more advanced technology. Back when the C919 launched, I read some speculation that it was built from stolen A320 plans - the dimensions are suspiciously similar. At least as I understand it, though, the current consensus is that they simply copied the size because the 320 proved the market for a plane of, more or less, exactly that size. If they can do something similar with composites - learn from/reverse engineer Airbus and Boeing composite designs, but not genuinely steal plans - they might be able to skip a fair amount of the extreme pain with composites A and B have had over the past decade.
vermontdevil 9y ago
See Concordski
- pdelbarba 9y ago
  Ok, maybe "success" was the wrong word to use ;) Edit: for the uninitiated, the Tu-144 was a bit of deathtrap. While it made some interesting improvements to the original design, it had numerous problems due to less advanced Soviet manufacturing.
dingaling 9y ago
The Soviets copied the B-29 and ... what else? The DC-3 was made under license so hardly counts as copying. Many of their aircraft had similar configurations to Western equivalents but different design aspects. Just like 707 and DC-8 in the West. On the other hand China literally copied Soviet types after the Sino-Soviet split. Tu-26, MiG-21, An-24, An-12 were all reversed engineered without tooling.
- pdelbarba 9y ago
  To name a few notable ones beyond the B-29: Tu-144, Tu-160, Buran and Yak-38 Of course, we don't know for sure what happened with these. It's unlikely they were cloned the same way the B-29 was (rivet for rivet) but they were very likely products of the espionage environment at the time.