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The CR929 is vaporware: they're not even planning to begin construction of the first prototype until 2021. Also, it's "CR" for "China/Russia", since this is me

The CR929 is vaporware: they're not even planning to begin construction of the first prototype until 2021. Also, it's "CR" for "China/Russia", since this is meant to be a joint venture between COMAC and UAC (Sukhoi). Which sounds like a great recipe to delay everything even further. Also also, even if China does pull off the airframe, they'll still rely on Western jets to power it. China's first modern turbofan, the CJ-1000A, is not scheduled to go into service until 2030 (!) and even that is geared only for the C919: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAE_CJ-1000A https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAE_CJ-1000A Don't get me wrong, I'm sure China will get there sooner or later, as they've already demonstrated with high-speed trains and many other things. But timeframes for going from concept to a serious competitor in this business are measured in decades.

djcapelis 7y ago
Yes yes yes. But even if everything plays out like you say I don’t think you can say there’s no foreseeable future in which this happens. Please engage with the actual plans and state the technical details you know rather than saying that China has no roadmap do a thing they have a roadmap to do. Also let’s be clear if the C919 actually works out they will be a serious competitor. The market for wide body aircraft is the one that captures all the imagination and attention but the narrow body sales are the bread and butter. They absolutely do not need to succeed in this market right away to put a big dent in the duopoly.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  Also let’s be clear if the C919 actually works out they will be a serious competitor. The market for wide body aircraft is the one that captures all the imagination and attention but the narrow body sales are the bread and butter. That's a pretty large if. Head west a bit to Russia and see how they're doing in the international market. The Sukhoi SuperJet is, by most accounts, a great plane. Sukhoi managed to sell to the Mexicans (Interjet) and Irish (CityJet) and both got rid of them quickly. Being a threat to Boeing/Embraer and Airbus/Bombardier goes well beyond the complex task of building an airliner. Sukhoi and Comac are still hugely dependent on the west to build these planes. Avionics and engines especially. The metallurgy required to build a modern turbofan engine is incredibly exotic — outside of France, England, and the US it's simply not there. The Superjet didn't fare well -- the Russians collaborated with Safran and the result was a unreliable engine that was hard to find replacement parts for. The Russians are also currently peddling the PD-14 that competes with the 20+ year old CFM56. Comac skipped that step and went straight to GE. Comac abandoned carbon fiber for the wings in favor of aluminum. While the C919 wings are built in China, I believe they're a European design (Comac's previous stillborn attempt at an airliner used Ukraine's Antonov for the wings). They absolutely do not need to succeed in this market right away to put a big dent in the duopoly. Sure they do. Network effects are huge with airliners. If your Embraer breaks down away from your maintenance base chances are you can buy / borrow parts from another airline. If you're the only one around flying, you're entirely reliant on the manufacturer — and Comac doesn't have any sort of international support network. Bombardier and Embraer both developed competitors to the 737 on the small side, both nearly went bankrupt, and both were eventually acquired. Unfortunately when you're a widget salesman like McNerney everything looks like a damn commodity. While McNerney's actions set Boeing back quite a bit, Comac is a far smaller threat than he thought. If Boeing can deliver on a MAX replacement it's doubtful that Comac will move the needle much in the next 10-15 years.
  - apendleton 7y ago
    > both nearly went bankrupt, and both were eventually acquired Nitpick: in Bombardier's case at least, these were separate events. The acquisition wasn't to deal with bankruptcy (they got a Canadian government bailout for that), but rather to gain access to Airbus's US manufacturing facilities to avoid import tariffs on US deliveries, which became necessary following a Boeing anti-dumping complaint that would have made the C-Series prohibitively expensive to US carriers.
    - inferiorhuman 7y ago
      Nitpick: in Bombardier's case at least, these were separate events. The acquisition wasn't to deal with bankruptcy (they got a Canadian government bailout for that), but rather to gain access to Airbus's US manufacturing facilities to avoid import tariffs on US deliveries, which became necessary following a Boeing anti-dumping complaint that would have made the C-Series prohibitively expensive to US carriers. My recollection is that Bombardier made (rejected) overtures in Boeing's direction before the trade spat. In either case BBD has gotten out of the commercial aircraft business completely, in large part due to the cost of developing the C-series.
  - danmaz74 7y ago
    The difference here is that China has a rich (and growing) internal market.
    - djcapelis 7y ago
      Yep! Which means it doesn’t even have to be better to win orders. It just has to be vaguely sufficient. Which is legitimately a tall order. But! Let’s also remember there’s a government entirely willing to subsidize the growth of a native product. Russia already has an 80 year history of taking wildly diverse and frankly oddball aircraft designs and turning them into things that actually fly. Anyone who thinks that them partnering with a Chinese company can’t build a widebody isn’t paying attention. Who knows if it’ll be any good, it may not be competitive. But will they be able to make something that flies? I’d happily bet on it.
igravious 7y ago
Something I'd like to point out here, not taking away from any of your points. If you think of Airbus as a multi-national consortium (as it rightly is: French, British, etc.) then a Chinese/Russian hook-up is not totally daft. You could make the same argument about "a great recipe to delay everything even further" about Airbus versus Boeing and yet Airbus appears to be doing okay. Don't we think competition is good? What happened to cheering on free markets? Why exactly do we want a Western duopoly to continue to exist in perpetuity? If Western countries believed their own rhetoric they'd be helping Russia and China to compete on the world stage – it would be a win for the entire globe. You make it sound like 2030 is a lifetime away. It's only 10 years. It's been less than a century since the last huge global conflict and it looks like China and Russia will be toe-to-toe with the West (ignoring that Russia is already largely Western) in commercial aviation, space-flight, nuclear power, possibly semiconductor production, you name it. The West does not have some God-given or divine-right to remain on top of the heap – China (and India) are going to eventually catch up, it's just a matter of time, the only thing up for debate in my mind is whether it's sooner rather than later, and I believe in China's case it's going to be upon us sooner than we expect.
- igravious 7y ago
  Replying to myself. Airbus is a consortium of four countries: France, UK, Germany, Spain – started in the 60's. Basically China/Russia are 50 or 60 years behind! Here's a recent doc about the most technologically advanced aircraft they've manufactured, the A350: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yutzg2NLwcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yutzg2NLwcU “Giant Aircraft: Manufacturing an Airbus A350 | Mega Manufacturing | Free Documentary”
  - sudosysgen 7y ago
    Not to forget a joint venture with Canada.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  I didn't say any of that. My point is simply that building large modern passenger aircraft is Hard with a capital H, and while I wish them luck, China still has a long, long way to go. And FWIW, if you read up on Airbus's history, you'll see that their unusual structure and resulting internal politics have caused a lot of pain over the years (eg. the A380 superjumbo program). Ironically enough, Boeing got a taste of this too when they decided to outsource all the things when building the 787, which consequently went way over budget.

djcapelis 7y ago

Yes yes yes. But even if everything plays out like you say I don’t think you can say there’s no foreseeable future in which this happens. Please engage with the actual plans and state the technical details you know rather than saying that China has no roadmap do a thing they have a roadmap to do. Also let’s be clear if the C919 actually works out they will be a serious competitor. The market for wide body aircraft is the one that captures all the imagination and attention but the narrow body sales are the bread and butter. They absolutely do not need to succeed in this market right away to put a big dent in the duopoly.

inferiorhuman 7y ago
Also let’s be clear if the C919 actually works out they will be a serious competitor. The market for wide body aircraft is the one that captures all the imagination and attention but the narrow body sales are the bread and butter. That's a pretty large if. Head west a bit to Russia and see how they're doing in the international market. The Sukhoi SuperJet is, by most accounts, a great plane. Sukhoi managed to sell to the Mexicans (Interjet) and Irish (CityJet) and both got rid of them quickly. Being a threat to Boeing/Embraer and Airbus/Bombardier goes well beyond the complex task of building an airliner. Sukhoi and Comac are still hugely dependent on the west to build these planes. Avionics and engines especially. The metallurgy required to build a modern turbofan engine is incredibly exotic — outside of France, England, and the US it's simply not there. The Superjet didn't fare well -- the Russians collaborated with Safran and the result was a unreliable engine that was hard to find replacement parts for. The Russians are also currently peddling the PD-14 that competes with the 20+ year old CFM56. Comac skipped that step and went straight to GE. Comac abandoned carbon fiber for the wings in favor of aluminum. While the C919 wings are built in China, I believe they're a European design (Comac's previous stillborn attempt at an airliner used Ukraine's Antonov for the wings). They absolutely do not need to succeed in this market right away to put a big dent in the duopoly. Sure they do. Network effects are huge with airliners. If your Embraer breaks down away from your maintenance base chances are you can buy / borrow parts from another airline. If you're the only one around flying, you're entirely reliant on the manufacturer — and Comac doesn't have any sort of international support network. Bombardier and Embraer both developed competitors to the 737 on the small side, both nearly went bankrupt, and both were eventually acquired. Unfortunately when you're a widget salesman like McNerney everything looks like a damn commodity. While McNerney's actions set Boeing back quite a bit, Comac is a far smaller threat than he thought. If Boeing can deliver on a MAX replacement it's doubtful that Comac will move the needle much in the next 10-15 years.
- apendleton 7y ago
  > both nearly went bankrupt, and both were eventually acquired Nitpick: in Bombardier's case at least, these were separate events. The acquisition wasn't to deal with bankruptcy (they got a Canadian government bailout for that), but rather to gain access to Airbus's US manufacturing facilities to avoid import tariffs on US deliveries, which became necessary following a Boeing anti-dumping complaint that would have made the C-Series prohibitively expensive to US carriers.
  - inferiorhuman 7y ago
    Nitpick: in Bombardier's case at least, these were separate events. The acquisition wasn't to deal with bankruptcy (they got a Canadian government bailout for that), but rather to gain access to Airbus's US manufacturing facilities to avoid import tariffs on US deliveries, which became necessary following a Boeing anti-dumping complaint that would have made the C-Series prohibitively expensive to US carriers. My recollection is that Bombardier made (rejected) overtures in Boeing's direction before the trade spat. In either case BBD has gotten out of the commercial aircraft business completely, in large part due to the cost of developing the C-series.
- danmaz74 7y ago
  The difference here is that China has a rich (and growing) internal market.
  - djcapelis 7y ago
    Yep! Which means it doesn’t even have to be better to win orders. It just has to be vaguely sufficient. Which is legitimately a tall order. But! Let’s also remember there’s a government entirely willing to subsidize the growth of a native product. Russia already has an 80 year history of taking wildly diverse and frankly oddball aircraft designs and turning them into things that actually fly. Anyone who thinks that them partnering with a Chinese company can’t build a widebody isn’t paying attention. Who knows if it’ll be any good, it may not be competitive. But will they be able to make something that flies? I’d happily bet on it.

igravious 7y ago

Something I'd like to point out here, not taking away from any of your points. If you think of Airbus as a multi-national consortium (as it rightly is: French, British, etc.) then a Chinese/Russian hook-up is not totally daft. You could make the same argument about "a great recipe to delay everything even further" about Airbus versus Boeing and yet Airbus appears to be doing okay. Don't we think competition is good? What happened to cheering on free markets? Why exactly do we want a Western duopoly to continue to exist in perpetuity? If Western countries believed their own rhetoric they'd be helping Russia and China to compete on the world stage – it would be a win for the entire globe. You make it sound like 2030 is a lifetime away. It's only 10 years. It's been less than a century since the last huge global conflict and it looks like China and Russia will be toe-to-toe with the West (ignoring that Russia is already largely Western) in commercial aviation, space-flight, nuclear power, possibly semiconductor production, you name it. The West does not have some God-given or divine-right to remain on top of the heap – China (and India) are going to eventually catch up, it's just a matter of time, the only thing up for debate in my mind is whether it's sooner rather than later, and I believe in China's case it's going to be upon us sooner than we expect.

igravious 7y ago
Replying to myself. Airbus is a consortium of four countries: France, UK, Germany, Spain – started in the 60's. Basically China/Russia are 50 or 60 years behind! Here's a recent doc about the most technologically advanced aircraft they've manufactured, the A350: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yutzg2NLwcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yutzg2NLwcU “Giant Aircraft: Manufacturing an Airbus A350 | Mega Manufacturing | Free Documentary”
- sudosysgen 7y ago
  Not to forget a joint venture with Canada.
9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
I didn't say any of that. My point is simply that building large modern passenger aircraft is Hard with a capital H, and while I wish them luck, China still has a long, long way to go. And FWIW, if you read up on Airbus's history, you'll see that their unusual structure and resulting internal politics have caused a lot of pain over the years (eg. the A380 superjumbo program). Ironically enough, Boeing got a taste of this too when they decided to outsource all the things when building the 787, which consequently went way over budget.