By Star Chang, posted Feb 28, 2012 at 3:41 PM, 1,053 views,

China Encourages Development of ‘Homemade’ Jetliners

The Chinese government has encouraged its local aircraft manufacturers to grow and develop as local plane makers receive large numbers of manufacturing orders. The Comac C919, one of the China “homemade” jetliners to be developed by Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (Comac), is intended to compete against the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 series …

The C919 is a planned family of 168-190 seat narrow-body airliners. It will be the largest commercial airliner designed and built in China. Design and assembly of the aircraft will be done in Shanghai, using foreign-made jet engines and avionics. China has expressed its desire to eventually produce a locally-made engine for the C919. The jet’s first flight is expected to take place in 2014, with deliveries scheduled for 2016. Comac will not balance invoices with net profits unless it sells 400 to 500 C919s per year. The company has so far received 235 orders for the plane from 11 different companies. The Comac C919 forms part of China’s long-term goal to break the passenger airline duopoly held by Airbus and Boeing.

China’s Civil Aviation Administration is fully supporting the policy to encourage local plane makers to develop, and to encourage Chinese airlines to purchase these ‘homemade’ jetliners. Their final goal is to manufacture standard jetliners that can be recognized by the markets, and meet a total sales of 2000 C919s within 20 years. Cheap Chinese jets will be the new kids on the block in near future, we just sincerely hope there won’t be any safely issues.

SOURCE: Beijing Business Today (Chinese translated)