Flight International – 11 June 2019

50 | Flight International | 11-17 June 2019 flightglobal.com

PARIS

Special report

FIRDAUS HASHIM SINGAPORE

With a trio of aircraft at various stages of development and

production, China’s national airframer faces a gauntlet of

engineering, logistical, political and commercial trials

Comac goes

for the triple

Imaginechina/Shutterstock

C

omac appears to be hitting its air-

craft development stride, with the

ARJ21, C919 and CR929 all making

progress. But there are strong

doubts about how well China’s national air-

framer can implement all three programmes.

It has been a busy 11 years for the compa-

ny, which was originally launched to build

the C919, but soon inherited the ARJ21 re-

gional jet programme from AVIC. The logic

was, and still appears to be, that the regional

jet would be a bridge to the bigger prize of the

C919, which would compete with the Airbus

A320 family and Boeing 737 series.

But the manufacturer’s scope increased

again in June 2016 when it signed an agree-

ment with Russia’s United Aircraft (UAC) to

jointly develop the widebody CR929 under

the China-Russia Aircraft Company (CRAIC)

joint venture. “The ARJ21 is an explorer,

opening the path for China’s civil aviation de-

velopment,” says CR929 programme director

Xie Canjun. “We hope the C919 will be a suc-

cessful aircraft type. We want the CR929 to be

a commercially competitive aircraft of inter-

national standard.”

Comac now has three programmes in dif-

ferent stages of development and production

• a challenge that has historically taken West-
  ern OEMs decades to successfully manage.
  Rob Morris, global head of consultancy at As-
  cend by Cirium, notes that “the track record of
  Comac and other emerging OEMs suggests
  that the certification and entry into service
  could be challenged”.

FINISHING ARJ21

The ARJ21, which has been in service for

nearly four years while still having aspects of

its design refined, is the main reason why

those doubts exist. When it was launched in

2002, the GE Aviation CF34-10A-powered re-

gional jet was scheduled to enter service in

2006. However, its first flight only occurred in
      2008, and it would take six more years to ob-
      tain type certification. It was then a further
      three years, in 2017, before a production cer-
      tificate from the Civil Aviation Administra-
      tion of China (CAAC) was secured, allowing
      batch production to move forward.
      That did not stop the jet from entering ser-
      vice in November 2015 with launch customer
      Chengdu Airlines – a carrier partially owned
      by Comac.
      Since then, however, a series of problems
      have emerged and further development work
      has been undertaken. Wang Xingwei, ARJ21
      programme office director, told FlightGlobal
      in February that efforts were being made to
      reduce the aircraft’s weight by using lighter
      materials, optimising systems, installing light-
      er seats and making some wiring changes. Im-
      provements are also being made to the flight
      control layout and to the cockpit, with the
      adoption of a “dark cockpit concept” which
      makes alerts more pronounced to the crew.
      Comac is also looking to raise the ARJ21’s
      seat count by adding up to seven seats, taking
      its capacity up to 89 in a dual-class layout, or
      97 in a single-class configuration.
      As of mid-May, Chengdu Airlines had six
      ARJ21s in service, while start-up carrier
      CR929 widebody has 18-24 months earmarked for flight tests and 2027 certification goal Genghis Khan Airlines had taken delivery of