sample parts that began in 2009. “All
parts being delivered have been passed
by the Civil Aviation Administration of
China [CAAC] and conform to the de-
sign requirements,” the company notes.
“For the manufacturing of C919 struc-
tural parts, Comac design and produc-
tion staf and supplier production staf
form technical, manufacturing and pro-
duction teams. They collectively resolve
production problems,” Comac adds.
In the U.S., CFM partners General
Electric and Snecma began fl ight-test-
ing the Leap engine on Oct. 6. The Leap
1A for Airbus and very similar 1C for
Comac will be certifi ed next year, says
CFM. The C919 benefi ted from applying
Leap 1A improvements to the earlier 1C,
but the changes caused some of the de-
lay in the Chinese program, a Comac
of cial says.
A more recent change is an increase
in maximum seating to 174 from 168 in
an all-economy arrangement. Comac
also says the aircraft’s designed eco-
nomic life has been reduced to 80,000
fl ight hours from 90,000. Standard two-
class seating for the C919 is 158.
The new factory, near Pudong Inter-
national Airport, is “initially complete,”
says Comac, apparently meaning that
the plant is ready to begin work but is
not fully equipped. By 2020, it will be
able to build 150 C919s and 50 ARJ21
regional jets a year, the manufacturer
says, declining to discuss its ramp-up
plans.
Comac’s plant includes a fi nal assem-
bly hall in which a moving assembly line
is “basically” installed. Another factory,
though built for upstream work, is han-
dling the fi nal assembly of the fi rst fl y-
ing prototype, using automatic drilling
and riveting equipment, an automatic
system for aligning the modules, auto-
matically guided vehicles and an aircraft
movement system. “This is an automat-
ed assembly line of an advanced interna-
tional standard,” says the manufacturer.
A composites factory is equippedwith China’s largest autoclave, 5.5 me-
ters (18 ft.) long, although Comac has
decided not to use composites for large
and dif cult parts of the aircraft, such
as the center wingbox.
Comac says customers have ordered
400 C919s. But the contracts have little
binding ef ect, according to people who
have seen some of them. And even if the
order book comprised solid contracts,
it would still have two shortcomings in
the makeup of its customers. One is that
they are all Chinese, with the exception
of Gecas, which belongs to General
Electric, a supplier. The impression,
then, is that customers are ordering
for national policy.
Then there is the curiously small
quantity covered by the central govern-
ment’s big three airlines—China South-
ern, Air China and China Eastern—to
which the program must be looking as
anchor customers. At the 2010 Zhuhai
show, those three each ordered just
fi ve C919s, while Hainan Airlines, the
private, fourth-ranked Chinese carrier,
ordered 20.
Comac’s program was based on sales
of 2,500 C919s. Even if only 1,000 are
built, the big-three carriers will surely
have to buy about 200 each. That as-
sumes that the great bulk of C919 sales
will be made in China—an increasingly
realistic assumption, because the type
has no clear path to endorsement of its
airworthiness by the FAA or European
Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), as
originally intended.
But the C919 is being developed to
international airworthiness standards,
says Comac. At fi rst it seemed obvious
that the FAA could endorse the type
certificate from the CAAC, since the
U.S. authority was in the process of
monitoring the ARJ21 program to as-
sess its Chinese counterpart’s airwor-
thiness competence. Unfortunately, it
still is. The ARJ21 is running eight years
late, so the CAAC’s work on the C919
has not been recognized by the FAA.
EASA has never been involved.
So where does that leave the C919?
“Getting an FAA or EASA certifi cate
is still under discussion,” says Comac.
This is not just important for interna-
tional sales of the C919; Chinese cus-
tomers also want a Western stamp on
the type certifi cate.
Flight-testing will be conducted
mainly from a new base at DongyingAvic’s Xian factories are building
C919 center fuselages and wing-
boxes.AviationWeek.com/awst AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/NOVEMBER 3/10, 2014 53
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