From ARJ21 To C919

At 14:00 on May 5, 2017, a large aircraft with white fuselage and green tail appeared on the runway of Shanghai Pudong International Airport. The scene was full of people, looking forward to it.

Slide, speed up, head up, take off, soar into the sky! In a thunderous applause, the big plane disappeared in people's sight. More than 70 minutes later, with the roar of landing, the large plane flew back to Pudong International Airport and landed safely.

Applause mixed with more cheers, "C919 first flight success!"

In the crowd at the scene, an old man with white hair took off his red cap and was excited. In the face of the media, Cheng, deputy chief designer of Yun 10 and member of the C919 design expert group, said from time to time, "C919 is the new height of China's civil aircraft. It is not only the success of a model, but also a kind of ability, the ability of our nation."

From yun-10 to C919, several generations of airlines, including Cheng Shiyue, have been forging ahead. After more than 40 years, they have finally realized the "big plane dream" of the Chinese people.

The successful first flight of C919 is not only a major breakthrough in the history of China's aviation industry, but also a major achievement showing China's innovation. An industry person close to COMAC told the 21st century economic report that the C919 is still in the stage of high-intensity and high-density flight test after the success of its first flight. In the communication with Zhang Xinmiao, director of COMAC's office, the 21st century economic reporter was also confirmed that the company is making every effort to focus on scientific research and production, flight test and certification.

According to the routine process of aircraft project, C919 has entered airworthiness certification stage. This stage is the key period for the commercial operation of domestic large aircraft.

Large domestic aircraft. Visual China

Breaking through the shackles of innovation

On June 18, 2021, COMAC Jiangxi production flight test center held a delivery ceremony -- the first two ARJ21 aircraft offline were delivered to Chengdu airlines and Jiangxi Airlines respectively, which indicates that Jiangxi production flight test center has the ability of production flight test delivery since then, and COMAC has opened a new mode of off-site completion and delivery.

In the industry, private aircraft are divided into regional aircraft and trunk aircraft. Taking 100 seats as the dividing line, those less than this number are regional airplanes, mainly flying between domestic cities; More than this number is the trunk line aircraft, which is mostly used for long-distance flight between countries and between continents. In the current competitive pattern, the models in the regional and trunk markets are monopolized by foreign companies: Boeing and Airbus dominate the main line aircraft market, while Bombardier of Canada and Brazil Airlines dominate the regional aircraft market.

As China's first medium and short-range turbofan regional plane developed by China in accordance with international civil aviation regulations and with independent intellectual property rights, ARJ21 aircraft takes the route of Chengdu Airlines flight No. eu6679 carrying 70 passengers from Chengdu to Shanghai on June 18, 2016 as the turning point, which indicates that China's first self-developed regional jet aircraft will officially enter the route operation. Up to now, a total of 43 ARJ21 aircraft have been delivered, 108 routes have been opened and more than 1.53 million passengers have been carried.

It took 14 years for ARJ21 project to achieve a breakthrough from zero to one for China's domestic civil aircraft. On the one hand, the production capacity of ARJ21 is seriously insufficient and the speed of domestic fleet formation is slow; On the other hand, due to various reasons, the aircraft has not yet obtained the airworthiness certification of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which hinders the opening of the international market.

"The airworthiness certification provisions in Europe and the United States are often formulated with the participation of aviation manufacturing companies such as Boeing and Airbus, which can easily become the tool for aviation giants to build industry barriers and become the weight of political game in western countries." According to the defense and military industry analysis team of West China Securities, due to the lack of experience in various tests and certificate applications, ARJ21 has taken a lot of detours in the test and evidence collection. As a result, it took six years to collect the TC.

However, an industry insider told the 21st century economic reporter that the value of ARJ21 project lies in "lighting" for the development of the subsequent C919 project. "It not only accumulates complete experience for the development of commercial aircraft, but also establishes a complete civil aircraft test flight test system, and forms a set of" certification "process."

The real competition in the global civil aviation aircraft market is just around the "big aircraft".

"Large aircraft" is generally defined as transport aircraft with a takeoff weight of more than 100 tons. Among them, the concept of civil aircraft is similar to that of main line aircraft, with a passenger capacity of more than 150 people.

From 1997 to now, the global large aircraft market has formed a "duopoly" situation, Boeing and Airbus are evenly matched. In May 2008, COMAC was established. As the main body of China's implementation of the national large aircraft major special medium and large aircraft project, COMAC was given the mission at the beginning of its establishment: adhere to the path of independent innovation with Chinese characteristics, and develop its own large aircraft.

The reason why large aircraft is called "national heavy equipment" is because it is in a prominent position in China's strategic emerging industries. According to the analysis of AVIC securities, there are three reasons for the importance of the large aircraft manufacturing industry: first, to drive the growth of the national economy -- the study of Boeing company shows that every 1% increase in the sales of civil aircraft will boost the growth of the national economy by 0.714%; Second, it can lead to the progress of science and technology, and the development of large aircraft and its core technology can be diffracted into related industries, which can achieve a driving effect of 1:15; Thirdly, the development of large aircraft industry has become one of the important symbols to measure a country's scientific and technological level, industrial level, comprehensive national strength and international competitiveness.

The independent development of China's domestic large civil aviation aircraft began in 1970. With the launch of the 708 project (Yun 10), the test flight of Yun 10 was successful in ten years. However, due to historical factors, the project was cancelled.

Recalling the early development stage of large aircraft, the aforementioned insiders told the 21st century economic news reporter that in the 1980s, when the market economy continued to deepen and improve, China's large aircraft project restarted and realized the "three-step plan" of international cooperation. The first step was to partially manufacture and assemble MD-80 / - 90 series aircraft, and the technology was provided by McDonnell Douglas company, Improve production and manufacturing capacity; The second step is to cooperate with foreign countries to jointly develop 100 seat class aircraft to improve the design technology level; The third step is to design and manufacture a 180 seat trunk plane.

However, market cooperation did not exchange for technical cooperation. In April 2001, more than 20 academicians including Wang Daheng, a famous scientist, wrote to the Central Committee, calling on the state to attach importance to the development of "large aircraft" with independent intellectual property rights. It was not until the establishment of COMAC in 2008 that the development of China's large aircraft project was fully launched.

Two months after the success of the first flight of C919, COMAC made major leadership adjustments: he Dongfeng, the former general manager of the company, took office as chairman and Secretary of the Party committee.

The reporter of 21st century economic report noted that when he took office, the official website of COMAC published a speech congratulating Dongfeng. He said that he will always adhere to the innovation driven development strategy, unswervingly promote management innovation, technological innovation, product innovation and business model innovation, strive to realize independent and controllable key core technologies, continuously improve the core competence of main manufacturers, and spare no effort to create an independent brand with international influence.

"Business community" stirs up trillion market

On April 13, 2021, COMAC held the 2021 COMAC global supplier conference in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. More than 100 supplier representatives attended the meeting through on-site or remote video.

Zhang Yuanzhong, President and chief executive officer of Angie avionics, stepped onto the stage to receive the win-win cooperation award of COMAC 2020. In the commendation speech, COMAC said that it and engi avionics are close "community of life".

In the above-mentioned chairman's speech, he Dongfeng called COMAC's suppliers "business community", hoping to "share achievements, share glory and share interests" with suppliers when promoting the construction of large aircraft industry system.

The 21st century economic reporter learned that the development model of C919 is "main manufacturer supplier", that is, the airframe parts of domestic passenger aircraft, such as nose, fuselage, wing, hatch, radome, etc., are independently completed by our domestic suppliers; The core subsystems of passenger aircraft, such as avionics, flight control and engine, are mostly provided by joint venture subsidiaries established by overseas suppliers and Chinese companies in China. Engi avionics is a typical example.

In 2012, AVIC and Ge jointly established Engi avionics. In June of the following year, the joint venture signed the main avionics contract for the C919 large aircraft project with COMAC, and has become an excellent supplier of COMAC for six consecutive years.

"We have been following closely the development process of COMAC, and we have made every effort to meet the needs of COMAC." In an interview with 21st century economic reporter, Zhang Yuanzhong said that as a first-class supplier of COMAC, although there are challenges from all sides, he is full of confidence in the success of the C919 project.

At present, the progress of C919 commercialization affects the nerves of Chinese people.

On March 1, 2021, China Eastern Airlines and COMAC officially signed a contract for the purchase of C919 large passenger aircraft, which will introduce five C919 aircraft in the first batch. According to the statistics on COMAC's official website, the total number of orders for C919 aircraft, including confirmed orders and intended orders, is 815, including 34 foreign orders. The main domestic ordering parties are Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Hainan Airlines and other airlines.

Behind the commercialization of C919 is the market ambition of China's civil aviation industry to seize the global demand for narrow body aircraft in the future.

According to the market forecast annual report of COMAC (2020-2039) released by COMAC, it is estimated that in the next 20 years, 40664 new aircraft will be delivered worldwide, with a value of about 6 trillion US dollars (based on the catalog price in 2019), which will be used to replace and support the development of the fleet. Among them, 4318 turbofan regional airliners were delivered, with a value of about 0.23 trillion US dollars; The number of single channel jetliners delivered was 29127, with a value of about US $3.44 trillion; Deliveries of dual channel jets will reach 7219, worth about $2.3 trillion.

In China's air transport market, its demand is also strong. According to the above report, in the next 20 years, China's aviation market is expected to receive 8725 aircraft with more than 50 seats, with a market value of about 1.3 trillion US dollars (based on the catalog price in 2019). Among them, 5937 single channel jetliners above 120 seats were delivered, accounting for 68% of the total.

So far, C919's main competitors are Airbus's A320 series and Boeing's B737 series. According to the forecast of China Galaxy Securities, assuming that the domestic market share of C919 can be equal to that of Boeing and Airbus in the future, that is to say, if the market share reaches one-third, the annual sales volume will be about 100, and the average annual sales volume will be about 8 billion US dollars. The total sales volume in the next 20 years is expected to reach 160 billion US dollars.

Trillion market potential, indicating the future value of the entire C919 industrial chain is expected. Wu Xingshi, member of the expert advisory group of COMAC and the first chief designer of ARJ21 aircraft, believed in an interview with the media that "the large civil aircraft industry has great potential, and the continuous upgrading of advanced products has created a broad market space."

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