Aviation milestone in China
The first large Chinese-made passenger jetliner completed its maiden test flight on Friday.
SHANGHAI — China’s commercial aerospace dreams took wing Friday, as the first Chinese-built passenger jetliner completed its first public flight test, embodying the country’s ambitions to take on the industry champions, Boeing and Airbus.
With a brisk breeze blowing through light smog under overcast skies, a crowd of government officials and aerospace executives gathered to watch as the C919 underwent a lengthy preflight check, then rumbled down a runway and into the sky for a test flight that lasted about an hour.
The aircraft landed safely, and Comac, its manufacturer, declared it a success. But the program still has a long journey ahead. It is emblematic of China’s challenge as it seeks to become a leader in aerospace and other critical technologies like electric cars, advanced microchips and artificial intelligence.
The C919 is years — if not decades — behind aircraft made by Airbus and Boeing that are cheaper to fly and easier to maintain. Safety regulators in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere still have to certify the plane before it can be sold outside China. And including parts like the engines, its cockpit and its belly, the C919 is filled with gear made by Western industrial giants like General Electric and Honeywell.
But on Friday, none of that mattered. For a country that only 40 years ago was one of the world’s poorest, the C919 symbolized the industrial might of an emerging superpower — and its dream to dominate a new technological era.
The plane has become a centerpiece of China’s more recent ambitions to become largely self-sufficient in many high-tech goods and to export them.
“We used to believe that it was better to buy than to build, better to rent than to buy,” President Xi Jinping of China told workers during a recent visit here. “We need to spend more on researching and manufacturing our own airliners.”
The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, better known as Comac, says it already has 570 orders from 23 buyers. But those have almost entirely come from Chinese companies and a couple of small overseas air carriers with links to China. A notable exception is an order for 20 planes from General Electric Capital Aviation Services; GE is also a big supplier to the C919 program.