COMAC, 中國的悲哀

choi

Scott Cendrowski, China Gets Ready for Takeoff. Can a state-owned company that’s just five years old take on Boeing and Airbus”  Comac, China’s aircraft maker, has exceedingly lofty ambitions.  Fortune, Nov 18, 2013.
money.cnn.com/2013/10/31/news/companies/comac-china-aircraft.pr.fortune/

Quote:

“(Comac inherited the ARJ21 [when incorporated five years ago], which was [had been] started years before by another company, in the deal.)

“Comac announced [at the time] that its first jet, the C919 (the C refers to China, 9 sounds similar to a Chinese word meaning forever, and 19 is for 190 passengers), would compete against the world’s most popular jetliners, Boeing’s 738 and Airbus A320, and would hit the skies in just six years, in 2014.

Before that, China’s experience in making civil airplanes was almost none. Even now: “China does have more than a passing knowledge of airplanes; it’s been a key supplier of aircraft parts for years. Comac constructs a tail section of Boeing’s 737 called the horizontal stabilizer and makes cargo-door frames for the A320. China has also proved it can at least assemble planes: Ever since 2009, in the northern town of Tianjin, the Chinese have put together more than 130 A320s as part of a joint venture

“In 1911 a Frenchman named René Vallon flew a biplane over Shanghai to mark the first heavier-than-air flight in China, eight years after the Wright brothers took off at Kitty Hawk. But aerospace in China mostly sputtered until the late 1970s, when the Chinese produced a large jetliner called the Y-10, modeled after Boeing’s 707. Manufacturing and customer service buildings were constructed across Shanghai (some are used by Comac today.) But the Y-10 was so inefficient that the program was shut down after just one plane flew.

“Internally Comac calls its way of building planes an ‘airframer supplier’ model. That means suppliers provide almost all the key components while Comac handles design and assembly. Many of those suppliers are Western companies. It’s a sensitive subject for many foreign companies, which say China’s policy of sharing technology amounts to a ‘pay to play’ approach. For example, a GE venture with France’s Safran called CFM is providing engines for the C919, but CFM has refused to do a joint venture with one’s of Comac’s partner companies because of concerns over sharing trade secrets. ‘We have technology we want to protect,’ Chaker Chahrour, CFM’s executive vice president, told a media roundtable in July.

“Comac executives [ ] acknowledge they have little technology expertise and play down what the company can accomplish on its own [from Comac chairman JIN Zhuanglong 金 壮龙 down].

“The smaller, earlier jet [compared to C919], the ARJ21, which was started six years before Comac was officially formed and has been making test flights since 2008, has faced delays and regulatory problems. Overweight, less efficient than competing aircraft, and six years late, the plane [ARJ21] is the mark of an immature company, analysts agree. The C919, meanwhile, looks like the spitting image of an Airbus A320. * * * Comac scrapped the idea [composite material for center wing box--the area where wings attach to the fuselage] earlier this year

Comac has hired foreign experts such as “former GE aviation executive Jack Lee, who joined Comac after a career in the US with GE and Raytheon. His wife still lives in their home in Wichita. * * * Before Lee arrived, Comac knew little about FAA  or CAAC [certification] standards.” (CAAC stands for Civil Aviation Administration of China 中国民用航空局, which is “China’s equivalent of FAA” according to this report.)

“Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia thinks Comac’s approach to outsourcing weakens the company’s chances of ever competing globally. He says that’s because Western companies hold back their very best technology when Comac forces them into joint ventures. ‘You have suppliers showing up saying, “Here’s our latest and best. Okay, it’s from 1984, but it’s our latest and best.”’ He points to the CFM ENGINE, CALLED THE leap-1c, MADE ESPECIALLY FOR c919, which CFM says is the same model Boeing and Airbus are receiving for their next-generation planes--except Comac’s engine is being finished a year before Boeing’s. ‘There’s no way it’s as good,’ says Aboulafia, citing the time necessary to create new technology. In response, CFM spokesman Rick Kennedy says, ‘There is variation between fan sizes and other installation considerations, But the LEAP is the LEAP.’

“Other skeptics, like Stanley Chao, a consultant who visited Comac half-a-dozen times over the past few years, are doubtful the C919 will even fly. Chao says his clients, who are suppliers, were surprised to hear Comac’s engineers asking the most basic questions--and then asking for shortcuts. ‘When we did wrap-ups in meetings, you’d consistently hear, “Can you tell us how Boeing did it?  What vendor is Airbus or Boeing using?  Can you put in sample documents that they supplied to the FAA?”’ Chao says.  ‘Forget why or how.’  (Comac admits it lacks experience in areas such as certification, and says it has learned valuable lessons from suppliers.)


My comment:
(a) This is the cover story. The cover reads, “Someday Soon You’ll Be Flying a Chinese Jetliner. Sooooo, Is That a Bad Thing?  By Scott Cendrowski[.]”
money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2013/11/18/toc.html

For you and I who are versed at COMAC, skepticism rose. After reading the story, which is quite objective, I conclude the editors hype in the cover.  
(b) This report is locked behind paywall.
(c) stabilizer (aircraft)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stabilizer_(aircraft)
(vertical and horizontal)
(d) Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Hawk,_North_Carolina
(Town of “Kitty Hawk is often mistakenly credited as the site of the powered flights” which was actually conducted at the town of Kill Devil Hills, four miles (6 km) south of the town, on Dec 17, 1903)
(e) Shennongjia, Hubei  神农架林区

(f) Regarding “center wing box”--or “wing box” or “wingbox;” one for each airplane.
(i) Dominic Gates, Boeing 787 Wing Flaw Extends Inside Plane. SeaTtle Times, July 30, 2009.
seattletimes.com/html/boeingaerospace/2009565319_boeing30.html
* View graphic 2 first to get a general idea. Graphic 1 looms in on one side of the wing box attached to a wing.
* three consecutive paragraphs:

“Inside the fuselage, on the other side of where each wing joins the jet's body, there is a structure called the "center wing box," made by Fuji Heavy Industries, also in Japan.

“This center box is constructed much like the outer wing, with composite-plastic skin panels stiffened by composite-plastic stringers.

“The stringers on the fuselage side mate at the wing join, fitting with those on the wing side. Because the wings are designed to transfer the loads into the fuselage box

(ii) e•drill Application. Perfect Point, undateds
www.ppedm.com/e-drill-applications/

The black thing in the graphic is a wing box.
(iii) wingbox
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingbox
(is usually limited to the section of the fuselage between the wing roots, although on some aircraft designs, like the Boeing 787, it may be considered to extend further)

A wing box may protrude into wings. If so, it (wing box) must taper at both ends to fit in.
(iv) A wing box is hollow.

Evan Ackerman, Patent Shows Evolved 747: Boeing Taking on Airbus A380? Dvice, July 19, 2012
www.dvice.com/archives/2012/07/patent_shows_ev.php

(g) I can not find technologic advances of CFM’s LEAP engines. But here is a peep.
(i) Robert Wright. Technology: Engine Innovations Power Fuel Efficiency. Financial Times, Oct 23, 2013.
www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/72809ce8-327a-11e3-91d2-00144feab7de.html

Quote:

main competitor of “Pratt & Whitney’s new PurePower engine series is the Leap-X engine developed by the CFM International consortium of the US’s General Electric and France’s Snecma

“Incremental engine updates have typically produced efficiency improvements of 1.5 to 3 per cent, Mr [Brad] Thress[, senior vice-president of business jets for Cessna,] says, while Snecma and GE are projecting 15 per cent fuel economy improvements for their new engines.

“bypass ratios – the term for the proportion of air sucked through only the engine’s fan to the proportion that also goes through the turbine at its core. The PurePower engine runs at an unprecedented bypass ratio of 12:1. Engines with high bypass ratios can offer high thrust for a given amount of fuel.

“GE has adopted * * * some of the sophisticated materials [ceramic matrix composite (CMC)] that allow the Leap-X to run at higher – and more efficient – temperatures than normal. The company has also improved the engine’s aerodynamics – an effort that has been helped because GE is producing an integrated power plant. The use of innovative materials has also cut the engine’s weight significantly.

(ii) Julian Moxon, CFM Promotes New Manufacturing Technologies In Leap Engine/ AINonline, June 15, 2013.
www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ ... ologies-leap-engine

Quote:

“In a comprehensive briefing yesterday before the opening of the Paris Air Show the company gave a novel 3-D presentation of the engine and its key components

“For the first time in a commercial aircraft engine the GE Aviation/Snecma partnership has used ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) in a key component, the first stage of the high-pressure compressor turbine shrouds which encircle the HP [possibly “high pressure”] blades to reduce tip leakage.

“Another Leap first is in the use of additive manufacturing, or three-dimensional printing, for the extremely complex TAPS [Twin Annular Pre Swirl] combustor nozzles and the core of the stage-one HP turbine blade.

(iii) CFM International
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFM_International
(1974- ; The names of CFM International and the CFM56 product line are derived from the two parent companies’ commercial engine designations: GE's CF6 and Snecma's M56)
(iv) LEAP is the acronym for "Leading Edge Aviation Propulsion.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFM_International_LEAP
(v) bypass ratio
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bypass_ratio

View the graphic only.