Ambitions and dreams: 50 years of domestic large aircraft floating and sinking

Early in the morning of October 3, 1999, a gray 150-seat passenger plane that had not yet had time to paint slowly took off from Dachang Airport in Baoshan, Shanghai, with only three passengers on board: American Bellings, who had been the pilot of Air Force One, Robert Johnson, a flight consultant at Boeing's representative office in Beijing, and a Chinese observer.

After liftoff, the plane quickly climbed to 11,000 meters, followed the east coast all the way north, and turned back when it flew close to the Shandong Peninsula, returning to Dachang Airport the same way. The next day, the press release prepared in advance appeared on the important pages of various local daily newspapers: the first flight of the Sino-US cooperation MD-90 aircraft in Shanghai was successful.

In 1984, the joint venture between SAIC Motor and Volkswagen of Germany was launched, and the Santana model of technology for market appeared, which inspired China's aviation industry, which was slow to progress on the Y-10 program. The Ministry of Aviation Industry cooperated with McDonnell Douglas to introduce McDonnell Douglas' MD-82 aircraft production line at the time, hoping to replicate Santana's path in the civil aviation industry.

From the mid-80s to the mid-90s, a total of 35 MD-82/83 aircraft were assembled in cooperation between China and the United States. On this basis, in 1992, the Ministry of Aviation signed a contract with McDonnell Douglas for the joint production of 40 MD-90s, and the caliber also changed from "assembled in China" to "joint research and development".

MD-90 was one of the relatively technologically advanced civil aviation models at that time, and the elite forces of China's aviation industry were all involved, and Shanghai Airlines, Xifei, Shenfei and Chengfei each undertook different parts and assembly tasks.

In October 1999, the MD-90 was successfully tested for the first time after the completion of the final assembly in Shanghai, and the original localization rate target was 70%, and it reached 90% when completed. On February 24, 2000, the second MD-90 flew successfully to the scene to flowers and applause.

However, with the launch of the MD-90, China's dream of a large domestic aircraft plunged headlong into the bottom.

In 1997, Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas, which was financially weak, and the McDonnell Douglas production line was shut down. Subsequently, the Civil Aviation Administration proposed that the domestic MD90 aircraft be discontinued synchronously with Boeing.

At the critical moment when the first MD90 entered final assembly in Shanghai, the Chinese side had already purchased equipment and materials according to the demand for 20 aircraft, and the two MD-90s in the final assembly were supposed to take off, but turned out to be a swan song.

In 2000, while the second MD-90 flew successfully, thousands of engineers were busy destroying all materials related to the MD-90 at the nearby Shanghai Aircraft Factory. According to Boeing's requirements, the four aircraft manufacturers have nearly 50,000 drawings, 85 tons of technical data, 7 million words of functional test documents, and 8.6 million words of process standards must be cleared.

After the ups and downs of the Y-10, the honeymoon of MD-82/83, the large aircraft for which China's aviation industry has paid countless manpower and material resources, suddenly fell into confusion.

MD-90 airliner

Before the large aircraft verification flight, the history of China's civil aviation aircraft manufacturing had been alone for nearly half a century. A large number of figures such as foreign-funded factories, institute professors, government officials, returnee elites, and capital brokers have appeared on the stage of history one by one. This intricate history can be roughly divided into three stages:

Strong budding (1970-1986): Yun 10 Plan, high-cost manufacturing aimed at the first special aircraft, with almost zero commercialization awareness;

The chaotic years (1978-2000): The foreign company McDonnell Douglas debuted with China to jointly develop and assemble with China, symbolizing the complete failure of technology for the market;

Comprehensive showdown (2008-present): The C919 large aircraft debuted, the core parts outsourcing + independent assembly mode appeared, and the market-oriented route became the stage dominant.

If chips are the crown of industry and technology, then the big plane is the most conspicuous jewel in the crown, far more important than the contribution to GDP.

Lessons from history

In the 90s of last century, the Ministry of Aviation formulated a three-step strategy for civil aviation aircraft manufacturing: the first step was to provide technology and equipment abroad, and China was responsible for assembly; The second step is Sino-foreign cooperation to develop a 100-seat aircraft; The third step is to design and manufacture the 180-seat class aircraft in-house.

Under this grand blueprint, finding a partner with core technology and equipment and a desire for the Chinese market at the same time is the most basic step.

At that time, McDonnell Douglas, which once looked at the military aircraft market, transformed into a civil aircraft, but also under the attack of Boeing and Airbus, it was somewhat cornered, and intended to reverse the decline through the Chinese market.

Since 1984, the two sides have hit it off and quickly started the assembly cooperation of the MD82/83 aircraft. During the cooperation period, the Chinese side assembled a total of 35 MD-82/83s, and the cooperation between the two sides went smoothly.

On this basis, the Ministry of Aviation and McDonnell Douglas signed a contract in 1992 for the joint production of 40 (later 20) updated MD-90s.

In 1997, the MD-90 project was in full swing. Unlike the MD82/83 project, which could only be easily assembled in China, in the MD-90 project, McDonnell Douglas only gave drawings and raw materials, and the manufacturing of parts to the final assembly test flight was all completed by China, and the number of parts that the Chinese side needed to handle soared from more than 2,000 to 40,000.

As the main manufacturer of aircraft trunk lines and parts manufacturers, the system management capabilities, assembly capabilities, process documents, process equipment and other capabilities of Chinese enterprises have also been fully recognized during this period.

Unexpectedly, when everything was perfectly realized according to the original plan, "old friend" McDonnell Douglas gave Chinese a big gift on New Year's Day of this year.

In early 1997, the aftermath of the third oil crisis hastened McDonnell Douglas, which had been losing money for more than two decades, to be merged by Boeing. The MD-90 project, which conflicts with Boeing's original product line, was also asked by Boeing not to continue to invest resources.

However, at this time, the Chinese side has prepared the corresponding equipment, personnel and management system according to the production plan of 5-10 aircraft, whether it is the production of 2 aircraft or 200 aircraft, these costs are fixed. In addition, raw materials and production equipment supplied by McDonnell Douglas continue to arrive in Shanghai.

So, in a state of consternation, the domestic MD-90 completed two perfect test flights. Then it was parked for a long time at the test flight station of Oba Airport, unclaimed.

The miscarriage of the McDonnell Douglas with the Americans allowed the Ministry of Aviation to once again pin its hopes on Airbus in Europe in 1997.

At that time, 100-seat aircraft were a vacuum in civil aviation aircraft, and Airbus, which also coveted the Chinese market, threw an olive branch and was willing to build a 108-seat AE-100 for the Chinese market, which was manufactured and assembled in China.

Subsequently, AVIC and Airbus signed a framework agreement for the AE-100 project. In return, China purchased 30 A320 family aircraft from Airbus.

Just when AVIC announced the establishment of the AE-100 aircraft project Xi'an on-site command, ready to rub its hands and do a big job, Airbus began to make frequent difficulties:

First, on the grounds of China's limited capacity and difficulty in holding shares, it proposed a huge technology transfer fee of more than 1 billion US dollars, and then began to create momentum in international public opinion, saying that "100-seat civil passenger aircraft do not have enough market and are economically unviable".

Ironically, just four days after announcing the termination of the AE-100 project with China, Airbus announced its self-developed 107-seat regional aircraft A318, which has the same design concept as the AE-100, which can be called "borrowing a corpse for a soul".

As a result, this cooperation with Airbus ended in a strange way in which the aircraft manufacturing was completely failed and the purchase order was sent out first.

The three-step approach proposed in the 90s actually only took the first step.

The value of assembly

After being put together by the Americans and Europeans one after another, China's aviation industry has determined new ideas, one is no longer looking forward to overseas technology transfer, and the other is to first focus on regional aircraft with lower technical difficulty and explore the way for independent research and development of large aircraft.

In September 2002, the 70~90-seat ARJ21 regional aircraft was developed. At the time of the global aviation industry depression after 9/11, ARJ21 launched in this background, which can be described as stepping on the last opportunity of the aviation industry, and the US "Aviation Weekly" commented at the time:

If in 40 years China develops into a competitive rival in the global aviation industry, then we should say that they started with the ARJ21-700 aircraft.

In 2007, the first ARJ21-700 aircraft rolled off the assembly line in Shanghai, and successfully completed its first flight a year later. With the experience in the development of regional aircraft, the project of domestic trunk aircraft was also quickly put on the agenda - that is, the C919.

However, even with ARJ21 as the basis, it still took nearly ten years for C919 from the establishment of the project in 2008 to the final assembly and production line in 2015. In 2017, the C919 made its first successful flight in Shanghai, condensing the ups and downs of China's civil aviation industry for nearly half a century.

In December 2022, the first aircraft was officially delivered by the C919 with the domestic airworthiness certificate, which means that after the completion of the 100-hour verification flight phase, domestic passengers can fly on the C919.

C919

From the test flight in 2017 to the delivery in 2022, it happens to be a period of continuous Sino-US trade frictions and the weak links of the semiconductor industry are fully exposed. The infinite scenery of C919 has also been affected by the target of public opinion. After all, it is called a large domestic aircraft, but domestic production is only reflected in tires, sound insulation cotton, floor interior, but engines and key airborne equipment are all imported.

Especially in the field of engines, it is still firmly controlled by six European and American joint ventures composed of GM of the United States, Pratt & Whitney of the United States, Rolls-Royce (Rolls-Royce) of the United Kingdom and Safran of France.

For example, the LEAP-1C engine currently used in the C919 comes from CFM, a joint venture between General Electric and Safran of France.

Even for commercial competition purposes, CFM customized a version of the C919: the weight and length are more than 40% higher than Boeing's B-type engine, and the thrust-to-weight ratio is too poor, resulting in the range of the C919 is only 4000-5500 kilometers, while the Boeing 737 MAX has a range of 6000-7000 kilometers, which greatly reduces the competitiveness of international routes.

The controversy is also raging: most of the core components are imported, can it be called independent research and development?

In fact, if the aircraft can be successfully assembled, it is already a top manufacturing capability.

Aircraft manufacturing essentially tests the "system integration ability" of selecting, coordinating and managing hundreds of thousands of parts, as well as the level of overall design planning and precision control.

To do consumer electronics, plug the CPU, memory, hard disk and other components into the motherboard, which is a usable computer; But build an airplane, buy an engine and put it in the casing - this thing can't fly.

On June 6, 1994, a Northwest Airlines aircraft disintegrated during flight due to the misinsertion of tilt and heading damping plugs behind the shock exchange platform [1].

During the development of ARJ21, the fuel tank drain shut-off valve and the auxiliary power system (APU) fuel supply shut-off valve were initially installed next to each other, with a distance of less than 8 cm, but the connector models and specifications of both were the same, and there was a risk of incorrect insertion [1]. And in an airplane, there are hundreds of thousands of such finely crushed parts.

At the same time, after assembly, it is necessary to make "completely" error-free. For example, commercial aircraft have a 10 (-9) standard, which can be simply understood as if they go back and forth to Beijing and Shanghai once a week, the safety design standard of military aircraft is a plane crash accident in 20 years, and a commercial aircraft occurs once in 2000, at present, the actual standard that the technical level of commercial aircraft can meet is once in 6000 years [1].

The C919 has hundreds of thousands of integrated modules, and these parts are seamlessly connected, even if each is 99.99999% accurate, and the cumulative accuracy may only be 90%.

The difficulty of integrating engines, avionics, flight controllers, hydraulics and other systems to create a large passenger aircraft that meets airworthiness standards is by no means comparable to the "uncle self-purchased parts and assembly of aircraft by hand" in the CCTV science and education channel.

Most importantly, aircraft assembly also means the right to purchase parts independently, driving the progress of the entire industrial chain. Unlike consumer electronics, the "plane put together" is essentially a supply chain platform.

When the ARJ21 project was established, due to the few new aircraft projects in the world, in order to get engine orders, General Electric offered very low prices at the time of bidding, and took the initiative to promote domestic manufacturers to cooperate in production. But by the time the C919 was developed, some engine parts could already be produced in China.

This was actually the premise of the decision-makers at that time. After experiencing the MD-90 fold, whether it was financial investment or the resources that market players could mobilize, it was a fantasy to develop large aircraft from scratch at that time. In this context, the decision-making level has developed a new three-step strategy:

In the first stage, we will focus on regional passenger aircraft and obtain FAA airworthiness certificates to strive to be competitive in the market.

In the second stage, while mass-producing regional passenger aircraft, the research and development of domestic large aircraft will be started, and the core components will be temporarily purchased from the world.

In the third stage, independent research and development of engines and airborne systems will be carried out to achieve localization and eventually form a complete civil aviation aircraft industry chain.

The most difficult of the three stages is precisely the second stage. The reason is that the core capabilities of Boeing and Airbus are also reflected in system integration, Boeing 787 localization rate is only 35%, and Airbus suppliers are distributed in 27 countries around the world. In the words of Boeing Vice President Caroline Covey:

"If you can easily assemble an aircraft by buying parts, there will be more than two major aircraft manufacturers in the world, Boeing and Airbus."

Technology or Business

Of course, some people question, we can do self-research of core components for military aircraft, why do we continue to send money to foreigners in the civilian market?

A counterintuitive fact is that the difficulty of making a civil aviation aircraft is actually higher than that of military fighters.

For example, in the safety indicators, the Ministry of Transport stipulates that the air parking rate of civil aviation is 0.002-0.005 times/1000 hours, while the military product is about 0.2 times/1000 hours, a difference of 100 times. In addition, civil aviation also has comprehensive considerations such as fuel consumption and cost of engines, which is actually more difficult to develop.

During the decades-long exploration period, China's aviation industry faces challenges not only technology, but also the difficulty of balancing at the commercial level.

Unlike high-speed rail and military products, civil aviation is a highly market-oriented industry, even if major airlines intend to use domestic products, they need to consider how much budget they still have.

When working with McDonnell Douglas on the MD-90, 150 aircraft were originally planned to be produced, all of which were subscribed by the Chinese side, but even if civil aviation tightened its belt, the theoretical upper limit of what could be purchased was only 25.

Therefore, in 1994, the Chinese side renegotiated with McDonnell Douglas and agreed to purchase 20 aircraft from McDonnell Douglas and cooperate in the production of 20 aircraft. Due to the severe losses, a financial subsidy of US$ 8 million per aircraft was required at that time [11].

However, because China is still climbing the technological ladder, the actual manufacturing cost is higher than the expected mass production cost, and the civil aviation only agreed to book 20 aircraft produced in the United States and 5 aircraft built in-house. So much so that the remaining 15 domestic MD-90s under planning have not found buyers who intended to book [11] .

Later, Boeing shut down its production line, and it was expected to produce 20 MD-90s, but only 2 were actually certified for airworthiness, and no buyer was found, citing the high cost and the airline "could not have equipped a technical maintenance team specifically for these two aircraft[12]".

In the specific design and manufacturing process, even if the technical indicators are excellent, buyers of civil aviation passenger aircraft often have to consider fuel consumption and actual route planning.

The history of the civil aviation industry has developed to this day, and there are many cases of technical success, but commercial failure. In 2007, Airbus launched the wide-body passenger aircraft A380 that comprehensively surpassed the Boeing 747, the world's highest passenger capacity so far, and the range was close to the highest level of the civil aviation industry, which was regarded as the "family star" of Airbus, and at the beginning of the project, the industry once predicted that the A380 could sell more than 1,000 aircraft.

However, such a star product was discontinued after just 14 years, and the old Boeing 747 soared for more than half a century.

The essence of the A380's failure lies in Airbus' mistaken expectations of the aviation market. Aircraft with large passenger capacity and ultra-long-haul routes are only suitable for traveling between important international hubs. In the era of Boeing 747 popularity, passengers in second- and third-tier cities had to go to the international airports of first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai to fly to European and American metropolises.

In this context, aircraft with more than 500 seats, theoretically the market imagination is very large.

However, the problem is that out of concern about the load factor, airlines actually increase the frequency of small and medium-sized flights and carry passengers from second- and third-tier airports through transfers, rather than using larger capacity aircraft to achieve one stop.

Correspondingly, the demand for large-capacity aircraft has naturally decreased, and major airlines around the world have cancelled A380 orders one after another, and Emirates, the largest customer, has directly cut 30 aircraft.

On average, an aircraft has to sell at least 420 to pay for itself, and the A380 ended up with 251.

This also answers the question "why can't military engines be put in civil aviation". It's a bit similar to the semiconductor industry - it's not difficult to make a chip with strong performance on paper, but the difficulty is to have downstream end products willing to adapt, huge software developers around the hardware, and consumers who ultimately pay for research and development costs.

Here, market is the keyword.

At the same time, the aircraft engine is a typical progressive innovation category, despite China's 70 years of R&D experience in military aviation. However, the research on civil aviation engines, in a sense, began after the establishment of large aircraft projects, and was half a century different from Europe and the United States [5].

For domestic large aircraft, the engine is a narrow and dangerous single-wood bridge, and the number of deliveries is an inescapable milestone, both of which are mandatory questions.

End

Joe Sartre, chief engineer of the Boeing 747 program, wrote an "Unfinished Saga", which records many little-known stories of the Boeing 747 from project establishment, development, flight test to delivery to customers.

In 1980, Joe Sutter and a group of Boeing executives traveled to China to see the Y-10 aircraft designed and produced in imitation of the Boeing 707, and Joe Sutter wrote in the book:

"More than 50 Chinese engineers and government officials accompanied us on the tour. I observed the plane, and they watched all my movements curiously, gathered around me, and when I stared at the fuselage, wings and landing gear, they looked wherever I looked.

They were relieved when I told them I thought the Y-10 looked like a good aircraft. I felt like a general who was reviewing troops. ”

The aviation industry is important because of its strong spillover effects. The Japanese, who have eaten the sweet spot in Boeing's subcontracting program, have studied 500 technology diffusion cases and found that 60 percent of the technology comes from the aviation industry.

If the civil ship industry pulls the industry to the industry at 1 yuan, then home appliances are 45 yuan, cars are 80 yuan, and large passenger aircraft are 800 yuan.

The complexity lies in the fact that every bit of progress relies on sophisticated design and extensive scrutiny and validation, as well as commercial competitiveness in the marketplace.

Boeing's 767 subcontract order has almost single-handedly led to the success of Japan's high-end machine tools, and to this day, almost all production of the 787 airframe and wing section is carried out in Japan, but Japan's MRJ regional airliner program is still stillborn after frequent overruns and overdues.

For China, whether it is the industrial chain of large aircraft or the global competitiveness of high-end manufacturing, it is still a big test that has not yet been completed.

Resources

[1] The Takeoff of a Country: The Life-and-Death Breakthrough of Chinese Commercial Aircraft, Liu Jimei

[2] Where is China's aviation industry going, Wang Xiaoqiang

[3] Current situation of China's civil aviation and its problems

[4] Chasing Dreams of Blue Sky: Chronicle of the C919 Large Airliner, Liu Bin

[5] When did the Chinese aircraft use the "Chinese heart"? Liu Daxiang: Domestic engines have made a major breakthrough, Beijing News

[6] Chinese businessmen flew to business, and the rice leader Dai boss

[7] The Unfinished Saga – The Story of the Boeing 747, Josart, Jays Spencer

[8] Research Report on the Development Strategy of Large Aircraft in China, Lufeng

[9] Witness the first flight of the MD-90, Yang Weijiang

[10] Why did China spend 46 years building big planes, Tang Xiaoping

[11] Current situation and problems of China's civil aviation industry: The launch and dismantling of the MD90 trunk aircraft project, Ta Kung Pao

[12] Two McDonnell Douglas MD-90 aircraft in final assembly were rejected by the buyer, Southern Weekend

Editor: Liu Rui/Yang Tingting

Visual Design: Shurui

Responsible editor: Li Motian