Recently, a number of overseas media have reported a piece of news, confirming the existence of the mainland's legendary ultra-large ultra-long-range wide-body passenger aircraft C939. The birth of this large passenger aircraft with the prefix "C" means that COMAC officially has the "Three Musketeers" of the C series of civil airliners.
The C-Series family includes the C919, a single-aisle regional airliner with a capacity of 190 passengers, the C929, a twin-aisle widebody aircraft with a capacity of up to 290 passengers, and the C939, which is expected to carry up to 390 passengers. And rumors about the larger four-engine aircraft C949 are not yet supported by conclusive evidence.
According to the South China Morning Post, the source came from an unnamed COMAC insider, and the C939, the largest passenger aircraft to date, is currently in the initial design stage. The Shanghai Aviation Institute, a subsidiary of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China in Shanghai, is working on a preliminary design concept. However, it may take quite some time to translate this concept into a prototype and make its first test flights.
COMAC has "sketched out a preliminary form design" for the C939 aircraft in order to compete with the Airbus A350 and Boeing 777 families, including the latest 777X subseries, the report said. The C939 is expected to accommodate up to 400 passengers, with a maximum range of more than 13,000 kilometers.
The well-known American aviation professional media "Simple Flight" claimed that the C939 adopts a twin-engine layout with underwing lifting, instead of the four engines previously predicted. At the same time, the media also pointed out that COMAC developed this twin-engine wide-body passenger aircraft capable of intercontinental flights, aiming to challenge the double-headed monopoly of Airbus and Boeing in the global commercial aviation field.
Other Western media outlets have estimated that the C939 will sell for around $368 million and speculated on its parameters. After comprehensive statistics of the relevant information of the network, the relevant parameters of C939 are: the number of seats is 370-420, the length is 75 meters, and the wingspan is 75.6 meters.
The maximum range is 13,500 kilometers, the maximum take-off weight is 320 tons, the maximum fuel load is 116 tons, the cruising speed is Mach 0.82, the maximum ceiling is 12,800 meters, the composite material ratio is 52%, and the engine is 2 domestic CJ3000 with a single thrust of 45.85 tons.
Today, COMAC's civil aircraft product line has become increasingly rich, including the advanced regional jet ARJ21 that has been in operation since 2016, the narrow-body passenger aircraft C919 that will be put into service in 2023, and the wide-body passenger aircraft C929 and C939 that are still under active development. The R&D and promotion of this series of products fully demonstrate COMAC's ambitions in the global civil aircraft field.