China's Large Aircraft Dream to Come True By 2015: NPC Deputy

China is expected to realize its "large aircraft" dream by the year 2015, a senior aviation official said Friday in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

"Large aircraft" refer to large transportation planes with a carrying capacity exceeding 100 tons, trunk liners with more than 150 seats and other derivative special-purpose planes, Liu said.

Liu Daxiang, who is a senior official with the state-owned China Aviation Industry Corporation I and also a deputy to China's parliament or the National People's Congress (NPC), said he was happy to learn that the development of large aircraft is listed as one of the country's 16 major development plans in the 11th Five-Year Program for the 2006-2010 period.

"If things are going smoothly, large transport planes for military and civil purposes are expected to fly into the sky in 10 years," Liu said.

"With 5 more years of further development, the Chinese people are likely to travel by home-made 150-seat planes by 2020."

China has long considered building a large 150-200 seat commercial aircraft, rather than continuing to merely rely on Boeing of the United Sates and Europe's Airbus.

"Although China has encountered difficulties and failed in several large aircraft development plans, the experience obtained has laid a good foundation for the coming scheme," he said.

Liu, who is also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, has submitted, together with other experts, motions to the NPC's second and third annual sessions held respectively in 2003 and 2004, calling for earlier research and development of large aircraft.

I hope they engineer them better than they have their SUV's - I have a copy of the video from the front end crash tests they did on it, from a rating of 1-5 it is the only vehicle to ever receive a 0. I sure as heck would never let my family fly on one of those things.

2 posted on 03/10/2006 4:50:21 AM PST by Abathar (Proudly catching hell for posting without reading since 2004)

Reverse engineering is great, but you have to be able to reproduce what you take apart. They may know what they need to make, but not how to make it correctly.

4 posted on 03/10/2006 4:51:54 AM PST by Abathar (Proudly catching hell for posting without reading since 2004)

Translation: "We've finally been able to steal enough information to make our own."

Why would they need to steal something they were given freely by companies mortgaging their future just to show a quick profit in unnecessary ( for America ) joint venture deals?

5 posted on 03/10/2006 4:54:26 AM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult (The man who said "there's no such thing as a stupid question" has never talked to Helen Thomas.)

OK, I believe big things can fly.

But just how "BIG" can a thing get and still hold together? Much less runway length to get it into the air and back.

6 posted on 03/10/2006 5:01:43 AM PST by PeteB570 (Guns, what real men want for Christmas)

I try to avoid flying in Airbus planes - I'll do it if there isn't an alternative. I would never fly in a Chinese plane - and if that means I never go to China - no biggie.

Watch for a Russian/Chinese deal here.

7 posted on 03/10/2006 5:12:52 AM PST by tdewey10 (It's time for the party to return to the principles of President Reagan.)

They're going to need heavy transport planes if they're ever going to successfully invade the mainland United States.

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