China to produce jumbo sized jets by 2020

Aviation & AEROSPACE ^ | 13 March 2007 | Staff

[GitmoSailor]

Don't forget the new Aircraft Carriers!!!!....

[Desron13]

"According to the Xinhua news agency, the blueprint for the large aircraft project will be completed by 2010."

"According to the Xinhua news agency, the blueprint for the large aircraft project has been completed and is sitting on a table at Bowing as we speak."

There, I fixed it.

[Zhang Fei]

Lemme guess - first a Soyuz clone, and now an Ilyushin clone. I love how the Russians are sharing their cutting-edge technology with the Chinese.

[JayNorth]

Certainly they can steal airplane designs in less than 3 years.

They need another Democrat president in the U.S. for wholesale transfers of technology in case they run into any brick walls in the design.

[zipper]

I could never understand why it was named Airbus. Who would want to fly in a bus? Traveling by bus is not the most comfortable way to go.

Yeah, bad marketing decision on their part to choose such a pedestrian name.

Kinda like "Volkswagen".

[ponder life]

All they need is to get Loral et al to keep donating through the next two Clinton terms.

In regards to what happened with Loral and the Clintons; I think alot of Freepers have been either reading too many Tom Clancy novels or watching too many cloak and dagger movies.

China's ability to put someone into space or build a commercial aircraft takes more than just a handful of wayward foreign scientists passing on information to them.

It takes a well thoughout industry with an experienced workforce (in this case aerospace) to achieve such goals. It takes thousands upon thousands of engineers and technicians, tens of thousands of workers and an even larger community of workers that support supplying industries.

It takes responsbile political leaders, responsbile fiancial accounting and even good civic responsibility. And China has been able to put it all together.

China has been gaining experience in aerospace by openly bidding for subcontract work to both Boeing and Airbus (no cloak and dagger there, all out in the open). China also have tremendous leverage with Boeing and Airbus. Because of the potential for future growth of China's air travel industry, both Boeing and Airbus have been bending over backwards to help China. Once again, no material here for a Tom Clancy Novel.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

In terms of what it takes to physically manifest extremely tech-intense engineering feats, you are of course correct. China has, has had, will have, and will undoubtedly expand their skilled workforce on an ongoing and relentless basis. If they had only 50's aerospace technology and were somehow blocked from anything more modern, I think it's safe to say they would expand the effort and ability to produce same on the assumption that they would eventually acquire more up to date tech.

However, culturally, the Chinese are masters or at least strong proponents of copying anything they crave or think they can make a buck or a yuan on. At the same time, they are NOT blazing originators known for the type of super-creative thinking that comes up with satellite or other ultra-high tech. That's borne out by the tremendous piracy of CD's & DVD's and computer software going on over there and hundreds of other examples. So although it takes masses of engineers and huge plant to produce "an airplane" or "a satellite", one guy bringing in a set of blueprints can have a tremendous impact when the factories, machine tools, and zillions of motivated workers are already in place. I think it's safe to say the Chinese are relentless acquirers of any technology they (meaning their military and political leaders) decide they want, and are smart enough to realize that stealing it, forcibly co-oping it, borrowing it, or buying it are all vastly cheaper than self-developing it.

[ponder life]

I would agree with you on everything you said. But that was all true with other Asian countries as well. From Taiwan, S. Korea and long ago, even Japan. But as these countries moved along, they realized they had to innovate to continue expanding their revenue base. They had to innovate and do their own R&D.

I believe China will get there someday. They may have to make some painful adjustments like enforcing copyright laws, but I believe it will happen.

[LM_Guy]

I willing to bet Airbus then Boeing will be in Banckrupty within 20 to 25 years.