BEIJING - Almost 30
years after China's first attempt to build a large
airliner was scrapped, the government has
announced that the project will be resumed in its
new 2006-10 five-year plan in hopes of realizing
the Chinese aircraft industry's longtime dream to
meet the country's growing demand for air travel.
Premier Wen Jiabao said March 5 in his
report on government work that China will start
making large aircraft by the end of the 11th
Five-Year Program period (2006-2010). It was the
first time
the
idea had been brought up since an earlier attempt
was aborted in the 1980s.
The "jumbo
aircraft" project will speed technological
advances in China's aviation industry and promote
the development of secondary sectors, said an
insider who asked not to be named. According to
the government, the term "jumbo aircraft"
generally refers to airliners with a capacity of
more than 150 seats and a range of up to 4,000
kilometers. (This appears to be a distinct from
the English term "jumbo jet", which usually refers
to wide-body jet aircraft with a capacity of 200
to 600 passengers.)
Building a large
airliner is feasible, said professor Guan Zhidong
with the Beijing University of
Aeronautics and Astronautics. While China already
has the elementary technologies to build a jumbo
aircraft, it will still require international
cooperation, Guan said.
China started to
build a large airliner in 1970, just two years
after Europe's Airbus went into production. The
country's first such aircraft, nicknamed "Yunshi",
made its virgin flight successfully in 1980 but
failed to gain a foothold in China. "If the Yunshi
project had not been halted, China would be ranked
as one of the countries with a first-class
aviation industry," said Hu Xitao, a former
official of China's Aviation Ministry.
With air travel soaring by 95% over the
past five years, China has the world's
second-largest civilian aviation market after the
United States. US-based aircraft manufacturer
Boeing predicts that China will need more than
2,600 new airliners, mostly large aircraft, in the
next two decades, which will be worth US$213
billion.
Insiders maintain that China
should first aim at meeting domestic demand with
smaller aircraft and gradually achieve its goal of
making jumbo aircraft with international
cooperation. Since the end of 2005, the ARJ21,
China's regional jet, has been undergoing test
flights and is expected to be put in service in
2008. So far, 41 orders have been received for the
ARJ21, which has a capacity of between 70 and 90
passengers. Meanwhile, the third "Xinzhou60", (aka
MA60), a medium-sized turboprop manufactured by
the Xi'an Aircraft Industrial Corporation, was
delivered to Zimbabwe last year. Twenty orders for
the Xinzhou60 have been received from foreign
countries, including Zimbabwe, Fiji, Zambia and
Nepal. The Xinzhou60 has a passenger capacity of
about 60 and a range of some 1,600kilometers.
China has worked in active cooperation
with international aviation companies to produce
aircraft parts, which has laid the technological
foundation for the manufacture of large civilian
aircraft. It is estimated that about one quarter
of Airbus airliner parts and a third of Boeing
airliner parts are manufactured in China.
"I hope one day that Chinese pilots will
fly the skies in jumbo aircraft made by their own
country," said Li Jiaxiang, president of the China
National Aviation Holding Company, echoing a wish
shared by many of his peers here.
