Posted by JumpCrisscross 7 hours ago
Embraer considered building one to extend their line of regional jets, but didn't. Bombardier never got that far. Mitsubishi got as far as building some 90-seat protype aircraft, then gave up in 2003.
The name Airbus is disturbingly apt.
IIUC, they valued it at 1M per plane [1] and I guess list price of the Max is ~100M [2] so while 1% of the aircrafts value isn't nothing I think it gets completely dwarfed by operational costs.
Not sure how expensive their fuel but I have to imagine over the course of the plane's lifespan that fuel is going to be the primary cost (maybe maintenance / parts would be higher). So if you have to retrain your pilots to fly a plane that requires less fuel per passenger I think you'd come out ahead.
[1]: https://airinsight.com/southwest-and-boeing-the-cost-of-loya...
[2]: http://www.axonaviation.com/commercial-aircraft/aircraft-dat...
Also there are operational efficiencies captured on the maintenance side of things, more streamlined parts inventory management, etc.
Then you also have to rework all your routes and contingencies. If you now fly more than one type of plane you have to make sure you always have a pilot available for right type of plain in a specific location if you ever need to restaff a route.
That’s all to say that adding a new plane platform to an airline is probably akin to a full replatforming of a production app. Sounds simple but there are tons of nuances with the actual execution.
In other words, barring legal implications this is the natural order of things.
Simply inventing something should not confer the right to charge as much as one wants for it for eternity, nor the right to produce as much or as little as one wants.
And you also have to have some sympathy for the problems Chinese leadership face - what are they to do, if mind boggling amounts of things must be produced just to keep up with China’s own indistrialization? Wait around for companies to fulfill orders for foreigners and soak up the leftover capacity?
That dividend and stock buyback cash that was not put into R&D to make a better airplane? It has an opportunity cost.
None of the above has a moral or political judgement. The question of whether the US should care that it can’t build a plane is a separate policy question.
"...a potential order of up to four C919 planes... Only nine C919s are currently in service since they started commercial operation in May 2023, all with Chinese airlines."
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/brazilian...
Also, Brazil has agreed to provide consultation and technology sharing between Embraer and Comac. And Embraer is highly competent, with aircraft used in the western world widely, so they’ll help with a lot of the real world issues. This is happening now because of BRICS momentum and Lula (friendly with Xi due to some common ideology). But I think whatever China gains from this new partnership will remain even once it ends. Eventually they’ll make the engines and avionics natively too, it’s only a matter of time.
Meanwhile Boeing has almost no innovation due to a mix of financially focused management, union labor culture, and a brain drain over the last 25 years. They’re not going to increase their lead anytime soon, which means the gap can only reduce.
That jet has lots of sales, and half ownership with production rights would be fantastic for COMAC.
I'd kind of expect there would be.
This actually points to some reasons why this might not apply to aviation:
1. ITAR restrictions on some of the tech necessary. You don't need to worry about your competition going to china if the government is making it hard for both of you to go.
2. Oligopoly. There are few aviation companies, so the "surely one of my competitors" and competition generally is weaker than in other sectors.
But having those plans isn't enough to build the plane. You needs lots of unwritten know-how to succeed. This isn't just "tricks of the trade", but also knowing about the materials and processes used, how they can fail, where the failure is introduced, and what the known good "beaten path" for a process is.
If Boeing were to fire all engineering and manufacturing personnel and completely re-staff, how many years would it set them back?
That's why one of the key steps in the China cycle is to get the product built on Chinese soil.
Only over a very short window.