Comac C919 takes off for maiden flight in China

The company was set up with the approval of the State Council, and its joint investors are the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, along with Shanghai Guo Sheng Group, Aviation Industry Corporation of China, Aluminum Corporation of China, China Baowu Steel Group, and Sinochem.

The first large Chinese-made passenger jetliner is making its maiden test flight Friday from Shanghai in a symbolic milestone in China’s long-term goal to break into the Western-dominated aircraft market. The aircraft took off at 2:01 pm local time, and remained aloft for more than an hour before returning at 3:19 pm.

“All the activities made in the air are normal”. It was flown by a Chinese airline for the first time previous year.

July 2015: COMAC delays the C919’s maiden flight which was scheduled to fly by end-2015. “Even in China’s domestic market, COMAC has a long way to go to turn technical success into business success.Shaking the dominance of aviation giants Boeing and Airbus in the near future is unrealistic, observers say”, the Xinhua article said.

“The first flight itself is not a huge deal”.

The plane can be configured with 155-175 seats and has a standard flight length of 4,075 kms.

The C919 will operate in China for several years before seeking certificates from the FAA and EASA, aviation industry officials said.

The C919 incorporates parts from over 30 global suppliers such as Honeywell International Inc. But the flight of the single-aisle, twin-engine C-919 is also a symbol of the country’s ambitions to develop an advanced high-tech economy over the next decade.

China Eastern Airlines will be the first carrier to operate the C919 when it completes testing and secures approval from China’s aviation regulator. This centre will not assemble the airliners, however; it will fit out new aircraft assembled and flown in from the USA with cabin interiors and paint them in the customer-airlines liveries.

The C919 is, indeed, designed and meant to compete with the Airbus A320 family and the Boeing 737 family.

Kevin McAllister, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, expressed his congratulations on behalf of Boeing for the C919’s successful debut flight.

China’s high-speed railway has been an important market theme, and there is no reason why the home-grown jet story can not become another powerful trading concept. “So the safety of the C919 is guaranteed”, he said.

“Aviation is a complex market and you need experience over a long time. They should all be considered before it is put into use in the market”, Lin said.

The C919 project was launched in 2008.

The C919 will be a strong competitor in this field as it is economical and comfortable, according to a research note from Guosen Securities. Final ground tests only concluded a few weeks ago, much later than the original schedule of a first flight in 2014, and aircraft delivery in 2016, wrote the media.