Chinas first domestically made plane successfully tested

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Long term readers of CCT know that sometimes we deviate from the usual China car news and focus on other special items of interest, such as trains, or even planes. It just so happens that China’s first domestically made plane, the ARJ21, has been successfully tested according to the media.

The plane was tested at an altitude of 2000m under the command of Captain Zhao on the 28th November 2008. The test flight lasted a full 40 minutes, and everything was reported to be functioning as expected.

The ARJ21 is being built by the ACAC Consortium a group of Chinas biggest plane makers Shanghai Aircraft Research Institute,

• Xian Aircraft Design and Research Institute,
• Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group,
• Shanghai Aircraft Company,
• Shenyang Aircraft Corporation,
• Xian Aircraft Company

An order list of 208 planes has already been put together from potential buyers, and no doubt that list will increase as the production date nears.The jets name, ARJ21, stands for Advanced Regional Jet of the 21st Century, and is being built in Shanghai. Engines for the ARJ21 are coming from General Electric. The production date is expected to be early 2009, and the handing over to clients date is set for September 2009.

China’s need for a domestically built reigonal aircraft has been increased in recent years as the demand for air travel within China has increased dramatically, China has been Boeing and Airbus’ biggest customer for quite sometime now, but with domestic production of a regional jet taking place in China, its likely that purchases of small passenger jets will tail off the ARJ21 matures in the market place.

The ARJ21 may actually look familar to plane fanatics, its actually built using the DC-90 tooling for the McDonnell Douglas MD-80, which gives the ARJ21 a similar tail, wings, and cabin style. One of the great things about producing the ARJ21 in China, is that will cost a mere 20 million dollars per plane, but the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 costs just over 40 million per plane.

The plane has been pre-ordered by seveal Chinese airline companies, and also by GE Commercial Aviation Services, an American company that leases out planes to various carriers around the world, so it appears that perhaps in the near future we’ll all be flying in a Chinese jet, especially on short haul flights.