noice. im still amazed that USSR managed to build their own commercial planes in the 50s. :picard-excited: so much win.
Or how they converted 166 passenger Tupolev Tu-154 to run on liquid hydrogen. Something that is still the realm of witchcraft to even do on a demonstration basis under capitalism.
It's honestly incredible how centralized the airplane business has become. There's the Boeing-Airbus duopoly, and then a couple domestic manufacturers elsewhere... :porky-happy:
Most manufacturers serve the general aviation and private jet markets. There are lots of really cool home build kits are out there from really small manufacturers (think a couple of guys in a garage).
It doesn't really feel like the apex of cutting edge technology even in the 50s tbh. I don't understand the huge deal either. It's a big plane, they have been around for a good 100 years or so now in general and the mechanics are well understood, how is either of this particularly noteworthy?
It’s easy and cheap to engineer and build a small inefficient plane, it’s intensely difficult to engineer and build a large efficient plane
because airplane building (in large scale) is very 'capital intensive' and requires the country to have a technical know-how to do it.
neither of those points seem like a huge challenge to something like the USSR or China
i mean yea, USSR did manage to build planes relatively early but what I meant was (like the other person mentioned) outside Airbus/Boeing there aren't many companies building commercial planes because of how risky and capital intensive it is.
being able to domestically manufacture such stuff is very important to prevent dependence on imports and protect against potential embargoes.
same thing with computer chips. there is a reason why China isn't there yet in terms of competing with the west on chip manufacturing. it requires a shit ton investment in equipment, technology, infrastructure and takes a very long time especially with the west guarding their IP.
Capitalists don't like making such investments unless they absolutely have to (eg privately owned rail infrastructure in the U.S.). They like short term profits which is why there won't be much chip production happening in India anytime soon.
it requires a shit ton investment in equipment, technology, infrastructure and takes a very long time especially with the west guarding their IP.
Fortunately the Chinese government is pushing hard for domestic adoption and production of RISC-V. This is an open-source, royalty-free CPU reference design that competes largely with ARM. NASA is also adopting it as their standard architecture for space-based computers for decades to come, as a way to prevent vendor lock-in. They want spacecraft computers to be much more modular.
It's terrifying to think what the Chinese will use this technology for. Imagine walking outside one day and a piano falling out of the sky, hitting you on the head, and replacing your teeth with the keys which play a little melody on their own. Just because Tiktok, also owned by the CCP, determined you're too "subversive".
It's kinda weird that China built a space station but still doesn't have a good domestic jet engine
Seems like they're close to getting some in production. It's likely easier to use GE engines as they're super common and you can easily find ground crew in basically any international airport that can work on them.
Wouldn't be surprised if the first runs of these planes use GE engines and in the next few years they start switching to CJ2000 engines once they can ramp up production.China is developing its own engine for the C919, the CJ-1000A Changjiang (长江), a version of which was first unveiled at the 2012 Zhuhai Airshow, but this engine has not yet been certified, and may only start to power the C919 by 2025 at the earliest.
I should have read the entire article before posting -_-
Not in priority considering the massive success of domestic high speed railway
