China’s first domestically made passenger jet has flown its maiden commercial flight, as China looks to compete with industry giants such as Boeing and Airbus in the global aircraft market. The C919 plane, built by the Commercial Aviation Corporation of China, carried about 130 passengers on the flight. It took off Sunday morning from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and landed less than two hours later in Beijing. The inaugural flight comes as COMAC looks to break into the single-aisle jet market in a direct challenge to Airbus and Boeing. While COMAC designed many of the C919’s parts, some of its key components are still sourced from the West, including its engine.
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.
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.