China’s passenger jet takes its first flight!

China’s C919 happens to be the first ever Chinese passenger jet to make it in the aircraft industry since 1969. C919 took its first flight recently from Shanghai. C919 flew over Yangtze River Delta, carried out maneuvers and then returned south along the coast before landing, according to aircraft tracker FLIGHTRADAR24. The programme was launched in the year 2008 and the prototype production began at the end of 2011. The C stands for “COMAC” and “China”, 9 means “forever” in Chinese, while 19 refers to its passenger capacity of 190 people.

The first ever Chinese passenger jet was called the Shanghai Y-10 which was a copy of Boeing 707. It was canceled after building two aircrafts. It was followed by COMAC ARJ21, a 78 seat regional flight launched in 2008. Only three of these flights have been used by COMAC itself. It is way too overweight which makes it quite dangerous for the passengers.

The introduction of the aircraft (C919) is being planned for the year 2020. The aircraft is manufactured by a Chinese aerospace company – COMAC (Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China). It is made of aluminium and can carry about 190 passengers at a time.

Wu Guanghui, the C919’s chief designer, stated that “COMAC will choose international suppliers through bidding, but priority will go to foreign suppliers that design and manufacture products with domestic companies.”

“As of November 2016, 570 aircrafts have been ordered from 23 customers.” – Wikipedia. Also, chances of these orders getting canceled are quite high if C919 fails to perform as well which will lead to a lot of problem for the company considering the amount of money invested in this project.

The aircraft is intended to give competition to the U.S.A made Airbus A320 and Boeing 737. It happens to be a big deal for China as C919 will be the first ever non – US aircraft to be launched. Although, there is no need for Airbus and Boeing to fear as no one knows whether C919 will be able to do well enough.