C919 Grounded: EU Blocks Certification, US Laughs — China Strikes Back!
All of us who pay attention to Smoothie’s Reminiscence of the Future blog will know that he is not bullish on the Chinese C919 passenger aircraft. Not because it is unreliable, but because it was not entirely manufactured in China. China designed this jet around western components in order to make the certification process not only easier, but possible. Of course, there are only delays with the certification process, and this is political, not technical. As we see with Russia, the moment anyone wants to compete with the western industry behemoths, they put blockages in the way. At the time, I neither agreed nor disagreed with Smoothie but accepted what he said, as he is an expert, and he said that commercial aviation is really a complex industry.
I knew however, as with Russia, the more you block China, the more they innovate. China is now forming aviation recognition agreements and a parallel aviation ecosystem with others willing to recognize Chinese certification. Dedollarization may also mean de-westernization of commercial aviation. Regarding parts? At the time, we still had the Chinese blogger, ShanghaiPanda (RIP), who regularly told us that China was developing secondary and third-party parts manufacturing facilities. This would include engines and engine parts. He never let on what his job was, but he sure had deep connections in this industry – I guessed something like quality assurance for these and similar facilities.
China developed a complete supply line for this passenger aircraft. But heck, what do I know? What I did know at the time was that our Shanghai Panda showed us the alternative suppliers in the process of developing that supply line: lists, pics, histories, and the full monti. So, it was a question of waiting. I never got to ask whether the fully localized Russian passenger aircraft would ever be certified western-style. Does anyone know? All I know is that I flew in a small Russian regional airplane once, in Panama, of all places. It was scary. It jumped and bucked in the skies, not as a result of turbulence, made strange noises, and had no internal cladding. The seats were hard and not clad, the noise level was quite something, and I could see the rivets move inside the aircraft where the body was riveted together. I closed my eyes, prayed some quiet farewells, and spent that flight with eyes wide shut! The journey back to Panama City was by a local boat up the coast, as I would not enter that aircraft again. (Nowadays, the local boat would probably be shot down by the Department of War).
To mention two other developments: China is changing its agreement with India in terms of the supply of rare minerals. They are tightening up the end-user certificates so that India cannot resell to the US. In addition, regarding diamonds, diamond dust, and so on, China has stopped supplying these materials. I don’t keep perfect track, but this decoupling is like a dripping torture, a little here, a little there. For those who still wonder about TikTok, a type of joint ownership sale occurred, but China assisted the owners, ByteDance, in retaining the algorithm and just on 20% of the company. So every little zionist-israel capture of the platform pays some to China. China is not taking prisoners in this tariffed world and is challenging and with this Comac airplane changing a long standing and almost unbreakable paradigm.
Before we get to the video, Nuri Vitacchi from Friday Everyday, in his own inimitable style, gave us this: Chinese train engineers challenge pilots to a race:
CHINESE ENGINEERS SET a new record for the fastest train in the world, and are eyeing their ultimate target—to create railway transport that’s faster than commercial aircraft.
The country’s next-generation high-speed train recently set a record of 453 kmh (281 mph) during a test run along a section of the railway from Fuqing to Qianzhou in Fujian Province, on the eastern coast of China.
The engineers are setting themselves an initial target with this type of train of 600 kph – which is twice the speed of a typical Porsche 911 running on the German no-speed-limit autobahn, and similar to that of the fastest prototype Japanese “bullet” trains.
When you factor in time spent at the airport, train transport will be faster in terms of the overall journey, than air travel—not to mention cheaper, and better for the environment.
(Speedfreaks rejoice. I’m taking the slow boat to China).