Wu Guanghui, chief designer of the China-made C919 airliner, today revealed the progress of the passenger airplane.
He said that the ARJ21, a regional passenger aircraft, has been delivered 25 aircraft, the global order for the C919 large aircraft is 815 new planes, and the C929 long-range wide-body passenger aircraft, which is jointly developed by China and Russia, has also entered the preliminary design stage.
The ARJ21 is the first Chinese aircraft developed in accordance with international standards, with independent intellectual property rights and designed in accordance with the Chinese environment, with a seating capacity of 78-90 seats and a range of 2225-3700 km.
Wu Guanghui noted that the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) has delivered 25 ARJ21 aircraft to three airlines, Chengdu Airlines, Tianjiao Airlines and Jiangxi Airlines, which have operated 50 routes to 50 cities and carried over 830,000 passengers.
It is a 168-190-seat narrow-body mainline aircraft developed by Comac, designed for short- to medium-haul routes. It is a single-aisle 150-seat class with 168 seats as standard, and can accommodate up to 190 seats.
According to information from Wu Guanghui, all six 2019 C919 test planes have been put into forensic test flights, and the six planes and four test flights in Shanghai, Xi'an, Dongying, Nanchang and other places are progressing smoothly. At present, there are 28 domestic and foreign users and the total number of orders has reached 815.
In addition to the C919 single-aisle aircraft, the country is also developing a larger long-range widebody passenger aircraft, the C929, which is being developed in cooperation with Russia's Russian Joint Manufacturing Group, with a base range of 12000 km and a standard three-class 280-seat capacity.
Wu Guanghui noted that the CR929 long-range wide-body passenger aircraft had essentially finalized its overall technical programme and had initiated preliminary design work.