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The Comac C919, China’s Boeing Killer
In the world of aircraft, a new player’s in town
Think China, think cheap manufacturing, cities built for , the factory of the world — a country that can make everything. Except, in vanishingly small areas of the economy, China comes up short. Commercial aviation looked beyond their reach.
No surprise — putting 250 tonnes of metal in the sky is a live-action sequence for the average Jane, a power down the runway while you are a mere passenger.
But, after tentative steps and decades’ worth of development, China has finally arrived at the aeroplane party. Welcome the Comac C919, an airliner as nondescript as intriguing, a marker to an unfurling geopolitical earthquake.
Aviation is not the dangerous hobby it once was. It wasn’t until the 1930s that mid-air collisions led to crazy ideas like . It was a hard road to make aviation the safest mile-for-mile transit ever conceived. Last year there was . If you’re in a plane crash, it is your time.
