11–20 of 72 posts
I'm hard pressed to come up with any other product which has as many complex interacting systems, requiring expertise in aerodynamics, materials science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software, UX design among other things, with very little margin for error. Honestly they're kind of amazing.
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What's a Comac?
Literally the first paragraph of the article: > BEIJING/PARIS (Reuters) - Development of China’s C919 single-aisle plane, already at least five years behind schedule, is going slower than expected, a dozen people familiar with the program told Reuters, as the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation (COMAC) struggles with a range of technical issues that have severely restricted test flights.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/chinas-comac-to...
Perhaps this is just a growing pain, and they’ll eventually figure it all out. And it’s a good thing they did extensive testing and caught this now, while it was still in development. This is where you are supposed to catch these errors. Maybe this article was purposefully released to spread lies and defame COMAC’s reputation? Because that is what western journalism is pushing out these days about China. But the bott…
I agree with you, I've seen articles like this on hacker news for the past 5 years about how China is failing and China is unable to produce what North America is capable of. And the interesting thing is yes, at first they fail. Why should we expect them to get it right the first time? You learn with practice, and mistakes, and testing. I guarantee eventually they will have a functioning aircraft. This is normal proc…
This isn't their first time (the ARJ21 was). Will COMAC succeed where Mitsubishi (Japan), Bombardier (Canada), Sukhoi (Russia), and Lockheed (USA) have failed? Maybe. But China's set a deadline of 2025 to have their own homegrown product in service and it's doubtful that specific goal will be met.
The western aerospace industry is hardly betting against China here. I think Airbus was expecting COMAC to be competitive by 2020. Hell, a huge part of the reason that the 737 MAX exists today is that the Boeing CEO thought China was their biggest threat.
Perhaps this is just a growing pain, and they’ll eventually figure it all out. And it’s a good thing they did extensive testing and caught this now, while it was still in development. This is where you are supposed to catch these errors. Maybe this article was purposefully released to spread lies and defame COMAC’s reputation? Because that is what western journalism is pushing out these days about China. But the bott…
I don't think so. I would guess 90+% of the people clicking on this had no idea what COMAC is. What does seem weird is that the HN headline "Comac engineers miscalculated the forces that would be placed on the engines" does support defaming COMAC narrative, while the actual Reuter's headline "China's bid to challenge Boeing and Airbus falters" reads like the dozens of articles that were written about delays the Dreamliner [1] and the A380 [2]. Compared to some of those articles COMAC is getting off easy.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+787+dreamliner+delays
Perhaps this is just a growing pain, and they’ll eventually figure it all out. And it’s a good thing they did extensive testing and caught this now, while it was still in development. This is where you are supposed to catch these errors. Maybe this article was purposefully released to spread lies and defame COMAC’s reputation? Because that is what western journalism is pushing out these days about China. But the bott…
The recent failures of Boeing and this story underscore how very, very, very, very difficult it is to build a modern airliner. I'm hard pressed to come up with any other product which has as many complex interacting systems, requiring expertise in aerodynamics, materials science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software, UX design among other things, with very little margin for error. Honestly they're…
Perhaps this is just a growing pain, and they’ll eventually figure it all out. And it’s a good thing they did extensive testing and caught this now, while it was still in development. This is where you are supposed to catch these errors. Maybe this article was purposefully released to spread lies and defame COMAC’s reputation? Because that is what western journalism is pushing out these days about China. But the bott…
> Maybe this article was purposefully released to spread lies and defame COMAC’s reputation? I don't think so. I would guess 90+% of the people clicking on this had no idea what COMAC is. What does seem weird is that the HN headline "Comac engineers miscalculated the forces that would be placed on the engines" does support defaming COMAC narrative, while the actual Reuter's headline "China's bid to challenge Boeing a…
I picked that because having to redo the nacelles was new news to me. Most of the rest of the article covers previously published problems.
FWIW the 787 was hardly treated with kid gloves. It wasn't just random delays, it was things like hamfisted outsourcing, scrapping frames assembled with hardware from Home Depot, major customers refusing to take delivery from a specific factory, battery fires, and major engine problems.
The recent failures of Boeing and this story underscore how very, very, very, very difficult it is to build a modern airliner. I'm hard pressed to come up with any other product which has as many complex interacting systems, requiring expertise in aerodynamics, materials science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software, UX design among other things, with very little margin for error. Honestly they're…