Why jet engines aren't made in China • Hacker News Board

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#201

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 12:21 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #149

tzs wrote: post #76

> It may be surprising, then, that in jet engines, China remains at least a full decade behind the West Do they need to be at the same level as the West? For civilian aircraft a decade or two behind seems like it would be good enough. For military aircraft that could be a significant disadvantage, but from what the net is telling me they have excellent air defenses so it seems unlikely someone with superior planes is…

This is the part I don't understand about chip export restrictions; the argument used is that high-end chips would be used for high-tech weaponry, but most weapons don't need high-end chips, 2-5 generations old chips are good enough for most smart weapons. I mean the Tomahawk is from '83, the HIMARS from the late 90's, etc. I don't believe that high end, small process chips are used in any weapons right now. The only…

They do spying to understand the capabilities of allies and adversary weapons. The goal is to maintain supremacy and slow down development. The US had a spy in the Soviet era that provided the entire Soviet radar roadmap into the 1990s, and technology was deployed (or not) based on that.

That’s one of the reasons drones are so disruptive. The development cycle is tuned by state of the art missile and stuff, and isn’t tooled for some dude strapping a mortar round to a little drone.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#202

Post by londons_explore » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 12:25 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #180

mrmlz wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. Do you think todays aircraft are not designed with the idea that the engine can fail? And if you have unreliable components do you think redundancy is going to save you? And lets be real - there already exist a aerospace arena where you have a higher number of CAT-events - it's called the military. And they deal with it by having a parachute for each passenger.. No - in effect building jet-engines (that are comm…

> Do you think todays aircraft are not designed with the idea that the engine can fail? Of course they are - but the engines are also designed to be extremely reliable, and that's why you get away with two engines on long flights over water, something previously only available for planes with four engines. > No - in effect building jet-engines (that are commercially viable i.e. fuel and efficeny) is not a easy to dis…

> If you have an electric plane with two motors, a big APU-like turbine charging a battery and powering the motors, you might get away with a cheaper turbine, running in less extreme regimes, and still have a more fuel efficient plane r

This works for hybrid cars because the power demand when driving varies widely, as does the output speed. The 'hybrid' bit gets huge gains by always running the engine at optimal rpm+throttle, and using the battery to cover peaks and absorb troughs (regen).

A plane cruises for many hours at a fairly constant speed and throttle, which is designed to hit peak efficiency of all components. The 'hybrid' design therefore falls far behind on weight, efficiency and cost.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#203

Post by Veedrac » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 12:26 PM UTC

shalmanese wrote: post #74

The more parsimonious explanation is that commercial jet engine production is downstream of commercial airbody production and China's currently limited by COMAC's scaling woes. All the money and talent in the world can't replicate real users generating real data that you can use to improve. I'd argue the opposite that jet engines have a market structure that's uniquely terrible for traditional free market societies.…

The simplest explanation is surely that China is new to having a highly educated workforce and the ‘failed for some fifty years’ claims the article makes don't mean much given it.

I don't think you need to entrain market arguments or whatnot to this, when it's only in the last decade China was a strong advanced manufacture player, and turbines are the kind of project that you probably wouldn't expect to go much faster than that regardless of the demand.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#204

Post by bigcat12345678 » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 12:30 PM UTC

... They are making Jet engines. Lots of them.

This article is full of laymen's inaccuracy that indicates the author is not anywhere close to the depth of the field.

> China’s first fifth-generation fighter, the Chengdu J-20B, relied on a thirty-year old Russian AL-31 for a full decade until its domestic WS-15 program, which was started in the 1990s, was deemed ready for production.

There is no J-20B J-20 has been using WS-10C for at least 3-5 years

> China has excelled in industries with legible technological targets, well-known manufacturing processes, and fast iteration cycles.

I cannot believe people still think an advancing manufacturing economy just stops at certain threshold. That's plainly illogical.

Jet engine has legible technology targets. Well-known manufacturing processes. Not-so-fast-in-common-sense iteration cycles.

If I am poor, of cuz I am not have time to make a beautiful suit for myself. I need to first make the house, a shabby one as well. Until one day I started make the suit. That has nothing to do with the suit being less clear targets, processes, or whatever.

> Additionally, there was existing synergy China could exploit. Chinese EV success was predicated on earlier successes in battery manufacturing.

Yes, of cuz, battery manufacturing was considered beyond China's capability before ...

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#205

Post by wilkommen » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 12:35 PM UTC

usernametaken29 wrote: post #39

justincarter wrote: post #27

I work in the aviation industry. This was a good read. The article hinted at the oligopolies that exist in aviation and in practice the industry is incredibly conservative and slow to change (particularly commercial aviation). While new technology is developed all the time, the extreme regulatory oversight combined with so much of the industry relying on long-standing relationships makes it difficult for any new entr…

Honestly this is a good thing. I can endure buggy software but I don’t want to deal with buggy planes. Regulatory pressure is a market force and a useful one too. There’s a huge difference between ship fast and ship right - the latter one requires deep pockets and willingness to commit to ongoing risk. People always say big Pharma and aviation and such are oligopolies, and that’s bad, but they rarely see the capital…

I agree that regulatory pressure is a market force (I wish more people understood this), but I disagree that capital intensive things that must be done right can only be done by big organizations - quite the opposite. If the regulatory environment is strong and effective, small organizations can thrive even in pharma and aviation. If an industry is comprised solely of huge organizations, then when one becomes corrupted (like Boeing has, see the 737 MAX debacle) it becomes impossible to terminate that organization. Organizations that are too big to fail are too big to be regulated.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#206

Post by coderenegade » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 12:36 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #180

mrmlz wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. Do you think todays aircraft are not designed with the idea that the engine can fail? And if you have unreliable components do you think redundancy is going to save you? And lets be real - there already exist a aerospace arena where you have a higher number of CAT-events - it's called the military. And they deal with it by having a parachute for each passenger.. No - in effect building jet-engines (that are comm…

> Do you think todays aircraft are not designed with the idea that the engine can fail? Of course they are - but the engines are also designed to be extremely reliable, and that's why you get away with two engines on long flights over water, something previously only available for planes with four engines. > No - in effect building jet-engines (that are commercially viable i.e. fuel and efficeny) is not a easy to dis…

Aerospace as a discipline has tried just about every propulsion system under the sun. What you're proposing has already been flight tested on an unmanned vehicle, albeit with many smaller props for a larger effective prop disk than the two you're proposing. This is actually better, because electric motors want to use rpm control, so you need to keep the moment of inertia of the propellers low. The efficiency penalty of smaller props is overcome by having many of them arranged closely together to create a large effective prop disk.

For a hybrid system to be worth it, you need to claw back more efficiency than you lose in going from mechanical energy to electrical energy, and then back again. For cars, this is generally the case, because they're always accelerating and decelerating. Their wide operating band means that the engine will always be a game of compromises, which is why sticking a motor and battery in the loop and decoupling the engine from the wheels is beneficial. But planes aren't like that; they go from setpoint to setpoint, and they stay in a given configuration for long periods of time. They have very narrow, highly optimized operating bands, so hybridization just isn't as effective.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#207

Post by pohl » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 12:39 PM UTC

IndeanCondor wrote: post #141

Probably the most head in the sand mil-tech article I've read in long time. There are very few explicit claims the author makes about Chinese capability that can be addressed, most of it just gesturing at anecdotes or vibes. The author does not notice that the F-35 is a single engine jet rated for VSTOL flight characteristics. The F135 is required to produce that much thrust by itself to support that profile. The J-2…

Counterpoint: modern fighters need higher-performance engines not just for thrust but also to run and cool more and more electronics. Arguably both are underpowered from where they need to be.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#208

Post by mc32 » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 12:41 PM UTC

wahern wrote: post #189

shalmanese wrote: post #74

The more parsimonious explanation is that commercial jet engine production is downstream of commercial airbody production and China's currently limited by COMAC's scaling woes. All the money and talent in the world can't replicate real users generating real data that you can use to improve. I'd argue the opposite that jet engines have a market structure that's uniquely terrible for traditional free market societies.…

> I think a lot of the jet engine manufacturers are seeing this same corporate rot process, the number of high profile scandals across the industry and reports of insiders on how the number crunchers are taking over the business are strangely reminiscent of what we heard out of Boeing and Intel. And there's the opening for China. The 90s and early 2000s saw alot of innovation by engine manufacturers. Boeing and Airbu…

The A380 was killed for lack of demand as the airline industry changed. Boeing made the right bet.

In addition even if had been engine-centric there is no way there was enough market to dedicate R&D for a new engine for this limited market.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#209

Post by js8 » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #138

shalmanese wrote: post #74

The more parsimonious explanation is that commercial jet engine production is downstream of commercial airbody production and China's currently limited by COMAC's scaling woes. All the money and talent in the world can't replicate real users generating real data that you can use to improve. I'd argue the opposite that jet engines have a market structure that's uniquely terrible for traditional free market societies.…

> The free market fundamentally doesn't have a good response to this problem, excess capital is taken out of these companies during good times and then they run to governments seeking bailouts during bad times but governments don't know how to mandate good corporate governance. Sounds like the free market hasn't been tried, a key plank of the free market on the supply side is that incompetent managers have to go bank…

So you think U.S. would be better at airplane manufacturing had Boeing gone bankrupt at some point in the past?

It's a pretty strong claim and I would like to see some theoretical justification, other than belief in the magical free market.

In my country, IIRC, we let Aero Vodochody to crash and be bought by Boeing. We are not better at making airplanes, honestly probably the worst than at any other point in history.

Re: Why jet engines aren't made in China

#210

Post by usernametaken29 » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #200

usernametaken29 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly this is a good thing. I can endure buggy software but I don’t want to deal with buggy planes. Regulatory pressure is a market force and a useful one too. There’s a huge difference between ship fast and ship right - the latter one requires deep pockets and willingness to commit to ongoing risk. People always say big Pharma and aviation and such are oligopolies, and that’s bad, but they rarely see the capital…

> Regulatory pressure is a market force and a useful one too. That's assuming the regulations are competent. But if you let the market consolidate then the incumbent has enough money to buy off the government. Or it happens the other way around and the government is kind enough to set out regulations that only a megacorp can satisfy, thereby destroying the competition and awarding the last company standing the vaunte…

I agree partially with this. America is a special circumstance because of the way the industrial complex and government contracts are linked, and there’s a lot of blatant corruption. If you look at the European regulation framework I believe it works rather well. You have multiple big companies delivering components for different parts of the airplanes from different countries which are all individually big but not too big to fail because no government is solely reliant on them.. as it should be