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China To Build Its Own Large Jetliner
Hugh Pickens writes "China's domestic airlines will need to buy an estimated 4,330 new aircraft valued at $480 billion over the next two decades to meet demand in commercial aviation. Now the LA Times reports that the Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China expects to begin producing its 156-seat C919 by 2016, competing with the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320. China has staked billions of dollars and national pride on the effort but what may surprise some Americans worried about slipping US competitiveness is that some well-known US companies are aiding China, putting US and European suppliers in a tough spot: Be willing to hand over advanced technology to Chinese firms that could one day be rivals or miss out on what's likely to be the biggest aviation bonanza of the next half a century. 'If they launch a commercial aviation industry, you've got to be part of it,' says Roger Seager, GE Aviation's vice president and general manager for China, whose company has garnered contracts worth about $6 billion for the C919. 'You can't take a pass and come back in 10 years.'"
Oh yeah, "A capitalist will sell you the rope you will hang him with if he can make profit on it" Lenin
How we know is more important than what we know.
I remember learning in school that West Africans would trade gold for salt, pound for pound, with people from Northern Africa and abroad because they didn't know how to make their own salt and they needed it to survive. It always made me wonder why they didn't just pay gold, even if it was an incredible amount, for the knowledge to secure their own salt. Producing salt wasn't all that difficult, if I remember correctly, the salt traders would just evaporate seawater in little holes in the ground and scrap up the leftovers.
My page.
There are well over a billion people who do have some faith in Chinese engineering though. This aircraft is aimed entirely at the domestic market. I doubt most US airlines would take the marketing risk of not having a recognisable brand name for their planes.
Chinese technology is once again on its way to prove that they don't only make junk toys, but also state of the art machines, trains, space vehicles, and now airplanes. I wish them all the best.
The only thing that scares me a bit is who will certify their aircraft, and who will regulate and protect against the counterfeit of replacement parts. I trust the skills of Chinese scientists, but I don't trust the transparency of their government.
China is a country known for producing fake products and imitations of everything. This can be a serious issue in aerospace, and many accidents have been attributed to counterfeit parts in the past. But we won't see this until a few years beyond the first flights.
I once read how German and Japanese companies were required to partner with Chinese companies in order to bid on high-speed rail contracts. Once the Chinese "partners" had the designs, they severed their partnerships and are now building all of their rail systems in house. So it was basically a scam to gain access to technology, and the promises of long-term contracts never materialized. I suspect something similar will happen this time around with aerospace. I doubt that the Aerospace companies are any more savvy on protecting their technology than the rail companies.
This is marked insightful?
This is the same shit uttered about the Japanese in the 1960s and early 70s before they kicked everyone's ass in the 80s.
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BMO
You know, over the past 6+ years I have brought my position out on multiple occasions only to have my position labelled "protectionist" and discarded. But we have a problem in the U.S. We are exporting money that doesn't return. Some call it trade deficit. Some call it exporting jobs. Others call it outsourcing. Whatever you call it, big business is sending out a lot of money that never returns to the U.S. What's more, in order to do that, the foreign workers have to be educated in our technologies in order to replicate what we have done.
So we lost manufacturing and technology. All we have remaining is "intellectual property" which is really a thing that is not universally agreed upon. The things that made the US great aren't here any longer and while many of us were complaining about it leaving, government paid off by big business persisted in letting it happen.
Now were are we?
Maybe it is time for protectionism. Maybe it's too late for it to do any good. Government needs to think about the people, not the businesses. Business is demonstrably abusive of people when allowed -- it's why we have [outdated] labor laws at all. They are unashamed of it. It's past time our government did their job instead of the will of the highest bidders.
the thing looks like an airbus ...
they wouldn't be producing from that factory they wrestled from us as collateral to buying some did they ?
So...in reality Japanese products of the 60s were high quality and you'd risk the lives of thousands of people on them? Did you really think that through before posting?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
China's turboprops in the modern era are all Russian designs. The ARJ21 is a ripoff of the MD90 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_ARJ21. The C919 is an Airbus 320 20 years too late. There is no innovation here, just borrowing. That's OK though, right?
The novel by the great, late Michael Crichton, explains all of this in enjoyable detail....
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
I'm not sure what your point is, but last I checked, the Chinese are doing pretty good in aerospace, are aiming for the moon, and well, are motivated to get shit right when it comes to aerospace.
I think the Chinese will pull it off. Indeed, I hope they do, to light a fire under the complacent asses currently inhabiting my country - the US.
Your post positively reeks of such complacency and whistling past the graveyard.
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BMO
The C919 is an Airbus 320 20 years too late
which was itself a 737, 20 years too late. Boeing are still selling hundreds of 737s every year. Airbus are selling plenty of 320s, many of them to Chinese airlines. There's a market for this sort of aircraft.
There is no innovation here, just borrowing. That's OK though, right?
It's business. It's apparently legal, or not obviously illegal enough for any reprecussions, and it makes money. so yes, that's okay.
The point is that in 2030, China might have what it takes. Today, they don't. It's like saying a 5-year-old is going to kick your ass. Maybe when he's 25, but not today. Complacency? No, a realistic assessment of the situation.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Japanese first copied the western products, then improved them.
This process took 10 years, because they had to find a new way to work (see the Agile methodologies, which are pretty inherited from Toyota's one).
Also, they never tried to build planes, since it requires a lot more work than trains.
On the other side, Chinese never cared about quality, and always provide the cheapest possible copies, using western technology.
It will take a long time before they'll change their mentality, and concentrate on quality instead of quantity.
Trying to build planes now is completely crazy, and I fear that they'll provide deadly cheap planes, just to satisfy internal demand.
How much people will be killed before they improve their process ?
It's one thing to buy cheap Chinese made consumer electronics goods, but would you really want to risk your life in an aircraft? They cant even get products specifically destined for children right without someone unscrupulous substituting something inferior or deadly (lead paint, melamine). Unfortunately as a country they have a long way to go to rebuild their reputation.
Many of the same things were said when the Japanese started exporting electronics and cars to the U.S. It is a fatal mistake by many Americans to assume that lack of quality in the past guarantees lack of quality in the future, or more to the point, that their aerospace products will be manufactured in the same factory as goods destined for Walmart. They have already successfully launched satellites and people into space, indicating attention to engineering detail when it matters. Nobody here seems to notice or care that they're quickly and quietly becoming the leaders in producing and developing renewable energy tech. This outright dismissal is going to be the eventual downfall of our lazy American asses. I hope our politicians don't dimiss this as easily as you do (and probably many other posters).
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
And in 1789, Samuel Slater "borrowed" English technology. There was no "innovation" (so to speak) except carrying the plans in the bloody great cranium of his.
And he was a hero for it.
Trying to block off "IP" in this case is shoveling shit against the tide whether you like it or not.
There is a whole lot of refusing to see all this through the eyes of the Chinese in this discussion by people with their panties in a twist. It's happening folks, the Industrial and Information Revolutions have simultaneously come to China and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
Roll with it baby. - Steve Winwood.
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BMO
You're delusional.
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BMO
Which would make 0 difference for Chinese people, as (I'm assuming) they're already used to lower standards when it comes to product quality / safety. And I reckon this aircraft would be targeted at the growing China's middle class, so for most travelers it wouldn't be an unsafe plane vs. safe plane issue, but rather going from 'too expensive to fly' to 'let's enjoy our first plain travel holiday'.
That said, I'm sure there's countless places in the world where driving the streets for an hour is way more dangerous than taking a 1-hour trip on Chinese-developed aircraft.
Chinese have already (successfully) copied fighter planes. Take a look at J-7 (Mig-21), J-8 (Su-15), J-10(Eurofighter), J-11 (Su-27, Su-33). So only thing that is actually new - is that they are making* a new, civilian airplane.
* When I say making, I think about using blatant copy of some existing design
So much of the US aerospace production is classified as "military" that it's a real problem for companies trying to export equipment.
The US regulators should become aware that it was progress, not secrecy, that kept the US ahead of the others during the Cold War. Now that the Soviet Union is no more, military technology does not have the same pressure as before to keep developing new stuff, so they try to keep the same old secrets forever.
Not to mention the Koreans in the 1980s and the Taiwanese in the 1990s and the Chinese in the 2000s. Next up: we laugh at the Vietnamese and the Malaysians in the 2010s, the Thais and the Indians in the 2020s and the ...
Do you see what's happening? All these nations are steadily, determinedly industrializing and marching past us on and up the value chain, while we make monkey noises and throw feces.
Over the years I have gradually begun to realize that China developing advanced technology is a good thing for the world as a whole.
First of all, as China has developed their standards of living and the quality of their products has increased enormously. It is true that occasionally they cut the wrong corner and you end up with lead contaminated products. But the overwhelming trend is towards higher and higher quality, like the Japanese economy was in the 1960s.
Second, China is now growing past the point of merely copying (or pirating) other nation's technology and is starting to actually create things that were never seen before. That benefits the U.S. as much as it benefits China.
One concrete example I know of : the smokeless cigarettes that deliver nicotine without the carcinogens were invented by a Chinese scientist. These things are a major advance, and if developed fully could eliminate most deaths from Tobacco usage.
In the long run, everyone in the world will benefit once China converts even a fraction of it's billion person population into scientists, engineers, and artists.
A well-formed argument indeed :]. For what it's worth, I agree with you - I thing the top Chinese scientists and engineers have demonstrated the ability to get projects of this scale done correctly. Comparing poorly assembled toys to aircraft isn't really fair.
weinersmith
China is behind. But they have things working in their favor:
They think in the long term. Unlike every company in the US that looks to the next quarter and no further.
They're motivated. Unlike many complacent CEOs in the US (US workers are still the most productive in the world - it's not their fault they are leaderless)
They've learned to stop letting the West take advantage of them. The West still thinks they can take advantage of them. We are wrong.
And they've stopped with the ideology bullshit getting in the way of targeting markets and picking winners and losers - anathema to the "free market" ideology of the US, but the Japanese did it to great success, and the Chinese learned by watching them.
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BMO
Um, yeah, they did actually produce planes, they just never were all that competitive with Airbus and Boeing.
Monstar L
All this has happened before and all this will happen again.
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
The technology they used to get to space was 90+% Russian, and you notice they haven't been back after the Russians took away a lot of the technology they were using because the Chinese were unabashedly copying it. The Chinese aren't going to make it to the moon this century, at least not with their "own" technology.
Monstar L
It's one thing to buy cheap Chinese made consumer electronics goods, but would you really want to risk your life in an aircraft? They cant even get products specifically destined for children right without someone unscrupulous substituting something inferior or deadly (lead paint, melamine). Unfortunately as a country they have a long way to go to rebuild their reputation.
Most of your car parts are already made in China. So are important things like your fire alarm, the locks on the front door, parts for your heating system... not to mention an increasing amount of medicines and food.
You're already "risking your life" buying Chinese things (and surviving it too)... Just because your local manufacturing lobby screams fire whenever a Chinese product is faulty doesn't mean that those bad products are the only exports from China.
The Chinese try to dominate the world financially... if that means that they must build good quality aircraft, then they will. So, they will either improve their own technology up to a point that it competes with the European and American industries - or they will eventually buy the European and American industries with profits from other sectors.
I don't think China will ever undertake any military actions to dominate the world. They'll eventually just buy us all.
Not even the Brazilian Embraers,
It's the 717 clone coming out of China that does, as well as the notion that HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics LTD, India) might get the same idea.
Now quality in passenger aircraft is a major concern for me and any other frequent traveller. Airbus and Boeing have proven track records and are able to get to the bottom of problems in short order. I don't have that kind of confidence in China, especially as face comes into play. It may become, to the leader du jour that maintaining the Chinese aircraft industry is more important then lives. Never underestimate the kind of stupid things that will be done to maintain face.
Now I've heard that we had the same fears about Japan 40 odd years ago and despite several attempts Japan has not been able to build a domestic aircraft industry of note since WWII and they were a nation who produced very high quality planes in WWII. Even Russia struggles with modern airliners, the only thing that keeps that industry afloat is Aeroflot.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The Chinese aren't going to make it to the moon this century
That's 90 years.
We went from not flying at all to the moon in 65 years.
I'll bet my 401K *and* both testicles that you're wrong.
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BMO
I didn't say, "no other country" will make it to the moon this century, I would be willing to bet that the Indians probably will, the Russians might, but the Chinese aren't, the space program is a joke and the upcoming economic crash will make it even more difficult for them.
Monstar L
You realize of course that branding have more often than not these days not much to do with what is sold with it. The car industry is a perfect example: you buy a car and you think it is German - not so: it may have been produced in Poland, Czech Republic, France, Belgium or Spain in a factory owner partially by competitors. This means however that when you buy say Mercedes it does not mean that the car is produced in Stuttgart. OTOH people fly with jets that carriers bought and hope the authorities control the market well enough so that landing are more or less controlled i.e. you purchase the whole flight experience not start only. Not all Chinese companies produce crap.
The difference is that when the A320 entered the market, it did not compete against the original 737 (-100 and -200), it competed against the pretty much brand new 737 that had been released at the start of the 1980s (the -300, -400, -500 "Classic" series) - and Boeing found itself in a position where they had to rapidly respond with the 737NG (-600, -700, -800 and -900) early in the 1990s.
The A320 competed nicely because it came to the market because it had a technological edge that even the brand new 737 Classic series didnt have.
However, the C919 is coming to market with yesterdays technology, not tomorrows. It has no advantage other than price - but that may be enough for smaller airlines that would normally buy older used aircraft (African and Asia Pacific regionals for example - lots of airlines there that run 20+ year old aircraft into the ground).
I guess you're the only person who read the story of the tortoise and the hare.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Unfortunately, that's the problem: the airlines are the ones doing the buying. I doubt most flight consumers even know what kind of plane they're in during the flight. It's not entirely their fault though. I'm sure it's very distracting to be given the choice of "nudie pics or molestation" just to get in the door.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
There's a lot more info on the C919, for those of us curious about it on the technical level, at http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/11/05/349329/china-special-c919-update.html .
Yeahhh the first time one of the chinese jets goes down for "inferior parts", there goes their ability to sell them to anyone outside the country. They need to get it right the first time, or they're going to build a whole lot of junk that airlines won't buy and customers won't fly on.
There are a lot of aircraft of questionable safety flying these days as it is. As I recall, flights which go between two airports not located in countries which have high inspection standards can be on planes which don't have to meet many standards at all. There was a recent crash (Indian Ocean?), where the passengers got on a plane in Paris, then changed planes on an island nation onto a much less safe plane which proved the point by crashing.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Quality is as low as the market will allow to be sustainable. It's one thing to sell cheap consumer crap to Americans who treat said crap as disposable and will gladly offer repeat business, but it's quite another to kill your customers. No repeat business is offered by the dead.
For an airline to be sustainable they will need to have a good safety record. China already applies this to some products. While they kill themselves on their roads the Great Wall X240 SUV they sell here in the Australian market has a 4star ANCAP safety rating and a build quality that puts other similar priced vehicles to shame.
I mean fuck the Russians put the first man into space and built up a nuclear arsenal, but if all I had to go on was the quality of the Lada one would wonder how they ever progressed beyond the stone age. Only an idiot judges an entire country's reputation on products designed and built to be entirely disposable.
Assume that is the steering wheel of society and you will be able to accurately predict EVERY twist and turn in politics or economics.
Thusly: the Government does not think about the people. It only cares about the rich. Because of Social Darwinism, which in their world is the core of EVERYTHING.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
What else can American manufacturers lose to the Chinese cheap labor and zero environmental concerns?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The market for jet engines is dominated by Rolls-Royce.
I think General Electric and Pratt & Whitney will be very surprised to hear that.
This will not kill Boeing or Airbus. Unlike cheap crap that people buy off ebay, the commercial airplane market in the West is quite image sensitive and financially and managerially cautious. They are not going to switch fleets to cheaper Chinese aircraft just to save a few dollars.
The largest exporter in the US is Boeing. Most of their sales are outside the US. The commercial airline market is a global market, not regional.
Is a Chinese widebody jet an immediate threat to Boeing and Airbus? No - it will take quite some time to develop. Could it seriously hurt Boeing and Airbus in a huge future market? Absolutely. Does it introduce another potential serious competitor? You better believe it. Would airlines switch planes if there was an economic case for doing so? Hell yes - if there is enough financial advantage in doing so they will buy from anyone. Airlines are not terribly profitable businesses so any economic advantage they can realize will be taken advantage of.
Japanese products used to be regarded as cheap crap, even within my lifetime. They got better. Lots better. Chinese firms already are very capable at manufacturing and there is little reason to doubt that they can produce a competitive product if they decide to do so, especially with state support. Hell China has a very active space program now. Canada's Bombardier and Brazil's Embraer already have excellent products in the regional jet market. No reason China can't join the party too.
I didn't say, "no other country" will make it to the moon this century
Explain what, exactly, you were thinking when you wrote this sentence. Seriously. What the bloody blazes are you replying to in my message? Go re-read my message.
upcoming economic crash
Yeah, and it took US merely 40 years to get to the moon from the beginning of the Great Depression with a world war eating up a significant chunk in between. But the space race to get to the moon really started from Kennedy's announcement in 1962, so it really took us 7 years with 1960s technology to get there.
So what you've said is that it will take the Chinese 13 times longer to get to the moon than we did assuming they start immediately.
Nope, I don't buy it. I don't buy your stupid assertions. They have no basis in reality. You ignore the development rate of the Chinese. You completely ignore the starting point of the Chinese. You ignore the education level of US educated Chinese scientists and engineers. Indeed, the only reference you have is your own biases from your own head.
It's attitudes like yours which make me fear for the future of the US in science and technology. Many people think like you. Many are willing to simply write off the Chinese even as they have been kicking our ass for 10 years. This is the complacency that nearly brought down the US automotive industry *twice* in the last 40 years. This is the complacency that will cost us our future.
Fuck you.
Sincerely,
BMO
Unfortunately, the governments of the world seem to be keeping relatively quiet on what, exactly, their contingency plans are for that...
One aspect of those plans is what to do with the remaining oil as the supply shrinks. You can fight for it or let your opponents fight over it. Or probably a few other things. What you don't do in any game is tell your opponent what you end-game strategy is going to be. Sure you have to develop alternatives, but there must still be a plan for the last drop of oil - even if it's just "let the others fight".
Methinks you need to think again. See "Airbus in China " (Google). A320 assembled in China happily flying daily throughout China. Many, many more to come.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Not while it's ripping out jobs and industries for a few trinkets. The only thing they'll do in the long term is have the First World consider military action against that country.
The same junk, just in a new industry. No real quality to speak of.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Many top Chinese engineers and scientists are Western educated, so calling them into question calls our own system into question. And yes, it's an unfair comparison. It's like asking Hasbro to come up with a moon rocket. Maybe, if there is a Werner Von Braun in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
I don't get the arguments about how the Chinese will always lag in these threads, how they're slow, how they don't know how to do anything well enough, that they make crap. I'm actually old enough to remember the exact same arguments said about the Japanese. I was a kid, but I did hear it from my parents, especially when I was told about build quality. Then the 1980s happened. Then Chrysler had to be bailed out by Ronald Reagan, and suddenly Japanese cars and electronics were what everyone wanted.
And we proceeded to say the same things about the Koreans (A Hyundai is one of the most reliable cars out there, and everyone seems to have a Samsung computer monitor or big screen TV). And we've also said some not-so-nice things about the Taiwanese too.
Funny how they've been able to catch up. The Chinese can't do the same? I don't buy it.
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BMO
I'm pretty sure you are a troll but eh, whatever...
Unfortunately, here in reality, the economics profession is a complete fucking failure of a joke.
It is called the dismal science for a reason. However that is mostly because it is REALLY hard to accurately model human behavior. People are unpredictable and do unpredictable things, both individually and in groups. If you can do better a Nobel prize awaits you.
Banks are run by dipshit morons propped up by criminal politicians.
Morons? No they aren't stupid. Greedy, selfish or arrogant I might go with but the guys who run banks are very very bright. I've met more than a few myself. Stupid is not a word that would come into the conversation.
Corporate accounting is a total fraud.
How so? I am a certified accountant who does corporate accounting for my day job so I'm more than passingly familiar with this capabilities and limitations of corporate accounting. It's certainly possible to have fraudulent corporate accounting (Enron, etc) but that hardly is evidence that corporate accounting as a whole is a "total fraud".
Ridiculous models conflate assets and technology and labor along with fiat currencies that have no real measurable value.
Do you have even the foggiest idea what the word asset means? Technology, labor and currency are BY DEFINITION assets. Anything tangible or intangible that can be owned or controlled to produce an economic benefit is an asset. Fiat currency's have measurable value and that value is measured every day. So long as people believe something has value, it does. Gold only has value because people believe it does. Same for any other resource.
The entire bullshit field is based on a fantasyland premise of perpetual growth in "utility" along with magical non-zero-sum mathematics at odds with even basic physics.
Glad you could distill the entire life's work of all those Nobel laureates. I'm sure they'll be happy you cleared up that they were wasting their time on a fruitless endeavor. You will of course be providing your own ever so insightful solution to all the worlds economic problems? ... No? Oh, I get it. You're on a populist rant and don't have time to be slowed down by actual logic, facts or reason.
With regard to China, the result is exactly what one would expect when trading with a country with few natural resources and a billion consumers
"Few natural resources"? Are we talking about the same country? China has natural resources that rival the US available to it. They are rich in some and lack others, just like any other country. Their needs are immense and often outstrip their domestic production as one might expect with a country containing 1/6 of the world's population but China is hardly resource poor.
American labor has lost all value.
Really? Then how does the US still have the largest economy of any single country in the world?
If they can't seem to get the idea of not dealing with China or other like countries, then these companies need to be punished for dealing with our enemies.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If we're lucky, they'll use their own paint. The lead content will make their airplanes overweight and thus, uncompetitive.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
Many of the same things were said when the Japanese started exporting electronics and cars to the U.S. It is a fatal mistake by many Americans to assume that lack of quality in the past guarantees lack of quality in the future, or more to the point, that their aerospace products will be manufactured in the same factory as goods destined for Walmart.
Sure, but it's also a "fatal mistake" to assume that what happened with Japan will also happen with China. In the case of Japan, there were significant cultural and historical reasons for the way their industry developed following WWII, and China is a very, very, different culture, with a very different history.
Chinese products will almost certainly get better, but it seems pretty unlikely that they'll improve quite to the degree Japan's did.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Treason is playing chess with a Russian.
Patriotism is selling weapons to declared enemies of the USA and skimming a bit off the top to air condition your house and buy a convertable.
Also you are a bit out of touch if you think China is Communist now despite the name of the only party allowed to form government there. It's about the most capitalistic country on earth at the moment. Selling the farm to them has been the clueless business practice for a long time and they are making us pay for that mistake.
Boeing used to protect their intellectual property like a bank, then they decided to ship manufacturing overseas. It was only a matter of time before China took a peek at the blueprints and came up with their own design.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
A commonly-used short-hand term in the British and Commonwealth military during the WWII period was U/S, short for "unservicable" meaning something wasn't worth repairing and it should be junked or dismantled for spare parts. It had nothing to do with the USA.
There is one A320 that completely disappeared from the face of the earth a decade or so ago. Airbus tracks all its planes and said A320 was never found. Apparently somewhere downstream China bought it, tore it apart supposedly to rebuild it with their own tools. I'd expect them to do the same with the A380.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
This probably had to do with something as simple as screw threads.
A Whitworth (55degree)threaded fastener (England) isn't going to go into a B&S(60 degree)(US) threaded hole regardless of quality.
But it didn't stop there. When English, Commonwealth, and US threads all became 60 degree inch based threads, it was still a crapshoot whether a fastener would fit in a hole. It was this way until the Unified Thread standard came to the fore in 1949.
You can imagine how much hell this played with "Lend Lease" equipment.
Take apart an American piece of equipment from WWII, snap/lose/strip an important screw, and you might as well junk it if all you've got is Canadian or English screws kicking around. And since the Unified Thread standard didn't get approved until 1949, this coincides with your WWII timeframe.
So yes, I'll buy the U/S story.
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BMO
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries would beg to differ.
It probably wasn't about quality.
Read further down this part of the thread about screw threads.
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BMO
Sorry, man. I usually don't go into Boeing vs. Airbus trollfights, but seriously? The A320 a 737, 20 years to late? First civilian airliner with fly by wire system, first civilian airliner pure glass cockpit, by then most massive use of fibre-composite materials in the civilian industry - you seriously wanna say the A320 is a 737 knockoff? The 737NG was Boeing's answer to the pressure of Airbus' innovations - and in some aspects still behind the 320.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Indeed, I hope they do, to light a fire under the complacent asses currently inhabiting my country - the US.
I've been hoping so too, but so far it doesn't seem to be working, so I'm growing less optimistic. I think this is the major reason: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/opinion/12brooks.html ... in the old days the US spent tax money on good old engineering to do great things like get people to the moon. Now it spends its money on massive bureaucracies that push paper around, for the sake of pushing paper around. And I'm afraid I don't think too many people in that system see or care about the bigger picture or bigger goals, just their next paychecks and the next department budget.
"at least not with their 'own' technology."
Selective quoting is fun isn't it?
I wouldn't put it past the chinese to lie, cheat, and steal their way to economic supremacy.
They have a market that any company would die to get access to.
And they've also shown willingness to play hardball over rare earths.
Just because the Chinese have learned the right way to make money and enhancing their competitiveness, It doesn't give you any right to bitch about it.
More angry that the politicians over the last 30 years have dismantled the system that created this economy over the last 200 years. The Chinese then went and implemented our system.
The system is from Alexander Hamilton’s Report on the Subject of Manufactures (1791). From here:
When what's good for business is not what is good for the country, the job of government is to step in and ensure we do what is good for the country. Government has become too enamored of business and has lost its way.
We can win..just let loose the market forces and we will see wonders.
Sounds like a religious statement. I don't subscribe to your religion on that one. Over the last 30 years we have tried that and it hasn't worked. All it has done is shipped jobs overseas, made the richer, pushed the middle class downward, and made the poor poorer. There is data that shows this hasn't worked. Look at the data and stop believing in fairy tales.
There are few patriots in the CxO class. As long as Wall Street is only interested in short term gains, that's all these guys are interested in too. So, we indeed sell the Chinese the rope they will use to hang us. The Darwinian capitalism you are recommending just eats itself.
Offshoring maintenance? As in having maint done in a stopover in Hong Kong or Cyprus instead of the States? I hadn't heard of that. Any more info on that?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
It is more complicated than the simple knee-jerk reactions I see posted here. China is very productive and has a huge capacity for more productivity. However, China does not produce enough internally to sustain a higher standard of living for their growing population. At this time, they must export in order to create a better standard of living overall. Since they have an absolute competitive advantage in some areas, especially labor-intensive areas, they will export increasingly higher-quality goods to those countries that already have a high standard of living.
However, Chinese government takes the results of the increased productivity and allocates it to "desirable" industries. At this stage of their economic development this allocation works in many areas, but as the number of subsidized industries increases and mis-allocated funding proliferates, the government burden increases and robs the nation of its productive gains. As costs increase, prices go up both internally and externally, and China loses its absolute competitive advantage. Most of China is so far behind economically that there is a built in sink for productive output at this time, but China must trade with other nations in order to continue to prosper. When they can no longer trade competitively with other nations, those industries that emigrated to China will return home.
I remember reading a comic, called "Japan, Inc." many years ago, and I wondered then how Japan could sustain its Economic growth while violating these basic Economic principles. Guess what?: A few years later Japan's growth stalled and the absolute advantage went to places like Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines, and now China. Japan is still trying to recover.
Eventually, in the absence of major wars or worldwide catastrophe, most of the world's economies will be at parity, in which case, the USA will represent about 20-22% of the world consumption and trade. It appears at this time that the last areas to become affluent will be on the African subcontinent.
China cannot be its own best customer forever. Unfortunately, with increasing public debt and the propensity for the USA to try to spend its way to prosperity instead of produce its way to prosperity, the USA may have some real economic collapse that will adversely affect the rest of the world, and spoil the ride for everyone.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
I have it on good authority that there could be urine in it.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
(US workers are still the most productive in the world - it's not their fault they are leaderless)
This really is it in a nutshell, isn't it? Our leadership on every conceivable level (be it Governmental or Corporate) has utterly failed us. There is no planning for anything beyond the next quarter or election. Investors and the electorate are told what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear.
I keep waiting for the Chinese to do something that we've never done before. Maybe that will kick us out of our complacency. We need to see a Chinese Sputnik. Then maybe we'll pull our collective heads out of our collective ass.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
there must still be a plan for the last drop of oil
According to peak oil theory, we aren't really worried about "the last drop of oil" ... I forget who said it, but the gist of it is captured in the saying "we will always have enough oil for our bicycle chains."
What we need to be prepared for is a world in which profligate burning of fossil fuels becomes increasingly expensive and unrealistic. GP's question of what the aviation industry will look like in 50 years is a good one, because in 50 years we will well and truly be on the other side of the peak oil curve, and we will have either figured out some kind(s) of alternative(s), or we will be living in a much smaller, more local world where people tell their incredulous grandkids stories about taking a trip to the Cayman Islands for a week just to get away.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Where do you get the idea that a 156 seat plane is a large aircraft.
Mind you China probably doesn't need a 747 sized craft, if we are talking about internal travel, and maybe to Japan. The big planes are only really economical on long flights.
This is a classic example of the Prisoner's Dilemma. If you don't sell your technology to China, then your competitors will, so you should too. Government export restrictions should be imposed for everybody's benefit.
It's a relative term. There are only a dozen or so larger models in production.
You're awfully vague about bureaucracies. The biggest problems in the behavior of the US government are very specific, though.
The military is huge and the fed is printing $600 billion to hand directly to Goldman Sachs. Meanwhile, unemployment is at record levels and nobody with any power is even proposing public works projects to bring it back down.
It also became associated with US goods so please don't be so defensive.
There were a lot of very low quality goods with "made in USA" stamped on them which got noticed more than other stuff. Also, let's face it, a lot of stuff made in the late 1940s and 1950s was utter crap made with whatever was available and the USA was were many manufactured goods came from. People just think the stuff from back then was good because they've only seen the best stuff that was used continuously and not cleaned junk out of an old shed.
It most definitely was just like the complaint about Japanese goods. The first runs of cheap mass produced crap are unreliable until designs and production methods are improved with time no matter where things come from if the industry is in it's early stages.
Another poster mentioned the military unservicable shorthand,which was then possibly initially applied as a joke to items from the USA and then became widespread for cheap consumer items that were not as well built as more expensive items.
Ask an older relative about the quality of goods back then.
While I'm not from the USA I was a member of the ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) for a while and I can tell you that many of the quality standards that we take for granted now were developed in the 1960s or later.
Wow, I got modded down just because people misread it and thought I said something bad about the USA?
It's not about the country guys, it's about the early stages of rapidly expanding mass production producing a lot of low quality stuff in comparison to the more expensively made stuff that is not mass produced. We can't all drive a Rolls Royce but people still knock the cheaper stuff that is in the budget.
My point is several countries have had the reputation over time as a source of junk when it was not deserved.
That's deeply interesting. Do you have a good source I could look at?
Recently, french president Nicolas Sarkozy has been announcing new trade deals with China. The trade deals cover things such as nuclear energy, and Airbus airplane sales. If I am not mistaken, some of the deals involve China manufacturing parts of the airplanes in China. It is not hard to imagine Chinese workers using workers surreptitiously learning and then transferring important Airbus technology to the Chinese airplane manufacturing industry. I am beginning to become anxious about China and its motives.
China's recent moves to restrict export of rare earth elements demonstrates its desire and ability to throw its weight around to achieve its ends. I don't think this bodes well for future relations with the West. If China is willing to cut off exports of an important commodity to Japan over a territorial dispute, what else is it capable of doing? Has it really been an intelligent policy decision to cede North America's manufacturing base to China? We have replaced manufacturing jobs with "service industry" jobs. The wealth gained by service industry jobs in areas such as engineering and design are largely dependent on other countries respecting "intellectual property" provisions. If China holds the power in manufacturing, what is to stop them from simply lifting our expertise and ideas and profiting from them without compensating us?
Above all, I believe China's rapid growth, largely at our expense, shows the intellectual vacuousness modern free trade theory. The standard line of those who expound the virtues of modern neoliberal economics is that nations that trade with each other do not go to war. Though there is some truth to this, I believe those who believe that trade prevents war ignore many important lessons from history. They ignore human nature. They miss the fact that China is not a democracy, that it does not play by the same rules we play by. They ignore the fact that China is displaying signs of increasing nationalism. They ignore the fact that military dictatorships are often unpredictable, that powerful rulers often fall victim the darker side of human nature and that power corrupts.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Hey, I whole-heartedly agree! The US has moved from a manufacturing economy to an "imaginary" intellectual property economy. We can now simply sit back and relax while collecting the wealth of the world through software licenses, copyright royalties, heck, even just patent licenses. And the rest of the world just takes it! They love western culture and will pay through the nose for licensed brand items, even if it was produced and manufactured in their own backyard for a fraction of the price! And hell, even if they go and produce some of their own culture, we'll collect distribution royalties on the compression codec licensing!
Doesn't that sorta remind you of the Stamp Tax we owed to the British monarchy back in the day, just for printing our own newspapers. And they even unironically call these payments "royalties" to this day. Hmm, I wonder how that sort of empiricism worked out for them in the past?
I don't think protectionism is the cure, though, more likely part of the disease. ITAR and EAR only made it more effective for companies to produce high technology outside of the US, a lot of space tech on the international market nowadays actively advertises "no US technology" as a primary feature, since it makes it much, much easier to export and even just to talk about space tech without submitting to all kinds of protectionist export control red tape and bureaucracy. We just need to stay ahead the old fashioned way, through education and efficient resource utilization to stay smarter and leaner and faster than the competition. Trying to maintain, 'ahem', competitive inequality through paperwork backed by the threat of economic & conventional warfare isn't conducive to progress for anyone, just the few that want to retard the system so they can collect money for a short spell until some sort of revolution (technological or social) inevitably occurs to tip the balance of power.
It's way too easy for Bernanke to shit out another trillion bucks whenever he feels like it. One of the greatest advantages of gold is that it's pretty damned hard to inflate it.
For the USA, that's the huge _disadvantage_ of gold: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1006095&cid=25493341
Do read the above link. Summary: not a disadvantage to be able to create money when by doing so you in effect TAX THE REST OF THE WORLD (at least those holding net positive amounts of YOUR currency).
Your real problem would be that when the "US Mugabe" (aka US Gov) prints money, it is no longer handing the Old Mugabe Cronies (aka US citizens) a good enough share of the created money. Say the US Mugabe is handing over most of the printed money to its NEW Cronies, and not the US citizens. What would Mugabe's old cronies do if that happened? What do the US citizens do? Vote US Mugabe back into power?
Your other problem would be if the rest of the world starts switching to a different currency (Euro?) to buy oil, trade stuff, lend and borrow etc. Then when the US creates money, the rest of the world would be less affected and would laugh just like they laugh at Zimbabwe.
But as long as the rest of the world continues to hold and use trillions of US dollars, they won't be laughing whenever the US creates money. Even if they are too stupid to know what is actually happening (and many even "flee to the US dollar" for safety).
Another related thing: I always find it funny that people say that China is screwing the USA when China lends the US trillions of US dollars. Just think about it, China has just lent the US trillions of US dollars, which the US can create at any time[1], and the US turns around and uses that money to buy goods from other nations (including China!).
The US's problem is not that it has an advantage, the US's problem is it is wasting it.
China poisons its citizens to be a cheap mega-factory (they do have some sort of long term plan though - they're building > 100 nuclear power stations) and the USA uses the resulting savings to "get fat, buy cheap toys and big TVs", instead of investing the savings for a better future. The US is screwing itself way more than China is screwing them.
[1] The US has ALREADY created trillions without seemingly huge problems, Google for: federal reserve trillions (whenever they say "borrowed from US citizens/taxpayers" the numbers in your bank account don't go down immediately, so what has happened? Your money has actually become worth less, just most haven't realized it yet). So what's the big problem if it creates 2 trillion if China really wants US to pay up. It can always do fancy tricks to create it. Seems like most people are still too stupid to figure it out.
Either you missed the point completely or you are a true capitalist and a lousy human being.
You see, Marx was NOT talking about the WHOLE system but specific countries. The capitalist system in a COUNTRY is bound to fail because it can't regulate itself.
If say the US or EU loose the aircraft industry their local economies will be damaged. Not only won't they have money coming in (and see the current rush to print money as to how important exports are for economies) , they would have to export money to buy their new aircraft. See the US economy when you have nothing left to export and import everything.
So, the true capitalist who follows the money and trades were ever a dime is to be made will survive, if he moves fast enough before the mob rises up. But the local economies fail. The trade balance is unimportant to a day-trader but it matters a great deal for the long term stability of an economy.
China is the Asian-Tiger economy the west cannot ride. I predict that China will in the forseeable future start a conflict for more resources, most likely to the north or west (North-Pole/Russia) and increase its independence from the west through developing its own technology while at the same time undermining the west with cheap exports that destroy the west own production capacities. They don't need to fight a big war, just wipe out the economies and make it unprofitable to resist.
Then when the western nations are once again backward barbarians and China the enlightened center of the world, things will be as they have been for the longest period in human civilization.
The few hundred years of western dominance of the world a mere foot note in the long history of the Chinese empire.
All because capitalists can't think long term. Airbus indeed struggled, mostly because it was constantly interfered with by local politics of EU countries squabbling over which part gets build were. China won't have any such problem and they got cash to burn and the drive to do it since they aren't ruled by next quarter right wing politicians.
So what if Airbus ain't threatened in the next 5 years. China got time. Always had.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You go try to taxi it by hand then.
It has been written.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I am an aerospace engineer and have worked with equipment from domestic (American) companies and Chinese companies. I designed a special type of wind tunnel test stand and equipped two, one with a 6DOF strain gage sting balance from Lockheed Martin, and another with a 6DOF strain gage sting balance from China Aerodynamic Research and Development Center.
The CARDC balance had all the gages and wiring on the exterior of the balance. There were over 40 strain gages on a device about 6 inches long, which meant tiny wires were glued all over the outside of the balance. This meant that the device was subject to damage from even the most gentle handling, and even damage from normal use in a wind tunnel. I was supplied with calibration data that was completely wrong, and the nonlinear differential equations that defined each degree of freedom didn't provide results that corresponded with the output of the device. I had to build a calibration stand and completely recalibrate the device and come up with new equations. The price tag for this piece of crap? $100,000.
The Lockheed balance was designed so all wiring and gages were *inside* the structure. This meant that the extremely delicate wires and gages could not be damaged by handling the balance, and they would resist damage from use. The calibration provided by Lockheed was correct, and they were able to provide data on the device dating back to when Chance-Vought built it. I never had a problem with the Lockheed balance. Price? The same as the Chinese one.
Next up is design practice. I know what design processes are used in Chinese aerospace companies. How do I know? Because they bought the design books from my old company, and then copied them and passed them around. They also decided to use an old cracked version of our aircraft design software. People who actually bought the software got updates and bugfixes. These clowns do not.
This was just a few years ago. I was trained by and worked for the most influential aircraft designer in the world. Having dealt with Chinese aerospace companies and seen first hand their lack of engineering acuity, there's no way you'll get me to step foot on one of their aircraft.
The IRS collects something like 70% of the taxes that corporations owe, while they collect 99% of the individual taxes owed.
The main problem isn't that the IRS doesn't collect what the businesses owe. The main problem is that companies have plenty of avenues available to reduce their actual tax bill. The problem really is that there are lots of tax loopholes, credits, and jurisdictional issues that let many companies greatly reduce their tax bill. Our statutory tax rates could be significantly reduced while simultaneously raising more tax revenue IF a lot of the special tax credits and other tax loopholes were closed. The recent proposal by the President's bipartisan deficit reduction committee takes advantage of exactly this fact.
A grossly oversimplified example. Say a generic manufacturing company has plants in both the US and China. Theoretically this US based company should pay taxes in the US on earnings but they might lower their tax bill by doing things like not repatriating their earnings - leaving the cash in China and reinvesting it there. Companies do this all the time. There's nothing legally wrong with it and arguably nothing immoral. But it does leave a lot of potential tax revenue on the table. This is just one example and large companies devote a huge amount of resources to reducing their tax bills because it is financially worth the effort.
If businesses want to be treated like real people, have rights like real people, vote and contribute like real people, then they need to pay taxes like real people.
I would argue that they DO pay taxes just like real people. They try to weasel out of paying them whenever possible.
I don't get the arguments about how the Chinese will always lag in these threads, how they're slow, how they don't know how to do anything well enough, that they make crap. I'm actually old enough to remember the exact same arguments said about the Japanese. I was a kid, but I did hear it from my parents, especially when I was told about build quality. Then the 1980s happened. Then Chrysler had to be bailed out by Ronald Reagan, and suddenly Japanese cars and electronics were what everyone wanted.
And, then the 90's happened and the Japanese economy still hasn't recovered...
We're in a world economy. Sure, the US has had years of being on top. It's not going to stay there, though. But, it's not going to be the Japanese or Chinese or Indians or whatever that's going to take over. We're moving to a much more distributed world economy.
No single nation is going to dominate. The US is going to be knocked off it's perch by the world, not any individual nation. And none of them will dominate for the exact same reasons.
Really, you really came here to say that?
We went to the Moon with German technology. Not specifically "our own"
Thank you for playing.
Werner Von Braun is laughing his ass off.
--
BMO
Whose product will they carbon copy this time?
The technology they used to get to space was 90+% Russian
Common fallacy - they bought a Soyuz and a lot of engineering time, and the vehicles are similar in configuration and concept, but the Chinese vehicles are essentially a whole new design and used nearly no Soyuz components other than the docking mechanism and imported space suits (I think that was it).
Looks similar doesn't mean design stolen from. Chinese engineers did most of the hard work on all of the hardware with those two noted exceptions.
The launch vehicle was all theirs.
Korean cars are still crap. At least compared to Japanese or German cars. Samsung displays and semiconductor products are great.
The Japanese have been attempting to hold onto their industrial capacity and keep unemployment low. This comes with a share of benefits and issues.
AFAIK the Chinese flew a LOX/LH2 upper stage engine before the Russians did. Shenzhou is more advanced than Soyuz. Their problem is their technological development is very uneven.
That makes no sense. The Indian space program is much behind the Chinese space program. The Indians have a large population and some highly educated people but their infrastructure is very poor even by Chinese standards. They are also resource constrained.
The Japanese have large military aircraft. Like the protracted C-X. Just not large civilian aircraft. They do manufacture a lot of aircraft components (e.g. composites) for Boeing though.
Taiwan has a similar culture compared to China. The country is mostly ran by Chinese ex-pats or their descendants. They also were known for cheap low quality products until the Taiwanese government started pushing for quality in the 1990's. Today they have companies like TSMC (which manufactures the GPUs for NVIDIA and AMD), ASUS, HTC. Part of the reason for Japan's descent in the consumer goods market was that the Japanese lost the race in electronics manufacturing to Taiwan and Korea. Sony is one example. They used to be leaders in consumer electronics. Then they bought Columbia TriStar and lost touch with their customers. Sony is now a content company through and through. Read the profile of their current CEO and you will see what I mean.
Well ... yes. China produces everything from utter shit to really wonderful stuff. Most of the crap that the GP is complaining about exists because we Americans are suckers for a price that is too good to be true. We'll buy apiece of junk for half price ten times as often.
There is no question that in the long run China is *capable* of producing anything we can. They can certainly produce an airliner as good as any from the US or Europe in the relatively near term. The question is whether they *will*, and if they do, how we will know. I'd have doubts about this airliner, because it is a showcase project being orchestrated by a government which is extremely sensitive to unflattering news. If some enterprising reporter turns up some horrible risk to the people flying in this plane, reporting that would actually be considered a crime against the state, not a public service.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'm not sure what it is. Part of me thinks it might be growing nationalism on the part of Chinese visiting English language web forums, part of me thinks it might be the sort of general anti-Western self-loathing common to Slashdot.
And part of me thinks that if the Chinese government wanted to, they could probably easily fill a propaganda ministry building with a few thousand English speaking Chinese who did nothing all day but cruise English language web forums and slag America(ns) and work to suppress negative opinions of China & the Chinese.
I don't even feel good about buying a fork made in China and you expect me to fly on an airplane from there? Holy change airlines batman!
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemenia_Flight_626
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine