Why did China wait until recently to start her own airliner program?  Why didn’t China start the C919 as far back as the mid 90s?  China wouldn't have to buy Boeings if they long started this project.

为什么中国直到最近才开始制造自己的客机？为什么中国没有在90年代中期就开始生产C919？如果中国早就开始着手制造C919，就不用购买波音了。

以下是Quora网友的评价：

Peter Ole Kvint

Building airplanes is a very big task that can be overturned by a single small detail. So China has started as a sub-supplier of all the parts that go into an aircraft. And finally collected them into an aircraft.

制造飞机是一项非常庞杂的任务，一个小小的细节可能就会导致失败。所以中国就先从飞机零部件的次级供应商做起，最后才整合成一架飞机。

iaoda iao

It took long for the China to collect all were needed to build a airliner, although even so, there were still missing elements here and there so that the test flying of the C919 turned incomplete.

中国花了很长时间才收集到制造一架客机所需的所有材料，但仍然还是缺一些缺少元素，所以C919的试飞其实并不完美。

Joseph Loh

with aircraft technology, especially the main turbine engines and other components, China is still relying on foreign suppliers or technology support. I am of the opinion that USA in the last 30 years, especially after 911, did a series of foreign activities, provided the golden opportunities or golden years, by targeting some countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, and interfering in the domestic political affairs of countries like Ukraine ( before Russia/ukraine war) actually helped China gained many high end scientists and engineers from these countries, which MAY explain why China growth in economic, technological areas has been so fast, ( actually nearly all great countries including USA has experienced such rapid growth in technological and economic. USA absolved so many scientists and engineers from Germany and Japan after 2nd world war). China has moved from fabrication to design and manufacturing in the last 10–20 years, they have brought themselves to a totally different level, no more fabricating others products like iPhones, cars, airplanes ( including Boeing) for foreign companies for a contract fee, and be their own boss, Only recently China developed a aircraft development centre in xan, ask yourself where have all the Ukrainian scientists and engineers gone?

在飞机技术方面，尤其是主涡轮发动机和其他部件，中国仍然依赖外国供应商或技术支持。我认为美国在过去的30年里，特别是911之后进行了一系列的外交活动，提供了黄金机会或者说是黄金年代，美国针对伊朗、伊拉克、叙利亚等国家，干涉乌克兰等国家的国内政治事务(在俄乌战争之前)，帮助中国从这些国家获得了许多高端科学家和工程师，所以中国在经济、技术领域得到了快速的发展。(实际上，包括美国在内的几乎所有大国都在科技和经济方面实现了快速的增长。

二战后，美国赦免了德国和日本的许多科学家和工程师。）在过去的10-20年里，中国已经从加工转向了设计和制造，他们已经跻身完全不同的水平，不再为了赚取承包费用帮外国公司制造iphone、汽车、飞机(包括波音)等产品，而是开始自己当起了老板。最近中国在西安建立了一个飞机开发中心，你猜猜看，乌克兰科学家和工程师都去哪儿了？

Cze Low

Yes of course if she had her own planes, she would have saved trillions of dollars. However it was a develo phase and it was easier to buy what's available out there.

Now that China has progressed to her present advanced state and is ready to use her own planes .

是的，当然，如果中国能自己造飞机，就能节省数万亿美元。但研制飞机需要一个过程，购买现成的飞机更简单。

既然中国已经达到了现有的先进水平，中国自然可以开始启用自己的飞机。

Krishna Kumar Subramanian

You’re building a whole system, not just an aircraft.

And these systems have to be certified by European or American regulators if the aircraft has to have any credibility.

Obviously, you cannot build overnight certifiable systems with manageable costs yourself, especially for the first time, so you go to other vendors who engineer such complete systems for the major players: Boeing, Airbus, and Embraer.

你需要打造的是一个完整的系统，不仅仅是一架飞机而已。

这些系统必须得到欧洲或美国监管机构的认证。

很显然，你不可能在极短的时间内用可控的成本自己构建起可靠的系统，万事开头难，因此你需要向其他为主流飞机品牌(波音、空客和安博威)设计完整系统的供应商求助。

Honeywell/Liebherr-Aerospace: customer service and spare parts for the air management and landing gear systems on Comac’s two vessels.

Engines: CFM Leap from Safran. They were lucky they did not choose the much vaunted Pratt & Whitney Geared fan, which has been a disastrous failure and left several airlines bankrupt due to its refusal to honor commitments.

APU: Honeywell

Flight Control System: Parker Aerospace

Hydraulic and Fuel Systems: Eaton Aerospace

Avionics: GE

…and so on.

霍尼韦尔/利勃海尔-宇航：为中国商飞的两艘飞机提供空中管理和起落架系统的客户服务和备件。

发动机：赛峰CFM Leap。幸运的是，他们没有选择被名不副实的普拉特&惠特尼齿轮减速扇，这家公司因为拒绝履行承诺导致了几家航空公司破产的灾难性后果。

A辅助动力系统：霍尼韦尔

飞行控制系统：帕克航空航天公司

液压和燃料系统：伊顿航空航天公司

航空电子设备：通用电气

等等。

And these contractors will ask for a contract of at least 50 aircraft sets before even starting their design process.

You can imagine the up-front costs.

And that is just the foreign component.

Then you have the metalworking, metalforming, cabin furnishings, and a full range of tests.

这些承包商甚至在开始设计过程之前就会要求至少签订50架飞机的合同。

你可以想象一下前期成本有多大。

这还只是外来部件。

还有金属加工，金属成型，机舱装饰，以及一系列的测试。

Currently, only a handful of countries in the world make their own planes — and for good reason, extremely high obstacles, such as serious technical expertise, rigorous regulatory requirements and eye-pop amounts of time and resources.

A major risk for Comac is a heavy reliance on U.S. and European technology, including engines, despite its promotion as "made in China." Increasing tensions with the West could affect future COMAC projects.

目前，世界上只有少数几个国家有能力自己造飞机，这是有充分理由的，理由是困难太多了，比如严格的专业技术知识、严苛的监管要求以及惊人的时间周期和资源投入。

中国商飞面临的一个主要风险是严重依赖美国和欧洲的技术，包括发动机，尽管中国商飞的飞机被称为“国产大飞机”。中国和西方的关系日益紧张，可能会影响中国商飞未来的项目。

After a 16-year development program plagued by delays, China’s homegrown C919 passenger jet made its long-awaited maiden commercial flight in May 2023.

China has acknowledged the criticism. “Some people have been questioning whether the C919 can be called a domestically-manufactured aircraft when it relies on imports,” Chinese state-run tabloid Global Times said in an editorial.

经过16年的研发，中国国产C919客机于2023年5月进行了期待已久的首次商业飞行。

《环球时报》在一篇社论中说：“有些人一直在质疑C919是否能被称为国产飞机，因为C919依赖进口。”中国接受了这一说法。

“It is true that there is a long list of foreign suppliers for the C919.”

The aircraft contains “Honeywell’s (HON) electricity system and landing gear, GE’s (GE) flight recorder, CFM Leap’s engine, Parker Aerospace’s flight control system and fuel system, Rockwell Collins’ weather radar and simulate system, and Michelin’s (MGDDY) tires,” the outlet noted. All are US or European companies.

“的确，C919的外国供应商有不少。”

C919飞机配置了“霍尼韦尔的电力系统和起落架、通用电气的飞行记录仪、CFM Leap的发动机、帕克航空的飞行控制系统和燃料系统、罗克韦尔柯林斯的天气雷达和模拟系统，以及米其林的轮胎”，这些品牌都是美国或欧洲的公司。

Kanthaswamy Balasubramaniam

That easy huh?

If you needed a few billion bucks to establish a commercial aircraft industry, you would think at least 30 nations would have had their own fully operational commercial aircraft right?

Let's see

你觉得非常简单，是吧？

如果你需要几十亿美元来打造一个商用飞机的产业，你觉得全世界至少得有30个国家拥有自己的商用飞机，对吧？

那我们一起看看吧

Threshold Engineers & Researchers

工程师和研究人员

To commercially manufacture Aircraft you need a minimum threshold workforce of engineers & researchers

Aerospace, Aeronautical and a whole bunch of engineers with significant experience working for commercial aircraft or who have studied commercial aircraft production and assembly

The Magic number for China was 25,000 to be able to draw from

This happened only by 2014–2015

想要批量生产飞机，最少需要多少工程师和研究人员

航空航天和航空工程的研究人员和大量工程师，他们必须在商用飞机上有丰富的工作经验，或者研究过商用飞机的生产和组装

中国需要惊人的25000人

这还只是2014-2015年的数据

Prior to that every Aerospace Engineer or Designer worked for Defence Manufacturing or for the Space Agency

Boeing alone has a workforce of 61,000 Engineers and 4300 Researchers

The West combined has close to 160,000 Engineers and Researchers in their workforce for Commercial Aircraft Manufacture

By comparison COMAC has 11,280 Engineers and around 900 Researchers

在此之前，每个航空航天工程师或设计师都在国防制造业或航天局工作

仅波音公司就有61,000名工程师和4300名研究人员

西方国家总共有近16万名工程师和研究人员从事商用飞机的制造

而中国商飞拥有11280名工程师和约900名研究人员

Chinas largest workforce is for

Production Engineering (1998–2004)

Civil Engineering (1982–1998)

Chemical Engineering & Metallurgy (2004–2012) & Electrical Engineering (2004–2012)

Automobile Engineering (2012–2019)

Tooling & Precision Engineering (2019-)

Even today China has around 34,000 Engineers and Researchers as total workforce for Commercial Aircraft Production

中国最大的劳动力是在以下行业：

生产工程(1998-2004)

土木工程(1982-1998)

化工与冶金(2004-2012)、电气工程(2004-2012)

汽车工程(2012-2019)

模具与精密工程(2019-)

今天，中国有大约34000名工程师和研究人员从事商用飞机生产

Competition

竞争

You aren't competing with just Boeing or Airbus

Your competition is with Boeing, Rolls Royce, GE, Safran, Michelin, Dunlop and another 700–1200 companies that make from the largest airframe to the smallest on board electronic assembly

The Airframe alone to carry such a huge aircraft is a massive challenge

The Wind Tunnel System

The Electronics

The Wheels

你不仅仅是在和波音或空客竞争

你的竞争对手是波音、劳斯莱斯、通用电气、赛峰、米其林、邓禄普和另外700-1200家公司，这些公司负责从最大的机身到最小的机载电子组件的生产加工

单是能承载如此巨型飞机的机身就是一个巨大的挑战

还有风洞系统

电子系统

轮胎

Every part especially the Engine is a result of decades of continuous development by the West from the First World War

China this needed to get the Airframe Right

This alone took a decade

They then used a Canadian entity called Bombardier to get the electronics and the supply chain

They then got the electronics right. That took four years.

Then they got the Composite Wing Design and that was seven years.

That finished by 2021

They still have the largest nut to crack - THE ENGINE!!!!

Plus remember Mitsubishi has been unable to break into this market after 45 years

每一个部件，尤其是发动机，都是西方从第一次世界大战开始持续几十年不断研发的结果

中国光是搞定飞机机身就花了10年时间

然后，他们通过一家名为庞巴迪的加拿大企业获得了电子设备和供应链

他们又用了四年时间搞定了电子器件。

然后他们又花了七年时间进行复合机翼设计。

2021年才完成。

但他们还有一个最大的难题尚未攻破—引擎！！

要知道，三菱花费了45年时间都还未能打入这个市场。

Economic Fiscal Problem

经济财政问题

Like our Bullet Train, this Airliner was deemed a project that could never hope to break even by Chinas best economists

It's why they proposed the HSR or Highways where China is the boss, the master of the fantastic quality supply Chain

It's why China is investing so heavily into HSR

That's their core area

就像我们的高铁一样，中国最好的经济学家也认为这架客机永远不可能实现收支平衡

这就是他们建议发展高铁或高速公路的原因，因为中国在这两个领域是老大，是高级供应链的领袖

这就是中国大举投资高铁的原因

因为高铁是中国的核心领域

Sadly the Comac is more of a prestige issue by China

To have their own fully made aircraft is acceptable even if the aircraft costs some money to the State as subsidies to keep at even keel

Its why China sidestepped IC Engines which they could never ever perfect and are masters of EV Batteries and E Platforms on earth

The Aircraft has to be made fully indigenous on a huge scale to break even because today the selling price is lower than what it costs on an accountants scale

In 1990 - China could certainly not afford to subsidize the Aircraft by any degree of money that they can easily do in their sleep today

可悲的是，中国商飞还面临一个更大的问题—信誉问题。

拥有国产飞机是好事，即便需要国家给予补贴来保持平衡。

这就是为什么中国放弃了他们可能永远也无法完美研发出来的发动机，就算中国已经是地球上电动汽车电池和电子平台的老大。

要想实现收支平衡，这架飞机必须实现大批量的完全国产，因为现在的售价还不及核算成本。

1990年中国肯定无法负担对飞机生产的补贴，但今天他们可以轻轻松松地实现。

So establishing an Industry and producing commercially is not a joke

It takes decades of solid hard work

You are competing against a technology evolution of over 60 years or 70 years from the West

You have specialized suppliers and makers of mother machines

Exactly why Chinas EVs and Renewable Energy models are next to impossible to recapture by any other nation

They have the whole package

因此，从零打造一个工业和商业生产不是一句玩笑话

这需要几十年的辛勤努力

你们的竞争对手是已经在这个领域持续研究了六七十年之久的西方国家

你们有专门的供应商和生产商

这也是中国的电动汽车和可再生能源模式几乎无法被其他国家模仿的原因

他们有全套的资源

Pher Kimhuat

As C919 is a commercial airliner to carry more than a hundred passengers at one go, safety is the utmost important criteria not to rush the program to ensure all safety measures installed passed the stringent requirement. It’s absolutely necessary for COMAC to be very careful to ensure the safety of C919 comes first, not to rush and start its operation in the 90s.

C919是可以运载100多名乘客的商用客机，安全是最重要的标准，不能急于一时，必须确保安装的所有安全措施都符合严格的要求。对于中国商飞来说，必须确保C919的安全万无一失，没有必要赶在90年代就匆忙开始运营。