The development process of China's passenger aircraft can be said to carry a bumpy history. In the fifties and sixties, due to the shortcomings of China's aviation technology, China was unable to design and manufacture large passenger aircraft on its own. Therefore, China's civil aviation passenger aircraft mainly rely on imports, such as the Il-series, Tu-series, etc. It is a pity that compared with European and American airliners, Soviet-style airliners are obviously at a disadvantage in terms of comfort, reliability and range. Therefore, the international passenger aircraft market has basically formed two major systems: the European Airbus family and the American Boeing family.
Obviously, it is not easy to independently design passenger aircraft, and China has long relied mainly on imported passenger aircraft from Europe and the United States. It was not until the beginning of the 21st century that China began to gradually launch the local passenger aircraft project, and starting from regional airliners was because the design of large passenger aircraft was extremely difficult. In 2014, China's self-designed ARJ21 regional airliner was put into market operation for the first time, and as of 2022, a total of 100 ARJ21 airliners have been produced, marking a new stage of mass production, large-scale operation and serial development of domestic jet regional airliners.
This marks the first step in China's passenger aircraft industry, and it is also a crucial step. With the finalization and mass production of passenger aircraft, China has gradually accumulated design experience and a large number of technical personnel, which is undoubtedly very valuable. By 2023, China's self-developed C919 large passenger aircraft will begin commercial operation, which is of great significance. The C919 passenger aircraft is a large passenger aircraft independently developed by China, which is basically comparable to the Boeing 737 and Airbus 320.
According to the published information, the purchase unit price of the C919 airliner is 10.8 billion US dollars, can accommodate 158-192 seats, the range is between 4075 and 5555 kilometers, basically able to meet the transportation needs of domestic and neighboring countries. In the process of developing C919, it has attracted and driven a number of universities and enterprises to participate in the development of large passenger aircraft projects - involving 5 categories, 20 majors, and more than 6,000 civil aircraft technologies.
The design and development of C919 has led to a collective breakthrough in China's technology, materials and processes, which is very important. Next, we will talk about the C929 airliner project. The intercontinental airliner of the CR929 project was officially approved at the flight conference, and the code name was changed from CR929 to C929, marking a change in Sino-Russian cooperation. This long-range wide-body passenger aircraft with 250 to 350 seats will become China's domestic intercontinental passenger aircraft, with a maximum range of 12,000 kilometers, and can fly directly to Europe and the United States and other countries.
However, China and Russia had great differences in the design concept, technical investment and use of funds for the project, and finally chose to fight separately. The research and development of C929 is accompanied by great challenges and opportunities, but China has accumulated rich technology and talent reserves in the research and development experience of C919 passenger aircraft, and has accumulated valuable experience in human resources, domestic ** chain, key technological breakthroughs and overall R&D system. Therefore, the development of C929 is both a challenge and an opportunity for China.
The C929 is expected to make its first flight in 2030 and will take about seven years to develop. The C929 wide-body aircraft's main structure is made of more than half composite materials, comparable to the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787, to reduce weight and enhance design flexibility. In December 2023, the 540V and 25kW motors in the core components of the high-lift system of the domestic large aircraft C929 successfully completed the performance loading verification test in Xi'an.
The success of this milestone marks that the company has overcome the bottleneck of high-voltage motor development technology and filled the gap of high-voltage and high-power motors in the field of domestic aviation airborne actuation. Wide-body airliners largely represent the highest level of aviation technology. After continuous exploration and breakthroughs from Y-10 to ARJ21, from C919 to C929, it shows the ambition and strength of China's aviation industry. In particular, once the C929 intercontinental passenger aircraft is put into commercial operation, it will mean that China's aviation industry has completely broken through the bottleneck of large aircraft.