Recently in Aerospace manufacturing Category

No doubt somebody will point out a worse one, but it will have to be pretty grim to challenge the new role that it seems long-standing Sukhoi chief Mikhail Pogosyan has finally got - head of Russia's United Aircraft Corporation (UAC).

Finally got my first visit to Airbus's Getafe facility a few miles south of Madrid today and, even though obviously I'm currently biased towards my primary employer, it's hard not to be impressed by the ultra-leading-edge composites and other manufacturing technology there.

Obviously the pride of Getafe right now is the magnificent beast shown below refuelling an itsy-bitsy Boeing E-3F AWACS. In the refuelling community, as I've been learning, the very occasional hairy things that happen usually involve tanking to large aircraft rather than to fighters. So topping up the AWACS, with its dorsal radome, has given everyone a lot of satisfaction. Particularly as it so happened that when the loaned AWACS turned up at the rendezvous it did in fact need refuelling for real so the first 'trial' was actually done in anger.

Boeing's coverage of its own 787 Dreamliner first and second flight has been so weirdly non-intuitive that I haven't really worked out how you're supposed to follow it, even though I'd love to. Anyway the pictures below are from the Boeing-owned Future of Flight enterprise via Seattle PI - or something.

Scott Hamilton's story about US questions to the WTO about Chinese aerospace subsidies, published first on our CAO subscription service, and then on his own Leeham site, deserves much more attention than it's been getting. It hints at one of the most powerful reasons why China's aerospace industry is not going to match the major Western airframers for many, many years to come.

I still don't think so, although the theory is getting renewed currency. Our rivals over at Aviation Week are suggesting that China's C919 is going to be well-timed to steal a lead over the West, and now it seems Bloomberg is talking up the idea of Bombardier and Embraer finally getting thier big break.

So, for those of you who haven't seen the story on the Flightglobal homepage, here's the model of the Comac C919 at the Asian Aerospace show in Hong Kong.


Looks like a sort of Bombraer-Boebus C7320.

My colleague David Kaminski-Morrow suggests that the aircraft image tucked away in the background in this ceremony back in May is more likely to represent what it actually looks like. I suspect he's right. Here's the original link.


 

OK, I badly need some Chinese assistance here. This image below has turned up today in a Chinese publication, it seems to me purporting to be China's planned C919 airliner. If it really is a high-wing, T-tailed configuration then that would be a huge surprise. Surely not?

But at least the explanation for why it's called the C919, which I've been wondering about for ages, sounds plausible. I'm relying on Google for my translation however - it would be great if somebody out there could work out a more accurate version.

So now we know which vendors are likely to turn up on the aircraft carrying the hopes and fears of Russia's large commercial aircraft business for the foreseeable. And it's quite an interesting list that Irkut has released regarding the MS-21 (or MC-21 as they, but just about nobody else, call it.)

OK, one last time, we all agree Boeing 767 looks great with winglets, and here's the most recent one to fly - it's Lan's first and flew Santiago-Buenos Aires (just to show off to the neighbours I suppose.)