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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 2626.PDF
GHmA Focus on China • 1996 GDP: $832 billion • 1996 GDP growth: 9.7% • GDP per head: $680 • Population: 1.218 billion • Predicted 1997 inflation: 8.5% (1996: 8.3%) The People's Republic of China has achieved tremendous economic strides since the communist-led regime began its economics reform in 1978. The country's gross domestic product has grown by a mean 8.2% over the past 18 years, according to a recent World Bank report. China's foreign-exchange reserves now exceed $131 billion, and the country is now well on course to become a global economic superpower in the 21st century. Pilot training P30 Military investment P34 Classroom revolution China aims to have 10,000 qualified pilots in five years' time. The training task is immense PAUL LEWIS/BEIJING CHINESE CIVIL-AVIATION has been transformed since the country began to open up in the early 1980s. China's mono lithic state carrier and its antiquated Soviet hardware have gone, replaced by a proliferation of international, regional and provincial air lines, operating the latest in Western designs. More recently, there has been a quieter and less- visible software revolution in the cockpit. Over the past four years, pilot training in China has undergone an extensive overhaul and a fourfold expansion in an effort to bring the country's flying schools and technical institutes in line with the demands of a modern airline industry. The qualitative and quantitative refinements coming to the fore result from a major injection of money and effort by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). The single most valuable return on this investment has been a turnaround in China's once-abysmal safety record. The country has suffered only one accident and 3 5 deaths in the three years since CAAC vice-minister Shen Yuankang announced a safety crackdown injuly 1994. In the two years before that, seven crash es killed more than 500 people. KEEPING UP WITH TRAFFIC Chinese civil aviation is not completely in the clear yet, however. To keep pace with projected traffic growth, China will have to enlarge its pool of qualified pilots to more than 10,000 within the next five years. The recent purchase of 60 Airbus A320/A32 Is and the delivery of 40 new Boeing MD-90 TrunkLiners will generate a need for 800 more pilots, while five newly ordered Boeing 777s and six more Airbus A340s will require almost 90 extra two-person crews. Major progress has been made, but tough challenges still lie ahead, particularly in finding the required numbers of experienced pilots with enough hours under their belts to take left-hand seats. For many Western aircraft manufactur ers eager to cash in on China's rapid expansion, this is providing new openings to help. For the CAAC-administered Civil Aviation Flight College (CAFC), this has meant a return to basics and a revamp of its teaching staff, syl labus and equipment. For more than 40 years, the school has virtually been China's sole sup plier of trained civil aircrew. Today it boasts that more than 7,000 of its graduates make up 90% of the total of commercial pilots in China. The remaining 10% are drawn from the retired ranks of the air force. By the early 1990s, accelerated airline-indus try growth of more than 30% a year had out stripped the CAFC's capacity to provide new pilots. The college was producing only about 30 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 8 - 14 October 1997
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