State owned Chinese manufacturer sells planes to state owned Chinese leasing companies who have state owned Chinese airlines as customers.

China has been very good at manufacturing in certain sectors. Lots of cheap stuff (in practice we all know what someone means when its made of chinesium) or lots of concrete.

Cutting edge engineering and safety critical stuff (with an open and honest culture not smothered with political posturing) is not something associated with China. Yeah this goes on everywhere to some extent (cough Boeing) but China is at another level.

I think it'll need a decade or so in service (and avoidance of more crashes than Boeing's latest) before most potential customers would be interested.

Even then though, you'd have thought that the major markets are likely to be Russia and African nations, and possibly South American nations. I doubt that they'll be seen in Europe or North America anytime soon.

Wasn't it Russia that bought C919s?

"Wasn't it Russia that bought C919s?"

It is a valid question to ask but not as far as I am aware not least because Russia has the competing Irkut MC-2 aircraft.

That said, and given all the hi-tech sanctions on Russia, it might very well at some future stage lease or buy C919s because it has become impossible to build the home grown MC-2.

I doubt China is building it to secure western customers, more building it to guarantee a sovereign solution which doesn't require Chinese and allied airlines to buy from western customers.

China has read the tea leaves, knows what's coming their way, are preparing for it. And they seem to be be doing a pretty good job of doing so.

Last I heard, alot of components in the C919, such as avionics, are not from China or even Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919#Systems

Systems

The air conditioning is made by Liebherr

The engine's nacelle, thrust reverser and exhaust system will be provided by Nexcelle, with such features as an advanced inlet configuration, the extensive use of composites and acoustic treatment and an electrically operated thrust reverser.[69] Michelin will supply Air X radial tyres.[70] Its integrated modular avionics architecture is based on Ethernet.[42] The landing gear is made in China by a joint venture of Germany's Liebherr and Avic's Landing Gear Advanced Manufacturing Corp: Liebherr LAMC Aviation.[48]

While the airframe is entirely made by Chinese Avic, most systems are made by Western-Chinese joint-ventures: with UTAS for the electric power, fire protection and lighting; with Rockwell Collins for the cabin systems and avionics, with Thales for the IFE, with Honeywell for the flight controls, APU, wheels and brakes; with Moog for the high lift system; with Parker for the hydraulics, actuators and fuel systems, with Liebherr for the landing gear and air management; and the CFM engine and Nexcelle nacelle are entirely foreign.[71]

Engines

CFM International LEAP mockup

Pratt & Whitney and CFM International proposed engines for the aircraft, the PW1000G and LEAP-1C respectively;[72] the LEAP-1C was selected.[73]

AVIC Commercial Aircraft Engine Co was also tasked with developing an indigenous engine for the aircraft.[74] The ACAE CJ-1000A was unveiled at the 2012 Zhuhai Airshow.[citation needed]

Assembly of the first CJ-1000AX engine was completed in 18 months in December 2017. The planned entry to service was 2021.[75] The engine first ran in May 2018 to 6,600 rpm core speed.[76]

In February 2020, Reuters reported that the US government considered blocking GE from selling the LEAP-1C engine to Comac, citing concerns of reverse engineering, competition for Boeing, and military use of technology.[77] President Donald Trump tweeted opposition, saying that national security should not be grounds for trade restrictions.[78] The US eventually granted GE a license to sell the engines

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So any time the US wants to shut C919 down, it can be done pretty fast.

So if China wants to have a homegrown airliner, this ain't it.

True, for now. I imagine it's much easier to build a plane then start replacing imported parts with home-grown variants, much like I'll use other people's libraries to get an app working before I start coding my own replacements for those.

Even if they have to use inferior or sub-standard parts, strip it to the bare bones, they will have something which can fly which is better than having nothing.

China won't become self-sufficient overnight but they are moving towards it incrementally.

You start replacing with inferior / sub-standard parts as you suggest, you going to end up something with a safety issue or inferior specs compared to the competition. Ignoring the fact that it's specs are already inferior to Boeing/Airbus competition.

Not to mention the recertification needed everytime you change something.

I understand Russia struggling to change western Superjet components to Russian components currently.

"Even then though, you'd have thought that the major markets are likely to be Russia and African nations, and possibly South American nations. I doubt that they'll be seen in Europe or North America anytime soon."

That's not really an issue for China. They have an enormously large internal market and plan in decades, not four year election cycles.

South America already has Brazil's Embraer.

To build this aircraft, they were head hunting engineers in the UK and elsewhere. Ignoring other factors, political and otherwise, not many are tempted by the pollution in Bejing.

Comac seems to be headquarterd in Shanghai rather than Beijing.

How does that make a difference? Both cities are shit. They're very unpleasant places to live. Not that the rest of China is any better.

Idk, their space program seems to be going ok, and that requires a bit of cutting edge engineering, and they seem to have a good safety record (for the spacecraft themselves, we won't consider they people they risk dropping spent boosters on). Times may be changing.

Except the part where they are dumping spent rockets all over

Someone still living in 1960's

Downvoted because this is the same nonsense I've been hearing for the past eighty years wrt the capability of the enemy d'jour. Japan, Russia, Japan again, and now China

FWIW, China has nearly 40,000 km of High Speed Rail operating which looks to be more than half the total in the world. Accidents? Not a lot. One major crash in 2011. HSR may not be as complicated as a modern airliner, but it's pretty complex. It has proved to be well beyond the capability of the US whose flagship "HSR" carrier Acela averages a whopping 66 mph. I think that's about the same as the Super Chief of the 1950s. Anyway, there's no reason other than hubris to believe the Chinese can't build aircraft competitive with Boeing and Airbus.

OTOH, I can't imagine why any airline outside China (and perhaps North Korea) with a choice would opt today for an unproven Chinese airliner over proven designs from the major vendors. ... Maybe, if the Chinese product is really inexpensive to buy and operate they might sell a few outside China. But not a lot?

Mostly this is probably a bet on the future. If the C919 performs adequately in China for a number of years, they may start to sell some outside China. And maybe in a few decades they will be seriously competitive worldwide.

"Maybe, if the Chinese product is really inexpensive to buy and operate they might sell a few outside China. But not a lot?"

If they ramp up production to higher levels than their huge internal market can accommodate, or for "influence" reasons, they will be selling cheaper to non-traditional growing markets such as much of Africa and Asia. I very much doubt they will bet targeting the US or EU markets for at least a decade or two, maybe longer.

We're waiting on another eleven thousand aircraft? Pffft, there are already loads up there already...

Airbus average around 600 aircraft delivered per year, so with an order backlog of around 6000, those customers at the tail end are looking at taking delivery in about 10 years time. The question you need to be asking yourself therefore is how many of the aircraft flying around today will still be operational by then, and how much of that backlog is therefore simply to maintain the status quo vs meeting demand for extra aircraft...

Yes, there are lots of aircraft now in service, and more that are (or could be returned to) working order that have been retired and are sitting in boneyards. Some people deplore what they regard as the aeronautical equivalent of e-waste, but what is driving this is fuel efficiency. A 25 year old commercial aircraft could be perfectly safe to fly but it's a fuel guzzler compared to current models. So whether an airline wants to decrease emissions or simply control operating expenses, it makes sense to replace those old birds with new efficient ones.

The question that immediately popped into my head was how long in time is the backlog of "4,277 Boeing 737s. Airbus' combined A220 and A320 backlog was reported at 6,772"

Boeing production rate is put at 31 a month so at that rate over 11 years!

Airbus production rate as far as I can make out about 85 a month combined for A220 and A320 so nearly 7 years!

It's not really a backlog. Many of the orders are for future delivery, for future demand. They can, and often are, cancelled if/when the market changes.

I can't imagine many people outside of China volunteering to get on a Chinese made aircraft

Where's your sense of adventure?

I can't imagine many people outside of America volunteering to get on a Boeing 777 Max or the Boeing Screamliner.

And yet apparently enough people fly on those for Boeing to keep making them.

Which class gets the covid free pass?