The Chinese aeronautical landscape is littered with the wreckage of international collaborative developments that failed to get off the ground for a variety of political, financial and technical reasons. The epitaph reads like a who's who of current and past aircraft manufacturers, including Airbus, Boeing, Fokker, MBB and McDonnell Douglas to name but a few. The latest company to beat a path to Beijing is Fairchild Dornier, but before either side sits down at the negotiating table, it might be worth examining the lessons that can be learnt from the past.
Chinese aerospace ambitions date back almost 30 years to the first Boeing 707-300. A clumsy attempt to reverse-engineer the 150-seat aircraft into the indigenous four-engine Yun Y-10 today serves as little more than an interesting museum piece. The project was a rude awakening for China, which quickly realised that if it was to be a successful player simply copying aircraft would not suffice.
Since the 1980s Beijing has used the country's apparently insatiable appetite for new passenger aircraft to successfully leverage increasingly valuable structural subcontracting work from Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. Local industry graduated to kit assembly of MD-80s, with the aim of stepping up to full licence manufacture of MD-90s under the ambitious TrunkLiner programme. The next logical step was full partnership in an international collaborative development. Lured by the potential of the Middle Kingdom and her one billion budding air travellers, there followed a procession of US and European delegations to Beijing in the 1990s with new designs in need of capital.
These included a joint study by MBB and CATIC to develop the 60-85-seat MPC-75, a proposed Chinese produced MD-95 follow-on to the TrunkLiner, the uncompleted Fokker FA-X 120 design and a pitch by Aero International (Regional) (AIR) to develop a new 100-seater dubbed the AE-100. AIR passed the job to Aero International Asia which in turn was absorbed by Airbus, while the AE-100 became the AE31X. Longwinded negotiations followed, but the Asian economic crisis delivered the coup de grace in 1998 with the project being scrapped. Chinese aerospace aspirations suffered a further blow shortly after with the MD-90 cancellation.
The face-saving explanation was that there was an insufficient business case for the AE31X, but in truth the programme foundered on Chinese demands for technology transfer, the price Airbus attached to that and a lack of willingness by either side to bankroll a programme in the face of competing demands for funds.
The TrunkLiner, meanwhile, proved to be the wrong product for a market enamoured with the Boeing 737 and increasingly the technologically more advanced A320.
All of this begs the question: why would Fairchild Dornier want to tread the same well trodden path? The major difference is the emergence in recent years of a regional aircraft market in China. Testament to this are the large regional jet orders from China's more entrepreneurial carriers such as Hainan and Sichuan Airlines. Beijing, having witnessed the impact of regional jets on the US airline industry, is urging its carriers to develop local hub feeder networks. It is only reasonable that this growth sector should be the focus for a fresh attempt at an indigenous development. Local industry has already unveiled a rough design for a 50-70-seat New Regional Jet.
Finding an international market for such an aircraft without a proper sales and after-sales network and in the face of formidable competition would prove a challenge for an industry that has been unable to sell MD-90s even to its home operators. China hopes that a collaborate project will allow it to become a global player.
For Fairchild, China presents an opportunity to launch its 55-seat 528JET at a time when the company's finances are fully committed to the 728/928JET and market demand is leaning towards an even larger X28JET version. Furthermore, its willingness to talk co-operation with China will not harm the local sales prospects of the 70-90-seaters, as Airbus learned with the success of the A320 even post-AE31X.
Source: Flight International
