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written by tu chenxin and correspondent yu zhutian on chao news client

photo by reporter tu chenxin

take off lightly, cruise steadily, and land smoothly.

if we want to describe the experience of riding the c919 in the shortest way, the above sentence is the most appropriate. however, a trip on a domestic large aircraft brings us much more than that. after experiencing the air china c919, we have a deeper understanding of the quality and dedication of chinese manufacturing.

on the evening of september 11, air china's first c919 landed at hangzhou xiaoshan international airport, passing through the highest civil aviation etiquette - the water gate, and made its first appearance in hangzhou. chao news reporters had the honor of riding on this first domestic c919 extended-range aircraft with registration number b-919x. it took off from hangzhou at 20:02 that evening and arrived at beijing capital international airport at 21:52.

on this ca1727 flight, the reporter learned from chatting with five passengers who came to hangzhou specifically to experience air china's first c919.

li bangyu, a junior from northeast china who is studying in beijing, took a round-trip flight from beijing to hangzhou in one day to experience air china's c919. he bought an economy class ticket from beijing to hangzhou, but the economy class tickets from hangzhou to beijing were sold out early, so he gritted his teeth and spent nearly 3,000 yuan to enjoy the business class treatment.

witnessing the "big airplane dream" with one's own eyes, the enthusiasm that had been hidden among the people for decades was released.

photo by reporter tu chenxin

impressive comfort

before boarding, passengers can participate in the lottery in the air china area of ​​the airport. in addition to 1:100 and 1:240 c919 aircraft models, there are also cute prizes such as fat anda dolls.

as soon as i entered the cabin, i noticed that unlike the luggage compartments of many aircraft models that open by pushing up, the luggage compartment of air china's c919 opens by pulling down. this is more friendly to people of different heights and also makes people in the seats feel more spacious and comfortable above their heads.

when boarding the plane, the flight attendant wu xiaochun, who was kind to everyone, showed the highlights of the business class seats to the reporters one by one at the reporters' request - exclusive private ear wings, mobile device holders, hidden beverage tables and exterior decorations, and optimized the central armrest area.

the most praised thing about air china's c919 is that it has the most spacious seat layout among the c919s of the three major airlines. the aircraft has a total of 158 seats, including 8 business class seats with a front-to-back spacing of 101.6 cm; 150 economy class seats with a front-to-back spacing of 76.2-78.7 cm; the emergency exits are particularly wide, with a spacing of 114.3 cm. compared with the 164-seat layout of china eastern airlines and china southern airlines, one row of economy class seats is reduced, which increases the spacing between each row of seats by 5.08 cm.

the emergency exits are particularly wide, with a spacing of114.3centimeter.photo by reporter tu chenxin

when asked about his riding experience, mr. liang, a passenger in the economy class who is 1.8 meters tall, said it was "comfortable" and that his long legs were much more relaxed. in the past, when he sat on a boeing 737, his knees always hit the back of the front seat, which made him feel uncomfortable. mr. peng, who is 1.78 meters tall, was able to cross his legs just fine.

moreover, the economy class seats of air china's c919 have a humanized detail, which is that they are designed to be "narrow on both sides and wide in the middle". the width of the window and aisle seats is 45.72 cm, and the middle seat is 46.99 cm, making the middle passenger more comfortable, especially for those with larger bodies.

the comfort is not only from the seat spacing. the reporter also gave high marks to the economy class seats themselves - each seat is equipped with a cushion, the headrest is adjustable in six directions, and the sitting posture is natural when the seat back is adjusted straight, which does not give people a sense of "sitting upright", so few people adjust the seat back lower.

photo by reporter tu chenxin

it is worth mentioning that there is a mobile phone holder on the top of the economy class seat back, which can be used to place the phone horizontally to watch videos, just freeing your hands. there are two usb-c and usba charging ports under the back of each of the three seats in the economy class.

the flight quality of this passenger plane impressed the reporter even more. there was almost no push on the back during takeoff, and the whole takeoff process was very smooth, just like a light swallow. what was even more incredible was the landing: in the past, no matter how big or small the plane was, it would inevitably "bang" on the runway, but the c919 was "i landed gently, just as i took off gently; i waved my sleeves, without taking away a cloud."

after getting off the plane, the reporter discussed with several fellow pilots and came to the conclusion that to achieve this, both a high level of aircraft design and manufacturing and a high level of aircraft control by the captain are indispensable.

the c919 landed at hangzhou xiaoshan international airport, slowly passed through the "water gate" and drove to the 410 parking position. photo by reporter yao yingkang and his friend tan shenjie

the plane flies very obediently

the pilot has the most say in whether an aircraft is good or not.

half a month ago, wang yan, captain of air china's c919 team and captain of the 7th flight squadron of the flight corps, had just flown the c919 aircraft for delivery. prior to that, he had flown boeing 777, airbus 330, airbus 320 and other aircraft models, with a flight time of over 15,000 hours.

"the c919 has reached a very high level in terms of design, performance, control feel and human-machine interaction," wang yan told reporters. "the aircraft flies very obediently."

wang yan. image source: china aviation group corporation limited

according to cgtn, 10 experienced pilots have been working in air china's c919 fleet. they flew at least 7 hours a day during commercial flight training, followed by an hour of take-off and landing route training. after two intense months, the pilots obtained the c919 driving qualification.

chen jianguo, a senior civil aviation captain with 27 years of safe flying experience, told chao news that in july 2015, wu guanghui, chief designer of the c919, approached him and expressed his hope to design the c919 into a model with a more friendly interface for pilots, so he hoped to widely solicit opinions from pilots. chen jianguo, who has a high reputation in the civil aviation pilot circle, organized pilots from major domestic airlines to form a "flying circle" to actively offer suggestions.

"some of the c919's designs adopted our suggestions, especially in terms of cockpit environmental control, which met the original intention of the chief designer, that is, to design an aircraft with a friendly interface for pilots. in fact, many aircraft models are not user-friendly enough."

chen jianguo gave an example, saying that the air outlets of the boeing 737ng are on the left and right sides of the pilot, and the cold wind will blow directly onto the pilot's legs. "i once flew for four consecutive days and almost couldn't even lift my legs." the vents of the boeing 757 are on the top plate, and the cold wind will blow directly onto the pilot's head, causing considerable damage to the body.

these subtle designs not only affect the health of the pilots, but may also have an invisible impact on safety. in response to the issues raised by the "flying circle", the design of c919 has been improved accordingly after fully considering these opinions and suggestions.

"in the words of chief designer wu guanghui, the c919 stood on the shoulders of giants when it was born. it is directly a fourth-generation commercial airliner, with a full fly-by-wire control system and a safety envelope." chen jianguo told chao news reporters that it has fully learned the lessons of all previous airliner failures, and this is the latecomer advantage.

chen jianguo's observation and evaluation of c919 from another angle is even more refreshing: "airbus and boeing have the support of various countries, but after all, they are commercial companies. c919 has brought together the superior people, money and materials from all over the country and even the world to carefully create a fine product. the completely civilian aviation community can contribute a little to c919, which shows that china's large aircraft industry has enough appeal and cohesion."

the arduous long march

back in the 1980s, china's first large jet airliner, the y-10 project, encountered a huge challenge: how to meet the internationally recognized airworthiness requirements, that is, how to be suitable for flying on civil routes.

unlike military aircraft, civil airliners have extremely high requirements for safety and reliability because of their large passenger capacity and frequent flights.

during the test flight and service of the united states' military high-altitude, high-speed reconnaissance aircraft sr-71 "blackbird", as many as one-third of them crashed due to reliability issues, but this did not prevent the "blackbird" from becoming a famous aircraft and going down in history.

however, 15 of the nearly 400 mcdonnell douglas dc-10 passenger planes crashed, and the plane was called the "king of air crashes" and the "cursed plane." the british-french concorde supersonic passenger plane only crashed once and was withdrawn from the market.

photo by reporter tu chenxin

the civil aviation industry has zero tolerance for aircraft safety defects, so countries that started the civil aviation industry early have formulated strict and detailed airworthiness standards, covering everything from the aircraft's structural strength, engine reliability, deformation in the face of a crash, and reaction to being hit by a bird, to the seat arrangement, location of emergency exits, color of control buttons and handles, and size of seat belts.

almost every item in the airworthiness standards is based on accident cases in real airline transportation. in four words, it is a "bloody lesson". such rules are constantly being updated, becoming more and more stringent and detailed, and the entry threshold for civil aviation passenger aircraft is getting higher and higher.

when the major science and technology project of large aircraft was officially launched in 2007, the challenge facing chinese aviation professionals was that the aircraft should not only meet the airworthiness requirements, but more importantly, operate in a market-oriented manner so that airlines can make money. however, at this time, the international commercial passenger aircraft market was already monopolized by the two giants, boeing and airbus, and the competitors of c919 happened to be the world's most operated narrow-body single-aisle mainline passenger aircraft, boeing 737 and a320, which account for 70% of the entire civil aviation market.

photo by reporter tu chenxin

from the beginning, comac set a goal that was ahead of the world's advanced level. wu guanghui, the second chief designer of china's first regional jet arj-21, became the chief designer of the c919 project. in order to race against time, wu guanghui led the team to implement the 611 and 724 work systems. 611 means working 6 days a week and 11 hours a day, which is the daily state; while the 724 work system during the critical period of tackling key problems requires working 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and the staff take turns to rest.

it is an extremely arduous and long march.

in 2008, 468 experts and 20 academicians from 47 units in 13 provinces and cities across the country, including aerospace, electronics, metallurgy, materials and other industries, conducted a joint design, which is unprecedented in the history of china's civil aircraft development.

comac has put forward a series of stringent requirements for this passenger aircraft, including reducing drag, reducing empty weight, reducing carbon emissions, and reducing operating costs by more than 10%. comac has predicted the development direction of airworthiness standards and set many requirements that are higher than international airworthiness standards. the design team first visited a number of airlines to listen to the requirements and opinions of future customers.

wu guanghui is conducting flight training. image source: azur airlines

in order to understand the aircraft he designed from a pilot's perspective, chief designer wu guanghui, who is already in his 50s, participated in pilot training and obtained a flying license.

it can be said that this is a commercial passenger aircraft customized according to customer needs.

new technologies are widely used in the c919. its supercritical main wings are optimized from 2,000 wing designs and calculated after 1.1 million cpu hours. they can not only ensure that the aircraft can fly at a higher speed with lower resistance, but also ensure flight stability and attitude controllability.

its major fuselage and wing sections come from shenyang aircraft corporation, xi'an aircraft industry corporation (international), chengdu aircraft corporation, harbin aircraft industry group, hongdu group, changhe aircraft industry group, aviation industry corporation of china 637th institute, aerospace industry corporation 306th institute, shanghai aircraft industry group, and of course zhejiang's xizi united aircraft corporation.

image source: comac

c919 has undergone crosswind test flights at xilinhot airport in inner mongolia, deep in the grassland gobi desert; high temperature test flights at jiaohe airport in turpan, xinjiang, the "flaming mountain"; high-cold tests at hulunbuir airport in inner mongolia, which is covered with ice and snow; spectacular water splash tests at yaohu airport in nanchang; flight tests on the misoperation takeoff subject at yanliang airport in xi'an; and a maximum braking energy interrupted takeoff test at weinan airport in shaanxi. it has also undergone three major test flights, namely airspeed calibration, flutter, and stall, which are like the "gates of hell", and has overcome difficulties such as natural icing, stall speed, and minimum liftoff speed.

in the roll slope test, the c919 flew at 105° and remained controllable when the wings were perpendicular to the ground, far exceeding the 60° of an ordinary passenger aircraft; in the functional and reliability test flight, the average daily utilization rate of the c919 reached 9 hours; in the full-aircraft ground emergency evacuation test, 192 volunteers and 6 crew members completed the evacuation in just 79 seconds in dark conditions.

in august 2022, c919 completed 579 flight test subjects, 3746 flight test status points, and 1669 ground tests. in september of the same year, it obtained the type certificate issued by the civil aviation administration of china. on december 9, the world's first c919 was officially delivered to china eastern airlines.

many chinese people have heard the story of "exporting 1 billion pairs of socks in exchange for a boeing 747." from the american perspective, there is also a saying that "exporting a boeing 747 can offset the trade deficit caused by importing 12,000 cars."

large civil airliners have always been a "pearl" in the crown of high-end manufacturing.

according to statistics from comac, there are 20,563 passenger aircraft in the world, of which 3,695 are in the chinese fleet, accounting for 18%. this proportion may increase to 21.1% in the future. a c919 costs 700 million yuan, while the price of new wide-body aircraft such as boeing 787 or airbus a350 is as high as 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion yuan.

if even a portion of such a huge order is transferred to china, how much domestic demand can be stimulated and how many jobs can be created?

it is expected that the c919 flying overhead will attract more and more young chinese people to join the aviation industry. from c919 to c929, and then to c939... the vision of china's large aircraft soaring across the skylines of five continents and four oceans is no longer far from becoming a reality.

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