I didn't see a thread:
This aircraft was certified December 30th, 2014. So it has been being delivered *almost* 3 years.

<i>Chengdu Airlines (EU, Chengdu) has taken delivery of its first mass-produced ARJ21-700 following the arrival of B-3386 (msn 107), its third aircraft of the type overall, on Thursday, October 19. </i>


https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news ... uced-arj21


We'll just say I'm of the opinion they continued flight testing with paying passengers with that December 30th 2014 certification. Normally, there is a 2 to 10 week delay after certification before EIS and then a 1 to 4 month delay before the production line ramps up. 3 deliveries in 3 years makes pretty much everything else look good.

Put this into perspective, the project was launched in March of 2002.

Lightsaber

I'm of the opinion that the ARJ-21 is not a serious project by any means. Chengdu Airlines is a COMAC owned entity, so it makes perfect sense that they'd operate a few 'flights' here and there with fare paying passengers so they can say that the plane is in operational service when it is in flight testing. Obviously this delivery of the "mass-produced" airframe is just another essentially meaningless milestone that somebody decided to make a press release about.

I was excited about the program about 10 years ago. Now? Not so much. It was outdated prior to first flight, and as the record has shown, COMAC has been consistently unable to get its act together. The only production bottleneck is COMAC itself. One thing to note here is the lead design/chief engineer guy, Wu Xingshi, is supposedly the same guy who led the tragedy of the Y-10 project...

I'm surprised it ever flew at all. It might be possible if you are messing with Airfix kits to take the body off a DC-9, glue and putty Antonov wings to it and then add the engines off an Embraer or CRJ, but how do you even begin to try to balance that lot let alone integrate it all?

COMAC handicapped themselves by trying to cobble a plane out of various off-the-shelf bits. A clean sheet would have been quicker and probably cost a lot less.

Channex757 wrote:

I'm surprised it ever flew at all. It might be possible if you are messing with Airfix kits to take the body off a DC-9, glue and putty Antonov wings to it and then add the engines off an Embraer or CRJ, but how do you even begin to try to balance that lot let alone integrate it all?

COMAC handicapped themselves by trying to cobble a plane out of various off-the-shelf bits. A clean sheet would have been quicker and probably cost a lot less.

A clean sheet would have been a better learning exercise.


The issue is this was the training for the C919. Something is wrong they still aren't really in mass production.


This also begs the question, what happens to the other 'pre-production certificate' planes?

Anyone know the flight schedules? I'm waiting to see nominal utilization.

Lightsaber

Even the renowned Japanese are struggling (MRJ). The ARJ-21 is a learning curve, hope they got something useful out of it for the future.

Channex757 wrote:

.... glue and putty Antonov wings to it ....

COMAC handicapped themselves by trying to cobble a plane out of various off-the-shelf bits....

Not sure what is "off-the-shelf" about the wings. The way I read it, Antonov did not donate a wing blueprint that sat in a dusty file somewhere. They designed a wing, at COMAC's order, tailored to this airframe.
Obviously, they designed it in Antonov way.

Lest we forget -- for jets, Antonov way, for a few decades now, is high wing with engines on pylons. Did it really influence the final design of this low, clean wing for this T-tail? Or is it just me stereotyping? Cannot be sure.

I still love the clean lines of the ARJ-21 tho'.... I mean, of the 717...sorry, of the DC-9 I mean...

lightsaber wrote:

This also begs the question, what happens to the other 'pre-production certificate' planes?

Anyone know the flight schedules? I'm waiting to see nominal utilization.

Lightsaber

I found the following: (They are listed under Avro RJ, even though Chengdu Airlines doesn't have one)

EU6665 CTU 0640 CSX 0825 246
EU6665 CSX 0915 SHA 1050 246
EU6666 SHA 1305 CSX 1505 246
EU6666 CSX 1610 CTU 1810 246

EU6669 CTU 0700 CSX 0845 157
EU6670 CSX 0945 CTU 1205 157

EU6663 CTU 0700 HFE 0915 3
EU6664 HFE 1000 CTU 1235 3

In another word, very low utilization.

zakuivcustom wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

This also begs the question, what happens to the other 'pre-production certificate' planes?

Anyone know the flight schedules? I'm waiting to see nominal utilization.

Lightsaber

I found the following: (They are listed under Avro RJ, even though Chengdu Airlines doesn't have one)

EU6665 CTU 0640 CSX 0825 246
EU6665 CSX 0915 SHA 1050 246
EU6666 SHA 1305 CSX 1505 246
EU6666 CSX 1610 CTU 1810 246

EU6669 CTU 0700 CSX 0845 157
EU6670 CSX 0945 CTU 1205 157

EU6663 CTU 0700 HFE 0915 3
EU6664 HFE 1000 CTU 1235 3

In another word, very low utilization.

Since I can't edit my post.

Looks like they're don't operate the CSX-SHA sector anymore (And it was actually EU6667 and EU6668 to be correct). Last run was Oct 28. So, the full ARJ21 operating schedule as of today:

EU6665 CTU 0640 CSX 0825 246
EU6666 CSX 1610 CTU 1810 246

EU6669 CTU 0700 CSX 0845 157
EU6670 CSX 0945 CTU 1205 157

EU6663 CTU 0700 HFE 0915 3
EU6664 HFE 1000 CTU 1235 3

In another word, 1 roundtrip a day. Not exactly expressing confidence in the plane itself, consider that it has been flying for 2 years now.

zakuivcustom wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

This also begs the question, what happens to the other 'pre-production certificate' planes?

Anyone know the flight schedules? I'm waiting to see nominal utilization.

Lightsaber

I found the following: (They are listed under Avro RJ, even though Chengdu Airlines doesn't have one)

EU6665 CTU 0640 CSX 0825 246
EU6665 CSX 0915 SHA 1050 246
EU6666 SHA 1305 CSX 1505 246
EU6666 CSX 1610 CTU 1810 246

EU6669 CTU 0700 CSX 0845 157
EU6670 CSX 0945 CTU 1205 157

EU6663 CTU 0700 HFE 0915 3
EU6664 HFE 1000 CTU 1235 3

In another word, very low utilization.

Since I can't edit my post.

Looks like they're don't operate the CSX-SHA sector anymore (And it was actually EU6667 and EU6668 to be correct). Last run was Oct 28. So, the full ARJ21 operating schedule as of today:

EU6665 CTU 0640 CSX 0825 246
EU6666 CSX 1610 CTU 1810 246

EU6669 CTU 0700 CSX 0845 157
EU6670 CSX 0945 CTU 1205 157

EU6663 CTU 0700 HFE 0915 3
EU6664 HFE 1000 CTU 1235 3

In another word, 1 roundtrip a day. Not exactly expressing confidence in the plane itself, consider that it has been flying for 2 years now.

1 flight per day per airframe?!? That is just odd. Not only that, look at the ground times... Just under 8 hours at CSX for the first flight (I'm happy with 1 hour for the 7am flight and 45min at HFE for the 3rd.


Now, gate to gate is not flight time, but appromiately, 1.5hr (twice) and 2 hour flights.

We should be seeing something more like
CTU-CSX
CTU 0640, CSX 0825,
CSX 0925 to CTU 1125
CTU 1225 to CXS 1410
CSX 1410 to CTU 1610
CTU 1710 to CSX 1855
CSX 2000 to CTU 2145

That would be respectable utilization. A mere 6 flights per day. But a good 9+ hours of utilization.
Instead 2 flights per day and 3+ hours of utilization. That seems absurdly low.

In fact, they are using 3 airframes to fly the schedule of one plane... I'm confused

Lightsaber

Based on this rate, the last ARJ-21 will be delivered in the year 2319. Lol.

lightsaber wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

I found the following: (They are listed under Avro RJ, even though Chengdu Airlines doesn't have one)

EU6665 CTU 0640 CSX 0825 246
EU6665 CSX 0915 SHA 1050 246
EU6666 SHA 1305 CSX 1505 246
EU6666 CSX 1610 CTU 1810 246

EU6669 CTU 0700 CSX 0845 157
EU6670 CSX 0945 CTU 1205 157

EU6663 CTU 0700 HFE 0915 3
EU6664 HFE 1000 CTU 1235 3

In another word, very low utilization.

Since I can't edit my post.

Looks like they're don't operate the CSX-SHA sector anymore (And it was actually EU6667 and EU6668 to be correct). Last run was Oct 28. So, the full ARJ21 operating schedule as of today:

EU6665 CTU 0640 CSX 0825 246
EU6666 CSX 1610 CTU 1810 246

EU6669 CTU 0700 CSX 0845 157
EU6670 CSX 0945 CTU 1205 157

EU6663 CTU 0700 HFE 0915 3
EU6664 HFE 1000 CTU 1235 3

In another word, 1 roundtrip a day. Not exactly expressing confidence in the plane itself, consider that it has been flying for 2 years now.

1 flight per day per airframe?!? That is just odd. Not only that, look at the ground times... Just under 8 hours at CSX for the first flight (I'm happy with 1 hour for the 7am flight and 45min at HFE for the 3rd.


Now, gate to gate is not flight time, but appromiately, 1.5hr (twice) and 2 hour flights.

We should be seeing something more like
CTU-CSX
CTU 0640, CSX 0825,
CSX 0925 to CTU 1125
CTU 1225 to CXS 1410
CSX 1410 to CTU 1610
CTU 1710 to CSX 1855
CSX 2000 to CTU 2145

That would be respectable utilization. A mere 6 flights per day. But a good 9+ hours of utilization.
Instead 2 flights per day and 3+ hours of utilization. That seems absurdly low.

In fact, they are using 3 airframes to fly the schedule of one plane... I'm confused

Lightsaber

The 8+ hours on ground are due to the fact that they no longer operates that CSX-SHA rotation. But yeah, I actually quadruple check all the routes that Chengdu Airlines fly out of CSX, and cannot see anything else popping up that is flown by the ARJ21 (All the other one are A319 routes).

On the other hand, the link in Post #1 (https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news ... uced-arj21) mentioned that one of the plane is running CTU-TNA while the other is doing SHA-CSX "shuttle". I can't find any website that suggested that, though (No CSX-SHA flight anymore after Oct. 28, and CTU-TNA is a 1/day A319 service).

jubguy3 wrote:

Based on this rate, the last ARJ-21 will be delivered in the year 2319. Lol.

I like your optimism.


I'm still floored that at about 2 years after EIS, every plane is flying 2 segments per day, and so few hours.

I found a report, that is you scroll down, gives utilization for many aircraft and types:
http://www.planestats.com/bhsr_2015jun

Interesting, small RJs are used less than I thought: 4.3 cycles and 6.7 hours. So the ARJ-21s are only being flown half of typical.
Although I note Republic, Expressjet, and PSA all fly ~6.5 cycles a day and about 9 hours per day.
Now I'm curious as to why Envoy brings down the average so much...

I had the numbers of Republic, Expressjet, and PSA in my head when I noted the ARJ-21s are being used a third as much as typical.
The ARJ-21 looks bad even compared to Envoy!

Lightsaber

It's clear that the ARJ-21 project is a complete failure in virtually all its objectives, save for, perhaps teaching them what not to do when building an airframe. Every possible mistake that could be made, seems to have been made.

A very important part of Eastern culture is saving face, and that's exactly what they're doing with the ARJ-21. The project failed 10 years ago, but they can't admit that. COMAC has other projects on the line, and they will probably succeed based on the lessons they learned here. But, they can't publicly admit failure, even though it's an open secret at this point. This is nothing more than a dog and pony show to claim competency in aircraft manufacturing that does not exist yet. They've massaged three clunkers into being able to 'operate' a 'commercial' flight, 'scheduled' - the planes otherwise sit in maintenance, getting checked, prepped, and ready for their next 'commercial' flight.

Much like when the Soviets tried to operate the Tu-144 on a scheduled run, they had serious operational difficulties with it, owing to the fact that the plane wasn't mature enough to do what they demanded of it: operate a scheduled flight. It was a test airframe pushed into some semblance of scheduled service, with all the caveats and difficulties that go along with it.

lightsaber wrote:

jubguy3 wrote:

Based on this rate, the last ARJ-21 will be delivered in the year 2319. Lol.

I like your optimism.


I'm still floored that at about 2 years after EIS, every plane is flying 2 segments per day, and so few hours.

I found a report, that is you scroll down, gives utilization for many aircraft and types:
http://www.planestats.com/bhsr_2015jun

Interesting, small RJs are used less than I thought: 4.3 cycles and 6.7 hours. So the ARJ-21s are only being flown half of typical.
Although I note Republic, Expressjet, and PSA all fly ~6.5 cycles a day and about 9 hours per day.
Now I'm curious as to why Envoy brings down the average so much...

I had the numbers of Republic, Expressjet, and PSA in my head when I noted the ARJ-21s are being used a third as much as typical.
The ARJ-21 looks bad even compared to Envoy!

Lightsaber

Just notice from Chengdu Air's Timetable: (Chinese Only, but ARJ is at the end, and it's the same schedule as the one I posted)
http://www.chengduair.cc/Timetable.asp

Seems like they alternate the two ARJ (One is 90 seats, all economy, the other is 78 seats in 2 class) between the EU6665/6666 rotation (The CTU-CSX-SHA-CSX-CTU, now CTU-CSX-CTU only, on TuThSa) and EU6669/6670 (The CTU-CSX-CTU rotation on Mo/Fr/Su) and EU 6663/6664 (CTU-HFE on We). So that makes each plane going an average of ~0.5 cycles per day

Another thing to mention is that the original routing for ARJ is non-stop CTU-SHA way back when it started operation. They add in CSX in the middle bc, well, the fuel burn number is so bad that on a day with strong headwind, the extra fuel that they need to fly the CTU-SHA route means they'll have to blocked some seat. Well, either that or using one of their A319/A320.

Siren wrote:

It's clear that the ARJ-21 project is a complete failure in virtually all its objectives, save for, perhaps teaching them what not to do when building an airframe. Every possible mistake that could be made, seems to have been made.

A very important part of Eastern culture is saving face, and that's exactly what they're doing with the ARJ-21. The project failed 10 years ago, but they can't admit that. COMAC has other projects on the line, and they will probably succeed based on the lessons they learned here. But, they can't publicly admit failure, even though it's an open secret at this point. This is nothing more than a dog and pony show to claim competency in aircraft manufacturing that does not exist yet. They've massaged three clunkers into being able to 'operate' a 'commercial' flight, 'scheduled' - the planes otherwise sit in maintenance, getting checked, prepped, and ready for their next 'commercial' flight.

Much like when the Soviets tried to operate the Tu-144 on a scheduled run, they had serious operational difficulties with it, owing to the fact that the plane wasn't mature enough to do what they demanded of it: operate a scheduled flight. It was a test airframe pushed into some semblance of scheduled service, with all the caveats and difficulties that go along with it.

Personally, I'm seeing them playing extremely safe with the ARJ. The last thing they want is a major flaw with the plane to the point that it make national news (Even though China will likely "suppress" it to certain extent just to make things all rosy).

Now that the plane is supposedly "mass-produced", we'll see whether utilization will finally go up or not. All those scheduled flights, I would say, are more for real world operational data anyway.

But would ARJ21 be commercially successful? I highly doubt it myself. The plane still sells to certain extent just b/c the Chinese internal market is pretty big, but it's highly doubtful that they'll ever recovered the cost associated with all the delay, all the development problems, etc.

zakuivcustom wrote:

Another thing to mention is that the original routing for ARJ is non-stop CTU-SHA way back when it started operation. They add in CSX in the middle bc, well, the fuel burn number is so bad that on a day with strong headwind, the extra fuel that they need to fly the CTU-SHA route means they'll have to blocked some seat. Well, either that or using one of their A319/A320.

Was it fuel burn or reliability? I've heard rumors of the later, but not the former. With all the flight testing, they should have known fuel burn very well before entry into service. CTU-SHA is but 898nm. A plane certified for 1,200nm, even with Chinese air traffic control, should have no issues.

What I don't know is the plane empty weight versus design. If the initial planes are overweight (believable for hand built examples), then with headwinds there would be an issue. So this could be just a first build issue.

I'm very curious on how (if) the ARJ-21 issues are being fixed.

Lightsaber

I believe all the ARJ-21s delivered are the nominal variant with 40,500kg MTOW and only 1,200nm of range?

Please correct me if someone knows there are the ER variant with the 43,500 kg MTOW and 2,000nm of range.

For point of reference, the E-175 (original E1 version), with a MTOW of 40,350, carries 2 fewer people 2,200nm.

On the production rate.
The production rate is very slow considering the production certificate was awarded in early July: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... gional-jet

lightsaber wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

Another thing to mention is that the original routing for ARJ is non-stop CTU-SHA way back when it started operation. They add in CSX in the middle bc, well, the fuel burn number is so bad that on a day with strong headwind, the extra fuel that they need to fly the CTU-SHA route means they'll have to blocked some seat. Well, either that or using one of their A319/A320.

Was it fuel burn or reliability? I've heard rumors of the later, but not the former. With all the flight testing, they should have known fuel burn very well before entry into service. CTU-SHA is but 898nm. A plane certified for 1,200nm, even with Chinese air traffic control, should have no issues.

What I don't know is the plane empty weight versus design. If the initial planes are overweight (believable for hand built examples), then with headwinds there would be an issue. So this could be just a first build issue.

I'm very curious on how (if) the ARJ-21 issues are being fixed.

Lightsaber

I got the fuel part from an analysis of ARJ21 from Caijing Magazine (Chinese only, though):

http://m.caijing.com.cn/api/show?contentid=4322616

Basically talk about why they stop at CSX is due to "economic reason", i.e. the headwind during winter season would mean the plane has to carry more fuel, and thus, they will have to reduced the load. So, instead of operating CTU-SHA non-stop, they pick a CTU-CSX-SHA routing instead, which would reduced the chance of diversions (and thus, make the number look better).

On the other hand, yeah, this could have been a weight issue also.

It also goes into the fact that the plane works fairly well for the CTU-CSX route, to the extent that they added additional ARJ flight to that route (The Mo/Fr/Su roundtrip).

As for reliability - COMAC in general is still only building up their post-sale customer service on the fly, and I am actually not sure how good their logistics is anyway. This, of course, is another reason why the utilization of the planes are so low.

The original orders for the ARJ-21 were made 14 years ago, and still are unfulfilled. The jet was originally supposed to enter into service 10 years ago in 2007, with mass production soon to follow. One wonders how many of the orders made up to 14 years ago are still firm. Airplane technology has changed alot in these 14 years, and this jet had outdated technology even then......

Jetsouth wrote:

The original orders for the ARJ-21 were made 14 years ago, and still are unfulfilled. The jet was originally supposed to enter into service 10 years ago in 2007, with mass production soon to follow. One wonders how many of the orders made up to 14 years ago are still firm. Airplane technology has changed alot in these 14 years, and this jet had outdated technology even then......

A ton of orders are actually by aircraft lessors.

But yes, 2 big orders, at least just skimking through the list, no longer applied - one by Henan Airline/Kunpeng Airline (went out of business after a crash back in 2010) for 100 planes, and one by Merpati Nusantara Airlines of Indonesia for 40 planes (went bankrupt in 2014).

There is a Joy Air order (10 planes) and a Thai City Airways order (10 planes). Don't know the status of either.

In short, not exactly looking good. I would say once C919 comes in, ARJ21 will get forgotten.

If anyone is interested in experiencing this airliner from afar : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jnnE79RGt4

ARJ-21 cockpit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kgNRhp0rfM

Fourth ARJ21 delivered last december: http://www.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2017-1 ... 778073.htm
======
Reading some old news...
Aren't they supposed to deliver five ARJ21, including an ARJ21 business jet, within the year of 2017, according to info as late as mid 2017?
Are they still using 3 pilots per flight now?
And according to info on Chinese social network, it seems like the usual ARJ21 flights have been replaced by A320 due to weather in the past week?
And according to comments, it seems like ticket priced for ARJ21 flights is for unknown reason consistently higher than other flights for some unknown reason.

c933103 wrote:

Fourth ARJ21 delivered last december: http://www.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2017-1 ... 778073.htm
======
Reading some old news...
Aren't they supposed to deliver five ARJ21, including an ARJ21 business jet, within the year of 2017, according to info as late as mid 2017?
Are they still using 3 pilots per flight now?
And according to info on Chinese social network, it seems like the usual ARJ21 flights have been replaced by A320 due to weather in the past week?
And according to comments, it seems like ticket priced for ARJ21 flights is for unknown reason consistently higher than other flights for some unknown reason.

According to timetable, they still only have 4 ARJ21:
http://www.chengduair.cc/Timetable.asp

B-3321/3322 are the two that has been around for forever
B-3386/3387 are the two "mass produced" ARJ

Seems like they're still only flying 2 full time, though. At least the 2 are flying 1 RT everyday, which is an improvement

I personally don't scour Chinese social media that much to know anything else about the ARJ.

This plane is a complete and total disaster - time to shut the program down before any more money is wasted or lives are lost! They can save face and have the customers upgrade their orders to the C919.

Siren wrote:

It's clear that the ARJ-21 project is a complete failure in virtually all its objectives, save for, perhaps teaching them what not to do when building an airframe. Every possible mistake that could be made, seems to have been made.

The Chinese are experiencing the same that other cultures went through in their airliner development. The Comet history is well documented. The 707's directional stability was so poor the UK ARB refused to certify it. Boeing to their credit took the observations on board and fitted mods to both the existing feet and future orders. DC-10?

Some folks tend to look at projects like we all arrived at the same point at the same time. 50 years from now the view may well be very different. Anyone brave enough to get an ARJ-21 in their log book?

zakuivcustom wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

Another thing to mention is that the original routing for ARJ is non-stop CTU-SHA way back when it started operation. They add in CSX in the middle bc, well, the fuel burn number is so bad that on a day with strong headwind, the extra fuel that they need to fly the CTU-SHA route means they'll have to blocked some seat. Well, either that or using one of their A319/A320.

Was it fuel burn or reliability? I've heard rumors of the later, but not the former. With all the flight testing, they should have known fuel burn very well before entry into service. CTU-SHA is but 898nm. A plane certified for 1,200nm, even with Chinese air traffic control, should have no issues.

What I don't know is the plane empty weight versus design. If the initial planes are overweight (believable for hand built examples), then with headwinds there would be an issue. So this could be just a first build issue.

I'm very curious on how (if) the ARJ-21 issues are being fixed.

Lightsaber

I got the fuel part from an analysis of ARJ21 from Caijing Magazine (Chinese only, though):

http://m.caijing.com.cn/api/show?contentid=4322616

Basically talk about why they stop at CSX is due to "economic reason", i.e. the headwind during winter season would mean the plane has to carry more fuel, and thus, they will have to reduced the load. So, instead of operating CTU-SHA non-stop, they pick a CTU-CSX-SHA routing instead, which would reduced the chance of diversions (and thus, make the number look better).

On the other hand, yeah, this could have been a weight issue also.

It also goes into the fact that the plane works fairly well for the CTU-CSX route, to the extent that they added additional ARJ flight to that route (The Mo/Fr/Su roundtrip).

As for reliability - COMAC in general is still only building up their post-sale customer service on the fly, and I am actually not sure how good their logistics is anyway. This, of course, is another reason why the utilization of the planes are so low.

Reading the link,,, it was from 2017 August,
It said that A320 pilots in the airlines were unwilling to fly the ARJ21 at first, the airlines' co-manager have to fly the aircraft with his own team and give feedback to Comac for modification in performance which then pilots are getting more used to flying the plane
And because the manual is incomplete and there are still bugs in the aircraft, the maintenance department of the airlines have to pick experienced staffs to maintain the ARJ21 and let them find and fix problems according to their experience
The airlines think that Comac learnt from exchanges with their airlines and helped the construction of their customer support system and aso R&D works...
Every time they fly the ARJ21 they need to have an A320 stand by as a backup...
In Comac's 2015-2034 forecast they think 68% current regional jet will retire and ~4673 new planes will be delivered with 87% of them will be 90-seat class. (Is this prediction like Boeing and Airbus' market forecast? Anyone have a copy of it?)

''And because the manual is incomplete and there are still bugs in the aircraft, the maintenance department of the airlines have to pick experienced staffs to maintain the ARJ21 and let them find and fix problems according to their experience''

So because the manufacturer isn't providing proper support the mechanics basically have to '' wing it''. That's not a good way to operate a commercial aircraft.

You know at least the Russians had enough sense to ground the Tupolev Tu-144 when they saw it wasn't reliable enough for regular service. But the Chinese, with their obsession of not losing face, will let this sad drama play out forever

I agree with Siren's "face saving" comment 100%. The point is to "operate" the ARJ-21 "commercially" for a continuous calendar period, no matter what the cost. To drop it from service would render the whole program a failure. By continuing to operate a skeleton operation, the airframe is a "minor success," get it? It is industrial theater.

Meanwhile they are indeed using lessons learned. As every country has needed to do. China is simply way behind a country like Japan or even South Korea industrially. These skillsets take multiple decades to solidify. And China will do it, although their speed of technology development has never been impressive. I think China is 2 decades behind South Korea and 4 decades behind Japan. Using the car industry as one benchmark, among many.

c933103 wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

Was it fuel burn or reliability? I've heard rumors of the later, but not the former. With all the flight testing, they should have known fuel burn very well before entry into service. CTU-SHA is but 898nm. A plane certified for 1,200nm, even with Chinese air traffic control, should have no issues.

What I don't know is the plane empty weight versus design. If the initial planes are overweight (believable for hand built examples), then with headwinds there would be an issue. So this could be just a first build issue.

I'm very curious on how (if) the ARJ-21 issues are being fixed.

Lightsaber

I got the fuel part from an analysis of ARJ21 from Caijing Magazine (Chinese only, though):

http://m.caijing.com.cn/api/show?contentid=4322616

Basically talk about why they stop at CSX is due to "economic reason", i.e. the headwind during winter season would mean the plane has to carry more fuel, and thus, they will have to reduced the load. So, instead of operating CTU-SHA non-stop, they pick a CTU-CSX-SHA routing instead, which would reduced the chance of diversions (and thus, make the number look better).

On the other hand, yeah, this could have been a weight issue also.

It also goes into the fact that the plane works fairly well for the CTU-CSX route, to the extent that they added additional ARJ flight to that route (The Mo/Fr/Su roundtrip).

As for reliability - COMAC in general is still only building up their post-sale customer service on the fly, and I am actually not sure how good their logistics is anyway. This, of course, is another reason why the utilization of the planes are so low.

Reading the link,,, it was from 2017 August,
It said that A320 pilots in the airlines were unwilling to fly the ARJ21 at first, the airlines' co-manager have to fly the aircraft with his own team and give feedback to Comac for modification in performance which then pilots are getting more used to flying the plane
And because the manual is incomplete and there are still bugs in the aircraft, the maintenance department of the airlines have to pick experienced staffs to maintain the ARJ21 and let them find and fix problems according to their experience
The airlines think that Comac learnt from exchanges with their airlines and helped the construction of their customer support system and aso R&D works...
Every time they fly the ARJ21 they need to have an A320 stand by as a backup...
In Comac's 2015-2034 forecast they think 68% current regional jet will retire and ~4673 new planes will be delivered with 87% of them will be 90-seat class. (Is this prediction like Boeing and Airbus' market forecast? Anyone have a copy of it?)

To be fair, I haven't find much updates after that. Now that the plane is "mass produced" maybe things are...well, a little bit better?

But as the latest schedule shows, they are still only flying 2 out of 4. Maybe they're flying the two "mass produced" one instead of the two prototype? (One of them, B-3321 I believe, with 76 seats only is definitely not flying right now, as the timetable shows both ARJ that are flying have 90 seats).

alberchico wrote:

You know at least the Russians had enough sense to ground the Tupolev Tu-144 when they saw it wasn't reliable enough for regular service. But the Chinese, with their obsession of not losing face, will let this sad drama play out forever

Well, there was a bit of behind-the-scenes power game with Tu-144 passenger flights. It also operated with mixed cockpit crews, heavily populated by manufacturer's test pilots and engineers.
But yeah, that plane was really pushing the boundaries of known, at the time.

If you do not have a proper feedback loop between customer, airframer, and certification agency, no one is learning. They are just finding and fixing issues. Most airframers start out with propeller aircraft or making kits to do that.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2 ... 720206.htm
"For the ARJ21, the nation's first domestic commercial regional aircraft, it took about six to seven years of test flights before it received the airworthiness certificate, which was the longest period for commercial aircraft in history," he said.
My The ARJ21 dropped FAA certification because acquiring it was too difficult. Question is, will EASA certification be the same?

The more I read about the ARJ21, the more the certification process was optional.

Oh, Tu-144 being a showpiece, I understand its issues, it really pushed the boundaries. This is a RJ, not a supersonic long range transport. The only thing in common is national pride flying something questionable.

Jetsouth wrote:

The original orders for the ARJ-21 were made 14 years ago, and still are unfulfilled. The jet was originally supposed to enter into service 10 years ago in 2007, with mass production soon to follow. One wonders how many of the orders made up to 14 years ago are still firm. Airplane technology has changed alot in these 14 years, and this jet had outdated technology even then......

Wow... just wow. If the ARJ-21 had been a modern and optimized design at launch, you would expect a 15 year sales life that would be extended by PIPs.

But the ARJ-21 wasn't modern. If it had been delivered on time, the final deliveries would have been about now and planes with that sort of economics aren't selling.

The plane needs CF-34-10s to fly. Talk about a mis-match between thrust required and capability.

Siren wrote:

I'm of the opinion that the ARJ-21 is not a serious project by any means. Chengdu Airlines is a COMAC owned entity, so it makes perfect sense that they'd operate a few 'flights' here and there with fare paying passengers so they can say that the plane is in operational service when it is in flight testing. Obviously this delivery of the "mass-produced" airframe is just another essentially meaningless milestone that somebody decided to make a press release about.

I was excited about the program about 10 years ago. Now? Not so much. It was outdated prior to first flight, and as the record has shown, COMAC has been consistently unable to get its act together. The only production bottleneck is COMAC itself. One thing to note here is the lead design/chief engineer guy, Wu Xingshi, is supposedly the same guy who led the tragedy of the Y-10 project...

It is a mockery of the certification process to have a plane flight testing with passengers. Sorry, but I've spent a career believing testing means something and does good finding and fixing problems!

Wait, the chief engineer of the Y-10 did the ARJ-21? Who is are the Chief engineers for the C919? I really want to know their history.

c933103 wrote:

Reading the link,,, it was from 2017 August,
It said that A320 pilots in the airlines were unwilling to fly the ARJ21 at first, the airlines' co-manager have to fly the aircraft with his own team and give feedback to Comac for modification in performance which then pilots are getting more used to flying the plane
And because the manual is incomplete and there are still bugs in the aircraft, the maintenance department of the airlines have to pick experienced staffs to maintain the ARJ21 and let them find and fix problems according to their experience
The airlines think that Comac learnt from exchanges with their airlines and helped the construction of their customer support system and aso R&D works...
Every time they fly the ARJ21 they need to have an A320 stand by as a backup...
In Comac's 2015-2034 forecast they think 68% current regional jet will retire and ~4673 new planes will be delivered with 87% of them will be 90-seat class. (Is this prediction like Boeing and Airbus' market forecast? Anyone have a copy of it?)

Maintenance manual is incomplete? That is part of the certification process. This part (say a gearbox on the engine) is certified for X hours and Y takeoffs. We get there by performing an inspection every Z hours (Z less than or equal to one third of the tested life). Here is the plan to remove and install that part... This is basic certification 101!

If they're relying on experienced mechanics, that means no process... ugh...

Lightsaber

Siren wrote:

One thing to note here is the lead design/chief engineer guy, Wu Xingshi, is supposedly the same guy who led the tragedy of the Y-10 project...

I thought ARJ21's chief designer is supposed to be Wu Guang Hui?
And wasn't him born in 1960? What does he have to do with Y-10 which he was still a teenager when the project took place?

Imagine, if these jets entered service in 2007, as originally planned, they would be over half way to retirement by now. And based on an annual production rate of 2-3, it would take over 100 years to fulfill the over 300 orders for the jet, assuming that these orders are still firm. Whats going to happen first: the arj21 orders being substantially fulfilled, or the Berlin Airport opening?

The original airlines ordering the ARJ21 in 2003 could have, in the interim, until the arrival of the ARJ jets, ordered brand new 737's or A320's and run them until they are ready for the boneyard before their originally intended ARJ's start coming off the assembly line (if they ever will...).