I’m guessing they will accomplish this by obtaining a Boeing 767, breaking it down into nult and bolt peices, and then copying it bolt for bolt, screw for screw.
Let’s hear it for Red ingenuity.
Hahahaa
I can name several Ruskie (mostly Tupolov) aircraft that are xerox copies of US planes like the B-29, Boing 727, and even our venerable Space Shuttle! Why do all that research when you can just back engineer everything?
Mind you, when the Russians copied the plans of Concorde they must have got a few dimensions wrong as “Concordski” was a flop - literally. At least Concorde was a success from a technical point of view. The French are now developing a successor jointly with the Japs.
The Tu-4 is a documented example of reverse engineering, which isn’t as easy as it may sound. There is an article in “Air & Space-Smithsonian” a few years back which described the process, and it was pretty involved.
The Tu-144 and Buran shuttle are NOT reverse engineering since they were developed at the same time as their Western counterparts. The laws of physics and aerodynamics are not constrained by ideology so aircraft that have similar performance envelopes are probably going to look similar. I would also hardly call the Concorde to be a financial success, either for its builders or its operatros.
I’ve been inside Tupulovs (Tu-134s, Tu-154s), Illuysians (Il-86, Il-96), an old Antonov (An-2 I think, it was a biplane after all) and YaKs (Yak-46). Trust me they are not carbon copies of Boeings.
The Buran (at least the one at Parkovo Gorkovo (Gorky Park) is very much smaller than the US space shuttle.
Why shouldn’t China become a leader in civilian aircraft production ? They are going to become the World’s finiancial superpower, and they don’t want to be a military superpower. They are only spending $40 billion on their military this year, vs $800 billion by the USA. They have at least $1 trillion in American dollars they don’t want, and are recieving another $250 billion more each year.
I agree with others here that China is a long way from producing its own large jet transport. So far, they have produced a few MD80s under contract with McDonnell Douglas and are working with Airbus on A320s (both in the 120-150 passenger range). They are working on an indiginous design for a regional airliner (70-100 seats), but you can’t “just hit the scale command on AutoCad” to get a bigger plane.
Didn’t China go to GE for the locomotives to use on the new Tibet route? They just stopped building steam locomotives a few years ago for Pete’s sake. China hasn’t been known for technological innovation since spaghetti and fireworks. What they do have on their side is numbers. A billion soon-to-be middle-class consumers, (and laborers) and infinite patience. They’ll just stand there and wait for the US to hand it to them after we tire of placating the short-sighted Wall Street gang.
Quinten:
Somewhere, I recently read that the overseas containers, after being emptied here, were stacking up[literally] at the West Coast piers and other marshalling points. It seems they[ the Chinese] can build them and fill them, and ship them over here; doing this cheaper than they can return them back for another reload, in China. I am not sure about this last, but the point is that, in the aftermath of the Hrricane season of 2005, some entrepreneurs had figured out how to create “Katrina cottages” for replacement of housing destroyed in the storms, out of them used overseas shipping containers, they were marketed pretty seriously by one of the big box building suppliers/merchandisers. Maybe, you could offer to remove the excess containers and rebuild and market them as smaller style home, a la the Levitt Builders after WWII? American enginuity, wins again…!
…Sam, believe I too have heard that container story in the recent past…and yes going back to Mr. Levitt and his Levittown’s…Now that was some enterprise…! Got the job done and made homes available for thousands of Americans. Including newly married GI’s. And they were affordable and the right product at the right time.
Are you sure that was a Buran? Actually I am told calling the Russian Shuttle “Buran” is like generically calling the U.S. Shuttle “Columbia” or “Enterprise” as those were names of specific craft and not the general name of the family of craft. The picture I had seen was of Spiral, which was a space plane for possible military use, more analogous in form, size, and function to the U.S. Dyna-Soar.
You are mistaken, Dale. China most definitely desires to become a military superpower - and it probably will be in a few decades.
Dave
U.S. manufacturing, including locomotives, railroad equipment, aircraft, cars, trucks, buses, off-road heavy equipment, power plant equipment, ships, lawnmowers, farm machinery, and all engineering and design will continue to accelerate its flow to China and India until their standards of living equalize with the U.S. Theirs will rise while ours will fall, but due to the difference in the size of our respective population bases, our standard of living will fall a lot further than theirs will rise.
So we get the cheapest possible products (if you don’t factor in our reduced standard of living over time.)
…If we let it continue…{all our manufacturing}, go overseas we here in America will have to have the cheapest products because we won’t be able to afford any other.
This transition {at our expense}, must be altered or in the future we will be the ones that will need the "aid’…!!
We can’t sell our products over there because of “road blocks” they errect in our way, so let’s play the same game over here before we’re all down the tube…
We’ll deplete all of our manufacturing base and then be beholding to whom…Our adversaries, in our time of need…And we all know how that will work. The future for us…???
I did not suggest it was; I merely stated “it was a success from a technical point of view” which is perfectly true. The sad fact is that nothing superior, technically, has come along since.
Don’t get me wrong. When it comes to the choice between the cheapest products or a U.S. standard of living, I’m going with the standard of living.
I personally can’t wait to see the Chinese transform a Honda Accord into a class I freight engine. Probably not going to need of lot of maintenance… jut run it til the wheels fall off the rails in about 15 years.
CC
…The only message I’m trying to relate is…We better start to think about our situation in this country and what we will need to do to make economics fall our way for a while…Something must change.
We spend our resources to “police” the world and the world seems to be getting “rich” off us in our world economic transactions…Total bummer.
( You know, of course, that it’s the Japanese that make the Honda Accord, don’t you?)
When a Chinese designed and built locomotive stalls, because of some problem with design or production flaws, it will come to a stop in a couple of miles, and wait for a mechanic. If a Chinese designed and built jumbo jet stalls, it will come to a stop in about 30,000 feet, and wait for the fire & rescue people to arrive.[V]
Nanaimo - PRC is definately a military superpower, and don’t believe the $40B public figure for 2 reasons, a) its only the public figure and does not include alot of hidden funding for reasearch etc. b) alot more of the PLA budget goes for procurement than the other countries since thier soft costs (pension, salaries, environmental concerns etc) are smaller or non-existant.
Paul - the ship at Gorkovo is specifically ID in the Russian languange plaque as the Buran. From what I’ve read elsewhere this was the testbed and while flown on the back of an Antonov, never flew itself. The program was never put into series production. Also at that time, the entire Soviet space programme was military, including the Buran.
Addendum
Actually, it’ll be touh and go for the PRC in the next few years. There’s alot of demographic forces at work and there’s a good chance that significant aspects of the chinese economy could collapse of its own accord. Until then the lower labour costs and probably more shockingly lower evironmental compliance costs will continue to create a vacume that will suck 1st world jobs until the disparity diminishes.