The C919, China’s first domestically produced passenger aircraft, took off on its maiden flight today. State TV showed the C919 soaring into the skies above Shanghai, bound for the capital Beijing. It was built by the Commercial Aviation Corporation of China (Comac) in hopes of breaking the dominance of single-aisle jets from Airbus and Boeing. However, the 164-seat aircraft still relies heavily on Western components, including engines and avionics, i.e. electronic equipment installed on board aircraft.
The C919 took off at 10:32 local time from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, where COMAC and China Eastern Airlines are based, and landed two hours later at Beijing Airport
The aircraft will return to Shanghai on Sunday evening, before making a longer flight to the southwestern city of Chengdu on Monday.
State-owned China Eastern Airlines has ordered five aircraft. Comac – which expects to produce 150 aircraft a year within the next five years – says it has already secured more than 1,200 orders for the C919. But some experts say most of these orders are letters of intent from domestic customers.
President Xi Jinping, who sat in the cockpit of a C919 model a few years ago, described the project as one of China’s most innovative achievements.
Comac began work on the aircraft 15 years ago with the aim of competing with the Airbus A320 neo and Boeing 737 Max. The aircraft has a maximum flight capacity of 3,500 miles (5,630 kilometers) and can carry up to 158-168 passengers.