Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) has just renamed ARJ21 – the first aircraft the country researched and produced on its own – to C909.
COMAC announced the name change during China’s largest aviation exhibition in Zhuhai on the morning of November 12.
ARJ21 is the abbreviation for the cluster Advanced Regional Jet for the 21st Century – Advanced Regional Jet for the 21st century. This is the first jet aircraft that China has researched and produced itself, and has been commercially operating since then. year 2016.
The new aircraft is painted white, with a blue tail. News of the name change plan appeared in mid-October, when an ARJ21 was spotted at a Chinese airport with the C909 line painted on a blue tail background.
The C909 took off before the China International Aviation Exhibition in Zhuhai. Image: Reuters
Changing the paint color and changing the name helps the C909 unify its identity with other COMAC products, the narrow-body aircraft C919 (in commercial operation) and the wide-body aircraft C929 (in development). It also shows Beijing’s growing ambition to compete with the two giants Airbus and Boeing. Both companies are struggling with production to keep up with world demand for aircraft.
In addition to renaming the ARJ21, the company also reduced the weight, noise and introduced some cost improvements of the new model compared to the old models.
This model uses two American GE CF34-10A engines; flight and landing equipment from Liebherr (Germany). ARJ21 has a flight range of 2,225 to 3,700 km. The train can be configured with seats from 78 to 97 seats.
Currently, there are 124 ARJ21 aircraft in operation, mainly belonging to Chinese airlines. The only foreign airline currently using the ARJ21 is TransNusa (Indonesia), receiving the aircraft in 2022. Chinese airlines have used this jet on many domestic routes. According to Comac, ARJ21 has served 13 million passengers.
China is investing heavily in aircraft production, aiming to break the dominance of Boeing and Airbus. Recently, they have stepped up the promotion of C919 and COMAC both domestically and internationally.
Last year, the C919 and ARJ21 were brought to Hong Kong International Airport (China) for display. In February this year, C919 participated in the Singapore Air Show. Immediately afterwards, COMAC also brought C919 and ARJ21 to Van Don International Airport (Quang Ninh) to organize an exhibition.