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Comment by api_or_ipa | Hacker News Reader

I love reading about the Chinese efforts in developing a modern turbofan engine. For whatever reason, they just can't build a good medium- or high- bypass turbofan in-house. They're latest WS-20 is basically a clone of the CFM-56 and previously they spent decades developing the WS-6 and WS-10 that never met expectations.

This is a big deal because the Comac 919 is ready to go but without a powerplant, they're having to turn to Western sources for an engine. The same thing happened with the J-10 project a decade ago and again recently with the J-20. Without a reliable powerplant, you can't build good airplanes and you can't easily reverse engineer a precision turbofan.

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China also couldn't make a ballpoint pen until last year [1].

I imagine making a modern jet engine is somewhat more challenging than making a ballpoint pen (both endeavours involve making high precision metal parts).

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/18...

"Couldn't" is a bit unfair. The article seems to imply that it wasn't from a lack of trying, but a lack of interest, and a company only took on the challenge after the issue became considered an issue of national pride and came to light.

The numbers given suggested that it cost just over $17 million to import the pen tips to manufacture 38 billion pens. Which puts the cost per tip at $0.00045/piece.

It's not hard to see why manufacturers wouldn't bother creating a process and tooling for that if it already exists.

More importantly, the article put emphasis on the idea that once the government complained about it, something was done quite quickly. Which is completely different story to a military jet engine, which is being researched, funded and developed by government-linked organizations.

Indeed, a aviation company ( Miles Aircraft ) in my home town took a license from Bic in the late 1940s to start manufacture of their roller-ball Biro pen.

I have a hard time believing that China couldn't replicate that technology for 70 years.

The Soviets also couldn't crack the jet engine but the English helpfully provided a Rolls-Royce engine for the Mig-15 just in time for the Korean War.

"What fool will sell us his secrets?", asked Uncle Joe Stalin. "I will", said Sir Richard Stafford Cripps, CH, FRS.

I wouldn't brand this decision as foolish. In the rapidly shifting balance of scales, perhaps someone on the island didn't want a former colony to have everything.

Or perhaps not; either way, there could have been good reasons - see discussion here[1]

[1]https://www.quora.com/In-the-beginning-of-the-Cold-war-why-d...

Having the designs itself can only carry you so far. You also need the fine precision tools, materials engineering, software, etc in order to build sophisticated machinery.

China is advancing quickly but they can't make up 200 years of industrial headstart by the west in 20 years.

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