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Comment by blackrock | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps this is just a growing pain, and they’ll eventually figure it all out. And it’s a good thing they did extensive testing and caught this now, while it was still in development. This is where you are supposed to catch these errors.

Maybe this article was purposefully released to spread lies and defame COMAC’s reputation? Because that is what western journalism is pushing out these days about China.

But the bottom line, is that COMAC didn’t have 2 of their planes fall out of the sky, like Boeing did.

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> Maybe this article was purposefully released to spread lies and defame COMAC’s reputation?

I don't think so. I would guess 90+% of the people clicking on this had no idea what COMAC is. What does seem weird is that the HN headline "Comac engineers miscalculated the forces that would be placed on the engines" does support defaming COMAC narrative, while the actual Reuter's headline "China's bid to challenge Boeing and Airbus falters" reads like the dozens of articles that were written about delays the Dreamliner [1] and the A380 [2]. Compared to some of those articles COMAC is getting off easy.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+787+dreamliner+delays

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=airbus+a380+delays

What does seem weird is that the HN headline "Comac engineers miscalculated the forces that would be placed on the engines" does support defaming COMAC narrative, while the actual Reuter's headline "China's bid to challenge Boeing and Airbus falters"

I picked that because having to redo the nacelles was new news to me. Most of the rest of the article covers previously published problems.

FWIW the 787 was hardly treated with kid gloves. It wasn't just random delays, it was things like hamfisted outsourcing, scrapping frames assembled with hardware from Home Depot, major customers refusing to take delivery from a specific factory, battery fires, and major engine problems.

> But the bottom line, is that COMAC didn’t have 2 of their planes fall out of the sky, like Boeing did.

Customers are not flying the COMAC C919 - it is not in passenger service.

I agree with you, I've seen articles like this on hacker news for the past 5 years about how China is failing and China is unable to produce what North America is capable of. And the interesting thing is yes, at first they fail. Why should we expect them to get it right the first time? You learn with practice, and mistakes, and testing. I guarantee eventually they will have a functioning aircraft. This is normal process, with a narrative western spin.

Why should we expect them to get it right the first time?

This isn't their first time (the ARJ21 was). Will COMAC succeed where Mitsubishi (Japan), Bombardier (Canada), Sukhoi (Russia), and Lockheed (USA) have failed? Maybe. But China's set a deadline of 2025 to have their own homegrown product in service and it's doubtful that specific goal will be met.

The western aerospace industry is hardly betting against China here. I think Airbus was expecting COMAC to be competitive by 2020. Hell, a huge part of the reason that the 737 MAX exists today is that the Boeing CEO thought China was their biggest threat.

Bombardier (Canada) failed because they had produced a better plane, and boeing made efforts to make it impossible to sell in America. So they've teamed up with Airbus to be able to access the market.

They said that about the Japanese. I remember around 1990 sitting as some of my fellow engineers said the same about Hyundai, they'll never be able to build good cars. I took the other end of the bet. That a country with enough resources with commitment to make the engineering and manufacturing cultural changes will eventually succeed.

Change since thing is Hyundai builds decent cars and a lot of other heavy industrial goods. And the United States has regressed because we believe the free market will provide while the third generation post war management class loots everything not nailed down.

Yeah but COMAC has maybe 2 commercial jets that have entered service, Boeing has shuttled millions of people around the world safely for decades. We're riding an aviation news scare wave right now, so every burp and fart from the industry is getting reported. That said, there's no question that COMAC doesn't have the experience of Boeing or Airbus in designing production airliners. It's like trying to throw a bunch of money at a new software team to replace Windows 10, and then get Big Corp to start replacing their machines with that.

This is exactly why it’s an embarrassment for Boeing.

The fact that they have over 100 years of experience doing this, but yet, they made an elementary mistake. Two of their planes fell out of the sky!

And at first, they blamed it on mediocre 3rd world country pilots.

Then, the truth finally came out. Their design for the 737 MAX was junk. It was fatally flawed. It’s a flying death trap!

They put on a larger sized engine to get more fuel efficiency. But moved the nacelle forward, which changed the flight characteristics, causing the plane to pitch its nose up. Which they tried to fix, by having 1 faulty sensor detect the balance, and to correct it with software to automatically adjust the flaps. But the sensor was wrong, and it wasn’t redundant, and the software over-corrected. And what’s the result? The planes fall out of the sky.

They paper-bagged one problem with another, and another. Then they lied and sold it to the public, like it was the safest plane ever made.

> And at first, they blamed it on mediocre 3rd world country pilots.

> Then, the truth finally came out. Their design for the 737 MAX was junk. It was fatally flawed. It’s a flying death trap!

Well, both are true.

The Indonesian investigators share blame between their pilots, mechanics and Boeing. Insiders expected this.

And Boeing forgot they were in the aerospace business.

I think the problems from Boeing mark a new era when you cannot rely anymore on a previous good record. The new structure how FAA approves airliners proven to be insufficient, for both the Dreamliner & MCAS with 737. If Boeing continues going down this path than it won't matter how long and how many passengers they shuttled.

There's figuring out what went wrong, and then there's figuring out why nobody thought anything was wrong. At least, nobody with the authority to do something about it.

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