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Comment by zwieback | Hacker News Reader

Other than Airbus, are there any alternatives?

Chinese COMAC seems to be on the verge of selling meaningful numbers to chinese airlines. Wont be surprised if they are a very viable competitor in ~20 years which isn’t much in the aviation world where backlogs span a decade

> Chinese COMAC seems to be on the verge of selling meaningful numbers to chinese airlines.

That's easy when the PRC is mandating it, but given the hard earned safety record of say... Airbus, people are not in a rush to stake their lives and businesses on Chinese built aircraft. They're not exactly known for the transparency and integrity. In 20 years COMAC is likely to suffer multiple deadly crashes.

Does it matter though that the numbers are because of PRC tipping the scales? It worked for chinese internet and auto companies. Also, chinese manufacturing is obviously capable of high standards of manufacturing if they decide to. People forget how tenuous airbus once looked or how fast they scaled up

I'm sketical, there are single digit numbers in service and I would be surprised if 差不多 culture doesn't result in a service record worse than the MAX once we have appreciable flight hours to look at. A lot can happen in 20 years but I can't see myself ever flying an MC-21 or C-919, though I won't fly on a MAX either.

Their planes are just rip-offs straight from Boeing blueprints with even more corners cut.

Yeah. I could see a possible future Boeing split where BCA gets bought by COMAC or otherwise there's a some sort of new commercial aircraft org made from a hybrid of the two. Not a likely future, but a possible one.

Was just about to type this. Hopeful for COMAC. Of course your post brought out a bunch of brainwashed racists, though.

Ha, as if I would ever get on a Chinese plane. Have people learned nothing?

Embraer

Not for planes the size of a 737.

There's some slight overlap for the Max 7.

- the average 737 MAX 7 aircraft would typically carry between 138 and 153 passengers, range 3,850nm.

- Embraer 195-E2 carries between 120 and 146 passengers, range 2600nm

Why don‘t they scale up? They seem to have all the regulatory capabilities to get a commercial jet on the market already. I also never understood why e.g. China doesnm‘t just buy Embraer (or take over all their employees) and builds out from a functioning product?

Scaling up would be hard. I think the E2 is a 4 seat across aircraft. It's maximum capacity configuration is already quite long (42m) with ~120-150 seats. A320 is like 38m long with ~200 seats (6 seat across).

Scaling into the A320/737 range would need a brand new design with wider fuselage probably. I'm not saying that Embraer could not do that, but sticking with the E2/A220 size range seems to be a winning combo - until recently (A220), they had no real competition from the big two. Maybe with the more recent weakness from Boeing, Embraer might want to consider a 737/A320 class design, but these things take time.

Also, as much as BRICs is a thing, I don't think Brazil would be too fond of selling Embraer to China.

Scaling the E2 is not the answer, but there is nothing stopping Embraer from developing a six across airframe to compete with the B737 or A320. They have the engineering talent and the supply chain network in place. They have the capital. If they see a market opening, who knows… they just may go ahead.

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