[photopress:ARJ21_1.jpg,full,alignright]The world’s major aircraft makers are in China for its biggest air show. Boeing, Airbus and companies from 18 other countries including Russia and Brazil are displaying aircraft, radar equipment and other technology at the five-day show in Zhuhai.
China is expected to be the fastest- growing market for commercial aircraft over the next two decades. Boeing said last week that it expected carriers to purchase 2,900 new planes worth $280 billion in that time. (A later story pushed the number up to 3,000 which is a slight increase on a lot of aircraft.)
Other exhibitors include Embraer, a Brazilian maker of smaller regional jets, which in 2004 became the first foreign aircraft maker to open a factory in China.
China had its own aircraft on display. There is a model cabin of an ARJ-21, which is meant to be China’s first contender in the market for mid-range jets. The plane is made by China Aviation Industry, also known as AVIC I.
China’s first internally-developed regional jet, the ARJ21 is expected to get its air-worthiness certificate in 2007 and go into commercial operation in 2008, according to sources with China Aviation Industry Corporation I.
The ARJ21 feeder airplane is the world’s first plane designed according to China’s natural environment. The plane will be capable of landing and taking off at airports in western China’s plateau in high temperatures. Powered by turbofan engine, the plane has a range of 2,000 nautical miles and can carry between 70 and 110 passengers.
Source: International Herald Tribune and Xinhua.
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