Three Avic Aircraft, provisionally called Transport Aircraft, have their assorted roles defined as the integrated design and manufacturing of cargo lifters, propeller passenger aircraft, bombers and specialty aircraft.
In other words, the focus of this section is large airplanes, excluding passenger jets.
According to Aviation Week, in a most extensive and thorough article, Avic in its birth and restructuring, is trailing Comac, a new Shanghai company to which Beijing has assigned a national monopoly for building complete jet airliners with more than 70 seats.
While Avic Aircraft is forbidden from building major jetliners, Hu says ‘in the area of large airliner projects it will play an important role’ — meaning that it aims to build major aircraft sections.
The businesses that are forming Avic Aircraft already make many components for major Western manufacturers such as Airbus and Boeing. They also build major sections for Comac’s ARJ21 regional jet (seen above) and will probably do the same for Comac’s forthcoming C919 mainline passenger aircraft.
Avic Aircraft and Avic Defense are just two of a range of specialist aeronautics companies that are being formed from the disparate plants and research institutes of the former Avic 1 and 2, which were merged as Avic last year.
Others include rotary-wing specialist Avicopter and another company devoted to general aviation.
Avic is the parent of all of the new specialists, but the subsidiaries are supposed to have considerable and increasing autonomy, following the lead of Comac, which is no longer really part of the Avic structure.
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