The China Syndrome Melts Boeing To The Core

In order to build a Chinese market, many incentives have gone the Asian way. An assembly center having both mega builders participating so it may sell immediate products to the mainland Chinese. Shared technology when using inexpensive Chinese resources for R&D and access to the world's markets from these exchanges. However, the goal comes from its government, whom will in every manner possible isolate itself from everything beyond its boarder while consuming everything beyond its boarder at the same time.

Its goal is a world aviation player at the expense of everything offered around the globe. Tens of thousands of its people work every day for finding out how to build an F-35, 787 and a Max 737. The latest foray into high tech endeavor comes from the recent test flight of its C919 single aisle. The common denominator for all flying programs is the engines. China would like to know how GE developed its engine. China may reverse engineer a World product but can it start with a white paper product and move it to the real world market?

China is about to step up and out from its Russian engine mentors and go long with its own rendition of a RR or GE version of engine. These non Chinese makers have been pouring everything they have known about engines into its latest version of maximum thrust and lean burn configured engines. These engine makers have already put on its own electronic drawing board many experienced gained ideas and further refinements. This type of advancing can not be copied by the Chinese at this time or reverse engineered. China will have to demonstrate it can do this in ten years by what the others have done in the last seventy years from advanced engine building.

China has rooms full of engineers working the problem but doesn't have billions of flight hours at its back. It may conceivably rattle the cages of both Boeing and Airbus but it will lay-up short for the next 30 years from where the giant engine builders are today, and where it continues forward. China can and will make dramatic strides forward using available off the shelf advances but having successful innovation is the missing link for all its aspirations for being world’s largest airplane builder. If that goal is reached it will be from a base of isolation and not inclusion. Nationalistic Pride dictates it will build and others will have to wait and wait until given access to China's promise of inclusion.

The above paragraph is one dim outlook towards a three way airplane dominance. Having one private and one co-sharing private with government will compete with one Government directed Chinese maker. It will be an interesting world where the market place may begin to isolate itself from one another out of survival. The only way forward will be a free market place and not an isolated market place. Engine makers will sell to the Chinese maker while the Chinese strive to reverse engineer but can't quite come clean sheet in its forward attempts. The value of experience is forgotten in this case which can't be stolen.