MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

China and Russia announce separate plans to develop home-built regional jetliners

Russia's SJ-100 was originally developed with foreign components but that needed to change following sanctions after invading Ukraine

Non-western regional aircraft manufacturers are stepping up plans to displace foreign competition amid global fragmentation and economic sanctions. While Russia is substituting imported components for its Superjet SJ-100, the Shanghai-based Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) announced an increase in productivity for its C-919 narrowbody model, with an output of 50 units expected this year and 200 by 2029. At a conference in Xian, Comac also said 100 new aircraft would be available in 2026 after new funding worth US$ 4.7 billion was injected into the program.

Last Monday, a prototype of the SSJ-100 fitted with domestically produced PD-8 engines, successfully completed its first test flight in Komsomolsk-na-Amur. The 40-minute flight reached a speed of 500 kph and an altitude of 3,000 meters, with the engines performing stably, thus heralding Russia's impending avaiation independence following 2022 sanctions. The SJ-100 program replaced around 40 imported systems, including avionics and landing gear, with Russian alternatives, with the PD-8 engine being a cornerstone of this import substitution effort, with the country's air traffic expected to grow 1.5 times by 2030.

Certification tests will continue in April, with another aircraft joining the trials. Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov emphasized the rapid timeline and the flight’s confirmation of engineering reliability. ”Today’s flight confirms the accuracy of our engineering calculations and the high readiness of the aircraft,” he said. “This project has been implemented within an extremely tight timeframe by global aviation standards. After 2022, we essentially had to reassemble the Superjet from scratch. The engine is one of the key components of this import substitution program – it is the ‘heart’ of the aircraft,” he added.

The regional jet industry was dealt two major blows this year after Canadian-developed CRJ jets (of the 700 and 900 variations respectively) were involved in the deadly Jan. 29 crash over the Potomac River following a mid-air collison with an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport resulting in 67 people killed. On Feb. 17, a Delta Connection airliner operated by Endeavor Air, crash-landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport. The aircraft flipped over upon landing due to a hard touchdown caused by challenging weather conditions, including gusting crosswinds and blowing snow. All 80 people on board (76 passengers and 4 crew members) survived, though 21 sustained injuries.

In 2020, Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) acquired Bombardier's CRJ (Canadair Regional Jet) program for around US$ 550 million. The deal did not include the production rights for the aircraft. Bombardier continued assembling the remaining CRJ jets.

With the model under scrutiny, Brazil's Embraer remained the main regional aircraft producer until last week, when Comac promised to make hundreds of C-919s available shortly while a technologically independent version of the Superjet, spurred by the need to replace Western components due to sanctions imposed after the 2022 Ukraine conflict escalation, is on its way to certification. The PD-8 engine is already used in Russia's Be-200 amphibious aircraft.