Comac 919

[N3266G]

I think the Comac is the kick in the rear that both Boeing and AIrbus need. If they want to stay a factor in the Asian market, they will have to step up their game. I belive that if they really want to do something about the Comac, its time to design a new plane to target the needs of the markets in Asia.

[HJ1an]

The other things ... well Comac is a word in Chinese and only because some stupid marketing man had in the fifties the idea to name a plane after something that actually crashes and burns, there is no reason not to use the Chinese word made up from abbreviations only because the transcription is similar to an English word.
The 9 symbolizes eternity and the 19 allegedly refers to a 190 passenger version ... which actually could be, if they push the seats together more. You know, Asian passengers are calculated with 180lbs, Americans with 220 ... so, yeah, that makes the differences between 168 and 190 easy.
Now, here is something funny. The wings are very 787. Because the aerodynamic simulation for the 787 wings were also made dry in a supercomputer first. Maybe it is not very creative, but when two supercomputers independently of each other design a similar wing, it indicates at least, the math is not totally off, does it?

Comac, as far as I know, means (from wikipedia) Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, and doesn't really mean anything in Chinese - I should know because I'm Chinese ancestors descent. IMO resembles 'Comet' so there may be something deliberate about it. You are right about the 919 though, culturally the Chinese tend to use similar sounding words in chinese to represent something good - or bad. In this case the number 4 is bad (read in chinese it can mean 'four'.. or... death). Numbers are usually loosely made fun off by most of us (ie. if a friend gets the number 24 in a queue we'd laugh at him or her getting hungry (2) to death (4) ) but some people - usually the superstitious ones - take it far too seriously. Other numbers, such as 3, is pronounced exactly like 'mountain' or 'ascension' (generally a 'good' number to have). But to me, it doesn't matter much, it is all patterns. Nice to have a good set of number arrange for our car plate numbers for example, but if not, then life goes on..

However I think there is no real reason to call model 919. They could call it ARJ989 to be consistent with their other airplane the ARJ21 (989 loosely translated as Forever(9) Prosper(8) Longevity(9)), but I guess they simply stuck in the "190 passengers" just so there is a 'valid' reason to use that naming convention instead. There seems to be implications of 'shoving it' at Boeing and Airbus with that naming convention too. ( 919=737 & if they made a 200+ passenger version C920=A320)

I think the Comac is the kick in the rear that both Boeing and AIrbus need. If they want to stay a factor in the Asian market, they will have to step up their game. I belive that if they really want to do something about the Comac, its time to design a new plane to target the needs of the markets in Asia.

The problem with targeting products for Asia is that they would have to do almost 2 different products as a result. Since China is making a plane, it made sense that they would be making the product fit for Asian markets... however they have to prove themselves. AirAsia for example is committed to Airbus-only fleet.

[HJ1an]

...just found out the 250 seat version will be called the 929.... so that makes even less sense other than just to follow the B7x7 naming convention and using '9' as the lucky number instead of '7'