COMAC Rising

For decades, the skies were controlled by two giants-Boeing and Airbus-whose duopoly defined the global aviation industry. Into this rarefied world has stepped COMAC, the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, founded in 2008 with an audacious mission: to design, build, and deliver passenger jets capable of standing alongside the world's best. This book traces COMAC's journey from its inception to its flagship projects, the C919 narrowbody and the CR929 widebody, set against the broader backdrop of China's industrial transformation. It explores the technical and strategic challenges of designing new airliners, the importance of domestic demand, the intricacies of certification, and the geopolitics of aviation in an era of trade rivalries and shifting global power. With the ARJ21 as a testing ground, the C919 as a national symbol, and the CR929 as a bold international collaboration, COMAC's story reveals not only the ambition of an industry but the larger ambitions of a nation. Blending history, technology, and global strategy, COMAC Rising charts the emergence of a third force in commercial aviation and the implications of a new aviation order.