Happy anniversary CR929 but what is your status?

Today on June 25, it is five years ago that Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping signed a number of documents to confirm the partnership on the Sino-Russian wide-body aircraft, now known as the CR929. While some important steps have been taken since then, more recently it is all very quiet around the project. Happy anniversary CR929 but what is your status?

Flashback to April 2012, when United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) and COMAC signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the joint feasibility of a wide-body airliner as a rival to Boeing and Airbus. In May 2014, a Memorandum of Cooperation was agreed upon by the two countries. This was followed on June 25, 2016, by a number of agreements to cover the joint development, production, commercialization, and after-sales of the airliner. At the same time, UAC and COMAC entered a joint-venture to be registered in the Pudong (Shanghai) free trade zone.

The aircraft was named C929 during a ceremony at the China Airshow in November 2016, which became CR929 in September 2017 when the joint-venture was established: China-Russia Commercial Aircraft International Corporation, or CRAIC

for short. UAC President Yuri Slyusar announced that the aircraft would be designed in Russia by a combined team at an engineering center at Zhukovsky (Moscow) and build in China. The Russians would be responsible for the wings and main landing gear, while the Chinese would focus on the fuselage, horizontal and vertical tailplane, and nose gear.

The engineering team offered three versions of the CR929: the standard -600 with a three-class layout for 280 passengers and a range of 12.000 kilometers, the shorter -500 for 230 passengers and a 14.000-kilometer range, and the extended -700 for 320 seats and a 10.000-kilometer range. The CR929 would be made of composites by up to fifty percent.