On May 5, 2017, China's home-made passenger aircraft(飞机) C919 completed its 90-minute first flight and landed safely back at Pudong Airport in Shanghai.
C919 is developed by COMAC, a Chinese aircraft company. It is designed to compete with Boeing 737 and Airbus A320. The first C919 aircraft can carry 168 passengers and is able to fly a distance between 4,075 and 5,555 kilometres. It's reported that a C919 costs around 50 million dollars, less than half of a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320. Up to now, more than 570 aircrafts have been ordered from 23 customers, mostly Chinese, but also American and Thai companies or airlines. COMAC aims to take one fifth of the world's narrow-body aircraft market and one third of the Chinese market by 2035.
The name C919 has its special meanings. The letter C stands for both "COMAC" and "China". The number 9 is pronounced as "jiu" in Chinese, which means "forever". And me number 19 refers to its capacity(容量) of 190 passengers.
The large passenger aircraft is praised as "the flower of modern industry". It is a symbol of the nation's industrial and technological standards as well as the comprehensive(综合的) power. In order to realize the century dream of flying in the sky and the strategy(战略)of the nation, COMAC bears the nation's dream and people's trust. China considers it as a national pride.
