Delta G60 Corridor league cities give wings to C919 jet industrial chain

Liang Feng and Yang Yang

FIRMS along the Yangtze River Delta G60 High-tech Corridor league cit-ies are contributing to the huge C919 jet industrial chain that comprises production of more than 2.5 million airplane parts and components.

China’s homegrown C919 narrow-body jet is nearing certification after its planes completed all of the test flight tasks, the state-owned manu-facturer Commercial Aircraft Corp of China said recently.

“The trial flight tasks were com-pleted successfully. The related C919 jet industrial chain in the Yangtze river Delta G60 league cities will soon develop rapidly. The cities will seize the opportunity to embrace this new commercial aviation industry worth thousands of billions of yuan,” said an official with the Yangtze river Delta G60 High-tech Corridor league cities office.

The league cities include songjiang District of shanghai, Jiaxing, Hang-zhou, Jinhua and Huzhou cities of Zhejiang Province, suzhou City of Jiangsu Province, and Xuancheng, Wuhu and Hefei cities of Anhui Province.

“We are excited about the success of the test flight. A high temperature-resistant vacuum sealing tape of our company, as a C919 jet component, is in its last phase of tech trial. it will soon be mass produced,” said Wang Xiaohong, deputy manager of Kejian Polymer materials (shanghai) Co.

Kejian Polymer, established in songjiang 17 years ago, has turned into a leading global butyl rubber producer. it focuses on research and manufacturing of rubber damping plate, butyl adhesive and tape that have been widely used in the trans-portation, new energy, architecture, telecommunication and aerospace industries.

Aramid honeycomb is an essential non-metallic material used to help an airplane reduce weight.

Advanced Composite Technology materials Co, which is based in the songjiang Economic and Technologi-cal Development Zone, focuses on providing “slim aviation products” made from aramid honeycomb, in-cluding luggage racks and ceilings.

The company spent about two years from signing contracts with Civil Aviation Administration of China in 2013 to winning certification from it.

In addition to these time-honored songjiang high-tech firms, some startup companies in the suburban district are also participating in the development of C919 industrial chain. shanghai Pengxi Aviation Technology Co, founded in August 2021, is able to offer landing gear maintenance for the majority aircraft types of COmAC, Boeing and Airbus.

Some simulation facilities, includ-ing LAB-simU-rT, VPC signal adapter and power management box, devel-oped by shanghai simin mechanical and Electrical Technology Co, have been applied in some C919 research labs to assist in their test and certifi-cation works.

So far, about 1,000 companies in the nine league cities have been listed in the C919 supplier database as a sustained strategic cooperation be-tween the league and COmAC.