Development of Chinese engine to make C919 truly home-grown ‘progressing well’

Aviation forum hears that engine’s performance in trial runs exceeds ‘most optimistic expectations’

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C919s at the Singapore Air Show in February last year. Photo: Xinhua

Frank Chenin Taicang, Jiangsu

Published: 10:00am, 29 Mar 2025Updated: 9:28pm, 30 Mar 2025

The development of a home-grown turbofan engine for China’s C919 narrowbody passenger jet has been “progressing well” in recent trials, experts and top executives from Aero Engine Corporation of China (AECC) told an aviation forum.

“The CJ-1000 engine is in trial runs and it fared better than my most optimistic expectations,” Shi Jianzhong, honorary president of the Shanghai Society of Aeronautics and a former deputy general manager of Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), the C919’s manufacturer, said at the forum in Taicang, Jiangsu province.

Amid a battle with the West for technological supremacy, Shi said on Thursday that “the engine’s success will exemplify China’s supply chain resilience”.

The high-bypass engine, the first of its kind to be produced in China, is designed to be a domestic alternative to the state-of-the-art Leap engine that Comac currently imports from CFM International – a joint venture between America’s GE Aerospace and France’s Safran.

Another executive from a C919 supplier, who also attended the forum, confirmed to the Post that the CJ-1000 would be able to power a C919 on verification flights “soon”, following tests on the Y-20 large military transport aircraft.

Pictures have been circulating on Chinese social media since 2023 showing the CJ-1000 on a Y-20 test bed.