China is making much of its ambitions to build advanced jets. You read more about it here. Meanwhile take a look at this picture of the tail of their new ARJ21. ARJ = Advanced Regional Jet. Does it look familiar? To airplane junkies it should.
Lets look back a number of years and assume that McDonnell Douglas's attempt to build a plane in China, then dubbed the Trunkliner, was successful. Picture starting to look more familiar now?
As this next picture shows, the Chinese ARJ looks suspiciously like a small 717 with winglets. Notice the curves around the nose section, note the hump above the tail. Look familiar now? It should.
In case it does not, the next picture is a reminder. It also proves that China can learn to create, sorry copy, designs and update as needed. If this plane is successful, then it may become popular in China. Success here means commercially. This is not like building military jets that China can fob off onto Pakistan. The risks are higher in commercial aviation. We await with interest to see what engines are put on this plane. The Rolls Royce engine should work fine, just like it does on the 717.
