China’s homemade aircraft equipped with tires of foreign brand

China’s homemade airliner C919 successfully made its test flight in Shanghai on May 5.

The tires equipped by C919 haven’t realized localization. Actually, large number of parts and components used by the airliner were jointly developed and manufactured by domestic and foreign producers.

Hunan Boyun New Materials Co., Ltd. and US-based Honeywell International jointly won the bids for providing wheels, tires and brake systems for the airliner.

For that purpose, the two established a joint venture and inked the master contract for the project in Shanghai in Nov. 2012.

Although the two firms became qualified suppliers, none of them were tire producers. Only a few brands across the world are capable of providing tires for an airliner.

They finally selected Air X radial tires of Michelin.

The landing gear of C919 was jointed developed by AVIC Landing Gear Advanced Manufacturing Corp. and Germany-based Liebherr. The former is China’s only professional landing gear provider.

So far, Michelin, Bridgestone and Goodyear are the most frequently used brands of aero tires, and there are also a few aircrafts prefer Dunlop.

Qingdao Sentury Tire is the only company qualified to produce and sell aero tires.

But there are some tire producers also intend to develop the aero tire market.