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When my dad was a kid the words made in japan meant cheap crap.
When I was a kid it meant quality and made in Malaysia or Bangledesh meant it was cheap crap... China was commie and the west wasn't using it as a cheap labour force like they did later on.
The fact that things are not cheap to operate or maintain is simply evidence that their customers have not demanded that in the past... now they will and they will have to work on reliability and maintainability. Making an efficient engine is by far the hardest part of making aircraft... even an old aircraft design can be made competitive with good engines. Once they have the good engines in production it then becomes a focus to make them reliable and efficient and cheap to service.
When you make Tiger tanks to last 100 years you get defeated by T-34s designed to last 20 years because they are simpler and cheaper and yet with overhauls can be kept operational rather more than 20 years... the problem for commercial needs is that the Tiger will be cheaper to keep operational than the T-34 if the period is longer than 20 years.
Ironically in some areas western products are not designed to last forever otherwise people will only buy one. Most Cell phone designs will last 3-5 years but many people will replace them every 2-3 years anyway because they want the features of the newer models or as a status symbol.
When I was a kid it meant quality and made in Malaysia or Bangledesh meant it was cheap crap... China was commie and the west wasn't using it as a cheap labour force like they did later on.
The fact that things are not cheap to operate or maintain is simply evidence that their customers have not demanded that in the past... now they will and they will have to work on reliability and maintainability. Making an efficient engine is by far the hardest part of making aircraft... even an old aircraft design can be made competitive with good engines. Once they have the good engines in production it then becomes a focus to make them reliable and efficient and cheap to service.
When you make Tiger tanks to last 100 years you get defeated by T-34s designed to last 20 years because they are simpler and cheaper and yet with overhauls can be kept operational rather more than 20 years... the problem for commercial needs is that the Tiger will be cheaper to keep operational than the T-34 if the period is longer than 20 years.
Ironically in some areas western products are not designed to last forever otherwise people will only buy one. Most Cell phone designs will last 3-5 years but many people will replace them every 2-3 years anyway because they want the features of the newer models or as a status symbol.
