China to start making 90-seat jets. High-quality, I'm sure.

[RadioFreeSeaLab]

I have two CB radios made in Malaysia, both work great.  As does my early 80's Japenese radio.

[ArfinGreebly]

I have noticed a trend in Chinese production knives since US companies started moving production over there.

The better US companies, like Buck, Gerber, and Kershaw, watch their production lines like hawks and the products they bring home are quality they're willing to stand behind.

Gradually, as more brands are outsourced, as more metallurgy and tempering technology is entrusted to Chinese proxies, the more "leakage" there is into the Chinese mainstream cutlery industry.

I have a folding lockback that I bought a couple of years ago.  No brand markings at all.  Just "China" on the ricasso.  Tight, sharp, pretty good for a five-dollar knife.  (That knife is now in stores under the "Sheffield" brand for ten bucks.)

I recently picked up a few U.S. Classics pocket knives for under $10 each.  Stunning quality.  The same knife made here would go for $40-to-$50 easy.  Rough Rider is another brand that's doing well.

The are making large strides, and we're feeding them the technology.

They may never overtake the Japanese in quality, but they're certainly closing the gap.

Give them time.

Today we scoff at them as we scoffed at the Japanese in the fifties and sixties.

I have a pretty good idea how that turns out.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

It's only natural that we hear lots of stories about bad things being made in China.  That's because nearly everything is made in China these days.  So if it was made, and made poorly, chances are that it was made in China. 

There's a flip side to that, though.  If works right and was made well, chances are that it was still made in China.  You don't hear about any of those things, though, because there's no reason to talk about them.

[Bogie]

We have lawyers. They have people who will shoot you.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/insignia_ns_b-2111_review/
 
Best Buy had (may still have) these speakers on sale for about $50ish a pair. As low as $19 a pair on a Black Friday deal a while back.
 
http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/speakers/satellite/radiient-elara

Now, this is the outfit that was the first contractor - They paid for the design, tooling, etc... Then the Chinese sold Best Buy a container ship full of knockoffs... That weren't really knockoffs.

I've got a pair. Not bad.

[LAK]

The Chinese will be knocking out goods of regular high quality regularly. They are slowly picking up steam on this as did the Japanese years ago.

-----------------------------------------

http://gtr5.com
http://ssunitedtstates.com

[LAK]

Someone mentioned Malaysia. I have several 1960s and early 70s Rollei 35 compact 35mm cameras, three of which were put together in Rollei's transplanted operation in Singapore. The quality and function is identiical to the "made in Germany" items.

[Tallpine]

I've already got a bunch of Korean electronics in my house, and even some Malaysian.

Yeah, but if one of those suddenly fails, you curse it, throw it in the trash, and go buy another.  If it fails in an airplane, you take a sudden thirty thousand foot dive, or at least have to land with no cockpit instrumentation whatsoever - which amounts to almost the same thing.

I know what aircraft h/w and s/w certification requires in the US, and I'm pretty sure they aren't up to those standards.

[Lee]

I agree with Tallpine. Nearly everything I buy at Home Despot that is Chinese made, is always missing one part.  Not a good thing at 15,000 feet.

[Gewehr98]

I'm pretty sure that the Chinese know how to build airplanes that don't fall out of the sky.

My crewdawg buddies and I could only hope that the Chinese MiGs and Sukhois (domestic copies of Soviet fighters) that scrambled against us would have been grounded or crashed enroute to their intercepts because of shoddy workmanship. 

A Chinese-made Su27 is still somewhat more advanced in execution than a regional airliner, IMHO. China is no stranger to building good-sized airliners, either. They built 35 each McDonnell-Douglas MD-80s there, and of that batch,  23 fly are flying there, with nine that were flying in the U.S. for American Airlines (5) and Spirit Airlines (4) and four for Spanair in Spain.

Of course, we never tested Chinese jet aircraft structural integrity the way the U.S. Navy did with their EP-3 Aries turboprops, either.

[Manedwolf]

It's not the design engineers or assemblers that concern me with the aircraft, it's the notorious counterfeiting of subassemblies that go into the aircraft. Some of those parts have even ended up in the US.

[Gewehr98]

I know what aircraft h/w and s/w certification requires in the US, and I'm pretty sure they aren't up to those standards.

It's not the design engineers or assemblers that concern me with the aircraft, it's the notorious counterfeiting of subassemblies that go into the aircraft. Some of those parts have even ended up in the US.

Maybe I stuttered earlier, I dunno.

Let me reiterate:

The Chinese have built 35 McDonnell-Douglas MD-80 airliners under license.  Several are flying here in the U.S. They wouldn't be flying here if they didn't get an FAA airworthiness rating, I guarantee that.

So, it would behoove some in this thread to specifically ask the pilot/copilot/stewardess where their plane was built if you just happen to be boarding an American Airlines or Spirit Airlines MD-80.  If the builder's plate says Shangai, maybe you can ask the stewardess for one of those courtesy parachutes.

I now return you to your regular schedule of paranoia.    Remember, we used to call Japanese products junk, too. 

[Tallpine]

The Chinese have built 35 McDonnell-Douglas MD-80 airliners under license.  Several are flying here in the U.S. They wouldn't be flying here if they didn't get an FAA airworthiness rating, I guarantee that.

Those would be flying under a "type certificate"

What I don't understand, though - is how big a deal the company and the fed.gov makes about letting any information go overseas (ITAR), and then they license the Chinese to build our planes  :rolleyes:

[MillCreek]

I freely admit my ignorance on these matters: exactly what does 'building under license' mean?  Are you using all the same parts, tools, jigs, processes to build something as does the original manufacturer?  Is this essentially cloning the production line to another location?  Or is it building something to a desired outcome, and the choice of how you manufacture it is left to you?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[Gewehr98]

What I don't understand, though - is how big a deal the company and the fed.gov makes about letting any information go overseas (ITAR), and then they license the Chinese to build our planes 

What don't you understand?

If the American technology is useful in a weapons system, then it's verboten for export.

Toshiba and Kongsberg found that out the hard way.

Commercial airliners?  Not so much, although there were some microprocessors in the avionics on those license-built jets that got us into trouble recently.

I actually have a letter from RCBS that came with my 6.5-06 reloading dies in the late 1990s.  It states that those dies are expressly forbidden for export to Yugoslavia and the states that made up that former country.  Turns out the State Department considered them to be a counter-sniper technology that shouldn't be used against NATO forces.   Never mind the fact that anybody with rudimentary lathe turning skills could crank them out by the gross.

[Tallpine]

All of the airline stuff (including documents) that I am working on is "export controlled" - maybe that means that only the bigwig execs can export it ... 

Heaven forbid the chinese should figure out how we are lining up our Zeroes and Ones 

[Gewehr98]

Oh, I don't disagree.

I'm of the subtle opinion that anything can be weaponized, given enough initiative and time.

That's whether I feed my biggest dawg Campbell's Firehouse Chili and let him roam around another Red Hat Society meeting (What a cute, friendly, fluffy big dog!  Come here, sweetie! Oh my Gawd, what's that horrible smell?!)  , or someone's converting a baby formula factory in the Middle East into an anthrax culture facility.