Once upon a time… I learned a lesson about Chinese quality. Or the lack of it…
Non aviation story:
Bought a cheap mountain bike in a German supermarket. Went for a ride, all good. Next day I leaned into a corner only to find the handlebar suddenly blocked as it was deflected 🤬
A spectacular somersault luckily had me land on some soft ploughed earth next to the probably much harder concrete…
Anyway, back home I removed the front fork, and these small balls from the bearings started raining down from the head tube and the fork crown… but that wasn’t the problem. Closer scrutiny indicated that most of these Chinese steel balls had flattened out, and then provoked the seizure of the rudder front fork control. Striking one of these balls gently with a hammer, had them change shape to something akin to a mini American football ball 😳
My best guess is that those ball bearing balls were made out of the same stuff as used on the split lead shot on fishing line.
I’m no Rotax fan anyway, but will happily follow that development 🤓
UdoR wrote:
the Rotax prices are going higher and higher
Well, you might be in for a nasty surprise cometh the time for a replacement or overhaul of your Lycosaurus… just saying 😉
Those welds are horrible… like Japanese motorbikes in late 1960s / early 1970s. But the Japs learnt, and improved. The Chinese do not learn and improve from within. They do it only if the customer presses them to (and pays more for it).
Are these certified? If not, there are better 4-cyl 100hp options available to the homebuilder.
Given that the pre-existing core of Chinese engine copying has been in motorcycle engines, that copies of Rotax-designed motorcycle engines are made in China too, and that a reputable German publication published the article discussed here perhaps the link will be of interest.
Apparently there is no legal defense in Europe against the sale of outright copies in every detail of engines developed by others. If the market wishes to encourage those who develop new designs, the only solution is not to buy unauthorized copies of those designs. There is a defense if the trademark marked on the original engine is also copied, which (unbelievably) has happened in modern China.
Do not underestimate Chines craftsmanship. Yes, they tend to approach the acceptance level from down below, probing to which extend things have to be developed to be ‘good enough’, but on the other side they find the cheapest entry point into the market by that. They also have infinite patience and give a sh*t on whether they are thought to be inferior by Europeans!
Yes, the interesting part will be certification, but if China decides to open up their airspace and let GA fly in the country on a more Experimental approach, soon the worldwide market will be China, China, China and the rest being little. No idea what the future will bring, but a more holistic view sometimes helps to understand little bubbles of mind.
gallois wrote:
What price are they?
The are sold in Europe here. According to the price list:
There’s nothing wrong with the international laws of patents. They are made the way they are to promote competition and development (in fact to enable competition and development to happen at all in most cases). Copyright on the other hand is exclusively protection, but to come up with new names and new poems is easy 
There’s also something called fair use and derived work with copyright. A different thing entirely compared with patents.
Besides, what exactly is/was patentable on the 912? There’s nothing revolutionary about it. It’s just a perfect example of a well put together “fit for purpose” design that came at the right point in time.
Silvaire wrote:
If the market wishes to encourage those who develop new designs, the only solution is not to buy unauthorized copies of those designs
Certainly, but there’s nothing unauthorized about it. No authorization is needed to make exact copies of bits and pieces, unless they are covered by current patents. People usually don’t like poor quality copies though. People do however like cheaper copies and even better: high quality copies with enhanced features (at a good price ), which all these Lycoming clones are. Lycoming did fight back with their Thunderbolt line of non certified engines, which are “high fidelity, more precise” engines than the vanilla Lycoming (certified or not).
You are free to buy a Rotax 912 at €23000. An engine that costs Rotax perhaps €5-6000 to produce. Or you can buy that C 80 at €13000 which cost Zongshen perhaps €4-5000 to produce.
It’s just the market and industry that works as it is supposed to work. We may not like that it’s the Chinese that are doing it, and perhaps not the way they are doing it. There’s nothing wrong or “unethical” about it though.
Yes it seems clear that a lot (most?) of what China has done in recent years has been for their domestic market (they certainly have not done it for investment returns) but for whatever reasons that market has not opened up.
BTW Chinese production is incredibly cheap. Even today, when it is say 2x more than 10 years ago, it is still very cheap. They can make an injection moulding tool for $3000 which would cost $30000 in the West.
The $3k is to a local customer; to a Western customer it will be $10k 
and this BTW is now becoming risky for China because they are cutting it too close when one considers the risk of doing business there; I’ve already posted plenty on that e.g. here.
Chinas domestic market has a size that renders selling to Europe a by-product. They strategically focussed on getting the knowledge and they succeeded – but not for world domination (at least not for now) but for now only to improve their own country – China First!
To cite Spock from First Contact: They had no interest in earth, too primitive.
MichaLSA wrote:
Yes, the interesting part will be certification
Completely irrelevant. Rotax certified vs uncertified sales is at least 1:100. I know nothing about GA in China, but if that ever becomes a thing like UL in Europe (using Rotax size of engines), you can bet your life that this will be 100% Chinese regulations. Something similar to LSA/UL, but all very Chinese with their own industry standard (perhaps a copy of ASTM F2245 )
