China’s civil aviation ambitions gain some lift

With its first scheduled international route launching this month, the maiden flight of a high-altitude variant newly completed and a thumbs-up from European test pilots, China’s flagship C919 airliner is hitting new heights. China’s dream of a home-grown civil aviation fleet to rival Boeing and Airbus is coming closer with a national push to speed up certification of a domestically designed jet engine and smooth the development of a widebody C929 airliner, and combined orders of more than…