China builds the world’s largest civil wind tunnel complex to beat Boeing, Airbus

China’s vast complex of wind tunnels for aircraft testing is equivalent to the combined total of similar facilities across the US and Europe

They have been used to help develop China’s newest passenger plane, the C919, which is the country’s first large civil jet aircraft

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It has been revealed that a vast complex of Chinese wind tunnels was used in the development of China’s new civil aircraft, the C919. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 7:00pm, 18 Jan 2024

Since 2007, a vast amount of resources have been pumped into the construction of 18 wind tunnels across China, providing vital testing grounds for scientists and engineers as they worked to build the country’s first large civil jet aircraft – while avoiding any accusations of copying the West.

Now, after 16 years of secrecy, the ambitious endeavour has finally been revealed.

In December, a peer-reviewed paper published in the Chinese academic journal Acta Aerodynamica Sinica by senior engineer Wu Junqiang with the China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre in Mianyang, Sichuan, detailed for the first time the unprecedented scale of China’s wind tunnel complex.

In fact, the paper revealed that it is equivalent to the combined total of similar wind tunnels in the United States and Europe (11 in the US and seven in the EU).

Notably, the largest wind tunnels in the West, used for developing new models for Boeing and Airbus, do not surpass 5 metres (16.4ft) in size. In contrast, China boasts four wind tunnels measuring 8 metres or more.

These tunnels help scientists and engineers test a multitude of aircraft development challenges, ranging from aerodynamic shape and extreme operating conditions to icing, vibration, noise and flight control systems.

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