Five decades after jets wiped out large Western propeller airliners, the turboprop is pushing back. Until the arrival of the much-heralded propfan, it will not recover the trunkline ground it occupied until the 1960s, but pressure is building to expand the turboprop in the role that it has held since then as a fuel-efficient, short-haul passenger aircraft.

Inexperience among suppliers and regulators, an engineering shortage and in some cases common cultural practices among Chinese bureaucracies all likely share some of the blame for the latest delay on the Comac C919. The director of an expert committee advising China’s cabinet on the program, Zhang Yanzhong, revealed recently that first flight of the C919, already delayed earlier this year by about nine months, now will not take place until the end of 2015 (Aviation Daily, Aug. 8).

Development of the massively delayed Comac ARJ21 is now looking stable and on track for its latest target for airworthiness certification, June 2014, say industry officials familiar with the program. Comac is aiming at completing flight-testing by the end of the year, leaving six months for further certification work. “There seem to be no major problems,” says one official. Another, agreeing, says the development schedule has been realistic since last year, when the 2014 target was set.