In December 2010, the very first independently developed new generation regional aircraft MA600 was delivered to Civil Aviation Flight University of China (CAFUC). Since then, CAFUC has received two MA600s, which have completed more than 1,345 hours of flight training. The aircraft records a daily operational rate of 7.15 hours, which is very close to Citation Latitude business jet made by Cessna.

According to the feedback from the Flight Department and Maintenance Department of the university, the MA600 performance is good overall, but there is still room for further improvements.

Experts form CAFUC analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of China's aviation manufacturing industry by comparing the homemade aircraft to other imported training aircraft, and suggested Xi'an Aircraft International Cooperation improve the production management and organization, and strengthen manufacturing skills to enhance the flight experience.

CAFUC is known as the world's largest civil aviation university with more than 330,000 flight training hours annually, ranked first in the world. Currently, CAFUC has 14 different types of trainers, 236 aircraft in total, including two MA600s, 10 Eaglet 500s and one Y-12.

According to the statistics of various types of trainers in use, those domestic-made aircraft are at the same level as European and American products in terms of performance such as flight envelope, endurance, power and configuration. As for aircraft materials, costs and services, the domestic-made aircraft are even slightly better.

However, domestic-produced aircraft particularly general aircraft have not yet formed a production scale, and yet to have the conditions for a production line. Therefore, there is a gap between domestic and imported aircraft in forming, riveting, painting, interior and interior materials, assembling and manufacturing. That is also why they are not as competitive as their counterparts abroad in the market.

In response, Zheng Xiaoyong, president of CAFUC, said, Xi'an Aircraft International Cooperation, as one of China's major aviation companies, assumes for manufacturing high-end supporting components like nose, wings and tail for Boeing and Airbus. There is no doubt in its aircraft design and manufacturing capabilities. However, the MA series aircraft are limited by the scale of production and other factors. There are also some of the details need to improve. But all these issues are minor problems and will be solved following the increasing production amount and the improving standard.