[struwwelpeter]

Wow, a DC-9. With this acft and their chink Vostok capsule, they've got a real head start...

On 1961.

[Last Dakotan]

I remember hearing from the once dominant US machine tool industry that the Japanese could not build a tool changer, or the once dominant US auto industry that they could not build a V-8 engine. The Koreans where thought in turn by the Japanese not to be able to make picture tubes.

It goes on and on, underestimating your foe is a natural human tendency.

[TalonDJ]

Except the real technology going into this one is the wing from the Russians and the American Avionics. But that is ok, we subcontract so much stuff to Chinese companies that they are not learning much new from it.

The funny/ironic thing is THIS is the sort of thing they spend money on when congress makes noise about trade imbalances. Yeah, we get cheaply made stuff and they get airplane technology. Good call congress.