Chapter 732 Nanyang is also very awesome (second update, please subscribe)
“I, I...of course I am very honored!”
Facing what may be the biggest opportunity in my life , Li Xingtang stammered, but said firmly, "Please rest assured, Mr. Lin, I will never let everyone down."
As a pilot, Li Xingtang once flew the Hump Route during the war. , also served as a test pilot. Of course, most of the time, he was just a pilot. It was not until he came to Nanyang with his friends that he received professional test flight training.
Although he has flown many types of aircraft in the past few years, it is definitely an honor to be the chief test pilot of the "717 Airliner".
Lin Tonghua smiled calmly and said,
“Don’t be nervous, it’s just a very ordinary test flight. You should prepare first. If everything goes well, the flight will take place on the 12th of this month, which is the 16th day of the twelfth lunar month. Test flight! "
...
After the test flight date of the "C717" passenger aircraft is set, it is natural to report to the official residence as soon as possible. After all, you have always been very concerned about jets. progress of the passenger aircraft project.
“Safety, the first thing is to be safe, the second thing is to be safe.”
While listening to the report from Aviation Industry Company Manager Shao Yunqin, although he was very surprised at the rapid progress of the project, Li Yian repeated it twice like a repeater.
“Yes, Your Excellency!”
Shao Yunqin took out another document and said,
“For passenger aircraft, the most important thing is safety. After mentioning the importance of metal fatigue, we not only launched research in this area, but also built a full-scale water tank based on your suggestions. We spent five months conducting repeated pressure tests on it. After 10,000 hours of simulation testing, the results are good, and the testing is still ongoing."
Looking at the documents handed over by Shao Yunqin, Li Yian nodded thoughtfully.
He has always been paying attention to Nanyang's "large aircraft" project. Even when the "Comet Airliner" was preparing for commercial flights, Li Yian never urged the company to speed up its development progress.
Compared with the progress, Li Yian valued the safety of the aircraft more. Although data shows that airplanes are the safest means of transportation in the world, but unlike other means of transportation, once an airplane falls, it is a big event known to the whole world, and the result is often a crash and death. ——Few people can survive an air crash.
How were the German Zeppelins eliminated before World War II?
Isn’t it because the "Hindenburg" turned into a big fireball in full view of everyone!
If it hadn't been for the "Hindenburg" becoming a torch, the airship would never have disappeared so quickly.
The same goes for jetliners!
The Comet passenger aircraft may have seized the title of No. 1 in the world, but as the pioneer of jet airliners, the successive air crashes have even made the aviation industry doubt whether jet airliners are suitable for civil aviation.
It can be seen from this that the impact of the Comet crash on the entire jet airliner industry.
Although the whole world at that time believed that faster and higher jetliners were the future direction of development, in the face of the successive air crashes caused by comets, people even began to take this progressive direction.
Of course, Li Yian, who stands on the shoulders of historical giants, knows very well that jet airliners are the future direction. They not only fly faster, but also have lower flight costs, which are bringing profits to airlines. At the same time, it has also fundamentally changed the mode of human transportation.
After the advent of the Boeing 707, mankind quickly entered the jet age. Faster and cheaper jets became people's first choice for intercontinental travel. More and more people took flights, and fares became cheaper. Airlines earned The more people there are, the aircraft manufacturers will naturally make a lot of money.
But all this must be based on one premise - safety!
The cost of crashing a plane is too high!
It is so high that it can even destroy an aircraft manufacturing company and even a country's aviation industry. I, the British, are learning from the past!
So improving reliability and safety is the core competitiveness of developing the passenger aircraft manufacturing industry. If Nanyang wants to get a share of the large passenger aircraft market, it must seize this core, especially in the early days.
In the development of jet airliners, whether it was the 707 or the 717, Li Yian gave them a lot of "revelation". Most of those revelations were aerodynamic. This is not difficult. After all, in the next few decades, There are almost no major changes in the appearance of the passenger aircraft. It is nothing more than a single-aisle narrow-body aircraft, which has become a dual-aisle wide-body aircraft. As for the aerodynamic shape, aircraft in various countries adopt the most mature and appropriate solutions, and they are all long-lasting. The tried and tested ones, there is absolutely no problem using them.
As for the water tank test that discovered the metal fatigue of the Comet passenger aircraft, it was also proposed by Li Yian. To conduct a water tank test on the fuselage of the passenger aircraft is actually to design a huge water tank, immerse the aircraft in water, and use changes in water pressure to simulate Various stress tests. In this way, metal fatigue conditions of tens of thousands of flight hours can be simulated within five months.
The "Comet" passenger plane exposed the problem of metal fatigue in just over a month. During the pressurization process, the metal skin around the windows cracked and the fuselage exploded. Because of this, all Comet's passenger planes have rounded windows. However, under Li Yi'an's strong request, the 707 switched to rounded windows during the design stage. Not only that, its fuselage skin and beams are all made of 7075 aluminum alloy. Although this aluminum alloy is an American brand, it is a Nanyang product. Japanese engineers in the aluminum industry further developed ultra-high-strength aluminum alloys based on Sumitomo Metal's ESD aluminum alloys.
Although the skin thickness of its fuselage is only 2~4mm, only the partial opening areas such as hatches and windows are covered with skins as thick as 6mm. The material is strong, and its skin strength is still far greater than the Comet's 5mm Dura aluminum alloy skin.
To a certain extent, under Li Yian's careful care. The current 717 is definitely an aircraft that transcends the times. As long as there are no problems with the design, there will definitely be no problems.
As for the design, these excellent aerospace engineers are absolutely reassuring.
Despite this, it is better to be cautious about many things. After thinking about it, Li Yian said.
“A sufficient test must be conducted before a test flight. Ground testing is very important. Although the ground test cannot explain the problem, it is still necessary to conduct a sufficient ground test before the test flight.”
The "Comet" passenger aircraft also conducted a large number of test flights, but in the end there was still a problem!
Although he doesn't know where the "717" will take Nanyang Aviation Industry, Li Yi'an is still looking forward to the test flight.
Expectations are expectations, but no matter what, Li Yian will not rush them. Safety must come first in this kind of thing. The most important thing is to prevent the 717 from repeating the mistakes of the "Comet" passenger aircraft in the future.
“As I said before, airplanes are different from products such as high-speed trains. If an accident occurs to an airplane, the result will be a crash and fatalities. Air crashes will destroy people’s confidence. If they lose confidence in a product, then It is only natural for him to be eliminated, so we must ensure safety. No matter how much preparation we make, it is worth it!"
"Don't worry, we have made everything possible. Prepare, although the plan is the 16th of the twelfth lunar month, if the weather is bad, the test flight will be postponed. Now we have conducted many ground tests, and the tests have been successful."
Shao Yunqin then introduced the ground tests one by one. The result, Li Yian said.
"The test needs to be more complete, but don't be anxious. Remember, I still say the same thing - safety first!"
Later, Li Yian emphasized again.
"I noticed that Lin Tonghua was conducting random test flights, right?"
"Yes, Your Excellency, he believes that as the chief engineer, random flights are his most basic responsibility."
"Tell him that he cannot do this. Nanyang's talents are very valuable. He is not allowed to get on the plane without rigorous early test flights."
Li Yian shook his head solemnly and said,
"This is the basic principle of flight testing. No matter what, these engineers cannot be allowed to take risks,"
It is not easy to cultivate talents in Nanyang, like There are only a few chief engineers like Lin Tonghua in the entire Nanyang who can take charge of a project. In fact, there are quite a few of them, but they are either German or Italian, and Lin Tonghua and the others are from the Tang Dynasty.
This is the most important thing, so these talents must be protected.
After making this decision, Li Yian said again.
"If the test flight of the 717 passenger aircraft is successful, long-distance tests will begin. Well, the test flight route will be Chang'an to Kuala Lumpur."
Why Kuala Lumpur is specifically mentioned is because Nanyang has been strengthening its operations since entering Kuala Lumpur last year. Control over Malaya, from inviting local upper-class people to visit atomic bomb tests to building new villages, was essentially a combination of carrots and sticks. Now, with jet airliners, of course we have to show them off in front of them. Only in this way can those natives feel the advancement and civilization of Nanyang.
In fact, this world is very simple. There is no confrontation between the East and the West. It is essentially a confrontation between civilization and barbarism. To put it bluntly, everyone is competing for the "right to interpret civilization", using that It’s just a way to explain civilization and define civilization.
How does this struggle for the right to define civilization proceed?
Science and technology is one of them, which is why during the Cold War, the United States and Russia were keen on the development of science and technology, essentially to prove to others that I am awesome!
Now, what Nanyang needs is the same - prove that he is awesome in front of them!
(End of this chapter)