Chapter 133 The Possibility of a Hundred-Ton Passenger Aircraft (Additional update for flankerr’s reward)
The following week flew by, and we soon came to the two days before the opening of the Xiangzhou Air Show.
In order to adapt to the military's updated equipment naming habits after entering the 1990s, and to make it easier to communicate and understand when facing possible foreign customers, the final product of Project 83 was officially named - J-8C .
Chang Haonan, Yao Mengna and others, as technical support staff of the exhibitors, naturally arrived at Xiangzhou in advance and stayed at a hotel near the Jinwan District International Air Show Center according to the arrangement of the exhibitors.
This high-end hotel can be said to have been specially built for the Xiangzhou Air Show. Exhibitors, media, and guests invited to the exhibition all stayed here.
The first Xiangzhou Airshow was not divided into professional days and open days as it was later. From the first day, everyone could purchase tickets to visit.
So people who eat melons can actually live here.
It’s just that in this era, there are not many people who have enough money in their pockets to come to the air show, and even fewer can afford to stay in this hotel.
During the 14th Air Show in later generations, Chang Haonan also took advantage of his vacation time to visit.
As a result, this hotel was fully booked a month in advance.
Yang Fenghata, the chief designer of the aircraft, did not follow.
It is said to be "technical support", but aircraft designers are really of little use in this situation.
The key points are the technical workers from Factory 112 and the ground staff from Beiling Airport who came with us - Xiangzhou Airport is a purely civilian airport, and it is impossible for anyone to maintain fighter jets from various countries, so these tasks require exhibitors. Come and do it.
It’s fine if you’re in your home country, you just need to hire someone. But if you go to a foreign country to participate in an exhibition, especially in a place where the aviation standards are very different from your own country, you have to bring your own support equipment and even aviation fuel. With.
Otherwise it will only be a ground display.
Take the Warriors Aerobatic Team as an example. When they perform abroad, they will be followed by at least one IL-76 transport aircraft for accompanying support.
So going abroad to participate in an exhibition may seem simple, but in fact it is quite a test of a country’s aviation industry level.
"Twenty-six years..."
Lying on the bed, Chang Haonan originally wanted to take a rest, but the memories of the past or the future were like fine sand in a funnel. It flowed out slowly but continuously, making it impossible for him to sleep no matter what.
Chang Haonan, who was tossing and turning and unable to sleep, simply gave up the idea of resting, got up and went to the window to open the curtains.
"Crash——"
Out the window is the 4,000-meter-long 4E-class runway of Xiangjiang Airport.
There was a faint roar of airplanes from the horizon.
Chang Haonan raised his head and looked into the distance.
A formation composed of an IL-78 tanker and two Flankers is slowly descending towards the runway while aiming at the runway.
As one of the few foreign exhibitors that can conduct real aircraft flight demonstrations, they occupied a considerable part in the early publicity of the air show.
Relatively speaking, the J-8C, which decided to participate in the exhibition at the last moment, failed to obtain any publicity resources.
After all, in this era where print media and radio and television are the main communication carriers, ten days is still too short.
Higher in the sky behind them, there is also a twin-engine medium-sized passenger plane that is circling.
After thinking for a while, Chang Haonan finally remembered that it should be a Tu-204S, which is the cargo aircraft type of Tu-204.
Tupolev has always hoped that this model can open up China's civil aviation market.
To be fair, for an aircraft that completed its first flight in 1990, the Tu-204 was not considered backward in the early 1990s.
But the time of this first flight is destined to be a tragedy.
Without the support of the Warsaw Pact market, this single model cannot compete with the well-established Boeing or Airbus families, not to mention that they do not have enough funds to further optimize the aircraft. .
For domestic airlines, it is absolutely unreasonable to introduce a new aircraft that has no special advantages in performance and is not compatible with the maintenance and support system of Boeing, Airbus and McDonnell Douglas. So Tupolev's efforts were in the wrong direction from the beginning.
Because if you think about it differently, this model can still be seen as a military special aircraft platform.
No matter what, it is better than Tu 154M and Yun 8...
More importantly, if the data of the aircraft can be adjusted to comply with Chinese aviation industry standards, it can also be used as a A hands-on experience in building a 100-ton passenger aircraft.
It is now early November, and Hufei’s MD90 production project has basically entered the countdown to life.
In the original timeline, after the MD90 production line was stopped, the Ministry of Aviation pinned its hopes on the Europeans, hoping to produce a 100-seat AE100 small trunk airliner in China.
The result was, of course, no surprise.
Later, Airbus directly took the design of the AE100 and built the A318 passenger aircraft almost intact.
......
In short, after several twists and turns, the aircraft production line that was upgraded at a large cost had to be used to provide tools and equipment for the Airbus aircraft assembly line in Tianjin,
The more valuable skilled workers with experience in large-scale aircraft manufacturing also had no choice but to resign or change careers because of the loss of orders.
It also means that this technical system that was barely built after many twists and turns starting from the Yun-10 project collapsed.
Compared to Yun 10 itself, this is a more heartbreaking loss.
After that, there was a technological gap for more than ten years. The largest aircraft that China could produce on its own has always been the 60-ton Y-8.
It was not until the C919 prototype No. 001 rolled off the production line in 2015 that Hufei resumed its mainline passenger aircraft final assembly capabilities.
In fact, both Airbus and Boeing are at their peak right now, and it is impossible for them to agree to complete the main part of aircraft production in China.
As for switching to Chinese standard production of aircraft...
Laughing to death, I have never dreamed of such a good thing.
But Tupolev, who was in trouble, was different.
Except for Figure 160, as long as you give money, you basically dare to give whatever you want.
With the precedent of the Sukhoi Design Bureau making concessions on Project 11, there is no need to worry about the Russians being as stubborn as in previous lives.
Moreover, since it involves the adjustment of production standards, it is inevitable to cooperate with Chinese technical personnel.
In this way, we can also learn a little bit from the design of large aircraft.
After all, Chang Haonan cannot provide others with proficiency like instilling skills in novels about cultivating immortals.
The projects he will face in the future will only become more and more complex. It is impossible to do the main work by one person like improving the wing or compressor design.
In the field of engineering, experience is at least as important as theory.
Otherwise, Britain and the United States, which were once infrastructure madmen and major shipbuilding countries, would not have lost these capabilities in such a short period of time.
"Hmm..."
Chang Haonan looked out the window at Tu 204S, which was already sliding to the ground, and a clearer idea was increasingly outlined in his mind.
It’s still a win-win situation.
A win-win means I win twice.
(End of this chapter)