Chapter 410 Students from Maranello
While Chang Haonan and Luo Hairong were discussing how to sell the aircraft faster.
France, Paris.
Professor Fernando Lorenzo, who is in the office of the National Road and Bridge School, is carefully examining a scanned photo that has just been sent to his mailbox on the computer screen.
The email came from Julian Cizeron, an old acquaintance of his at Airbus.
The other party is currently stationed in China and serves as the European representative at the Flight and Meteorological Safety Laboratory jointly invested by China and the EU.
The last time the two contacted by phone, Cizeron complained that the cooperation agreement had only been signed a few months ago, and the laboratory was still a mere establishment with only facilities but no space, so they had no idea at the moment. There was nothing to do, so I was temporarily arranged to inspect the situation at a factory that had produced the nose parts of Boeing 707 and MD82 aircraft.
His evaluation at the time was that if the factory was used to produce passenger aircraft in the 1980s, it would be able to pass the test, but it did not have the ability to produce new models of Airbus aircraft at all, and he doubted whether his choice to come to China was a good one. Wrong choice.
As a former Dassault and current Airbus engineer, it is easy to leave Paris and Toulouse, but it is difficult to go back.
However, in this email sent a few hours ago, Cizeron's attitude took a 180° turn.
Because today he saw a "very strange" fighter jet and happened to take a photo of it flying in the sky.
This is the one Lorenzo is looking at on the screen.
In the body of the email, Cizeron described his feelings in a shocking tone.
“I noticed that it did not retract the landing gear the whole time, so today should be the first flight of this aircraft. As far as the first flight is concerned, its movements are already quite violent. Not only did it fly almost vertically at the beginning It climbed at an angle, and also performed several steep turns and two high-speed rolls, showing strong maneuverability and agility..."
A large block of text with mixed uppercase and lowercase letters , and the continuous use of symbols and exclamation letters make this email unfriendly to readers. If any student dares to write an email like this, Lorenzo will call him over and give him a scolding.
In fact, even if it was sent by an old friend, he only read about a quarter of it and didn't want to continue.
But after he clicked on the picture in the attachment, Lorenzo was stunned for a moment, then patiently went back and read all the content behind:
"Although there is no Any reference point, but my intuition tells me that it should be larger than the Mirage 2000, and, although I am not willing to accept it, it should not fall behind even in the agility that the Mirage 2000 is best at, and it also uses all the current The known models all have completely different aerodynamic designs... It may look very similar to some Swedish or Israeli fighter jets in appearance, but you should know that they all just use canard and delta wing designs. In essence, the aerodynamics are The coupling is completely different..."
"I watched the flight performance video at last year's air show, but the aircraft at that time did not have much outstanding aerodynamic appearance. power, but this one is completely different..."
"It's hard to imagine that this is an aircraft designed by the Chinese. I mean, compared to their manufacturing level, it's completely difficult to imagine. Imagine that these Chinese people either deliberately found a factory with old facilities to deceive and conceal their true level, or they have some special abilities or skills in aircraft design..."
"..."
After reading the entire thought-provoking email, Lorenzo turned his attention to the photo again.
It is indeed very clear, there is no sign of candid photography at all, and it was probably a telephoto lens.
The Chinese don’t seem to be promoting this model with much fanfare, but they obviously don’t want to keep it secret either, otherwise it would be impossible for a foreigner to shoot with a camera with a long lens in such a big way.
Of course, due to the angle problem, it is still impossible to see the entire plane from this photo alone.
However, Cizeron’s judgment was correct. The Chinese did have some special skills in aircraft design——
After the agreement was signed at the beginning of the year, JAA obtained the icing simulation prediction as agreed. software.
Although it is only a limited-function version, during the trial process at several airports, it still helped them predict many risks that would lead to flight delays. It gave airport operators and airlines a few months to The company saved millions of euros in related costs.
Otherwise there would be no Flight and Meteorological Safety Laboratory.
Moreover, the black technology that the other party can come up with seems to be far more than that...
Thinking of this, Lorenzo turned his attention to another email in his mailbox.
That was an official reply email sent by a company called "Torch".
The content is that the National Road and Bridge School has passed the trial review, and the installation files will be shipped via air express after the relevant user manuals and legal documents are translated.
Although he has not personally experienced this software, he can already get a glimpse of its advanced nature from the preliminary documentation sent by the other party.
As a core member of Dassault Software Department, Lorenzo is extremely sensitive in the field of numerical simulation.
He almost judged from the promotional materials that the developer of this software should also be an aircraft designer rather than a programmer, because the other party had an extremely accurate grasp of the pain points faced in actual engineering projects, and the solutions described were completely consistent. logic.
In addition, this TORCMultiphysics is not only a design simulation software, its calculation method can play a role in manufacturing and even new material development and other fields as long as its calculation method is slightly expanded.
As for why this was not done...
Maybe it was because of the lack of manpower, or maybe this level had not been considered...
Lorenzo obviously did not do it anyway. Unexpectedly, in addition to the seemingly top-notch professional version (ver.professional), this software also has a professional enhanced version (ver.professionalplus).
But even for the former, the functions mentioned were enough to make him feel crazy.
The promotional materials state that the comprehensive calculation efficiency of numerical simulation can be increased by more than 5 times.
Lorenzo feels that even if this number is a bit watery, if it can be increased by 3-4 times, it is already ahead of the times.
And since the Chinese can develop such incredible software, it doesn't seem surprising to design a brand new fighter jet with relatively complex aerodynamic calculations.
……
Lorenzo's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden ringing of the phone.
is his student assistant. "Professor, there are two gentlemen looking for you outside, saying that they are coming from Italy. They have not made an appointment, but you will definitely meet them."
"Uh... okay, that's right. "
Lorenzo rubbed his forehead and replied:
"Let them come in, one of them is my old friend."
A few minutes later, a tall, thin and expressionless man was completely opposite to the other - a man with a stocky figure and a kind face came out of the door one after another. Walked in outside.
"Fernannio, long time no see!"
The former came over immediately after entering the door and gave Lorenzo a warm hug.
“Come on, Rory, who left me without saying goodbye last time and left me in the restaurant to pay?”
Lorenzo was unforgiving, but judging from his expression, he must have a good relationship with the other party.
"Let me introduce, this is..."
The man named Rory stepped aside and wanted to introduce the other person following him.
But he was interrupted before he could finish his words:
“Don’t be kidding, of course I know him, the former team leader of Peugeot, a national hero of France, but Jean will soon be ruined. Mr. Todd ”
As he spoke, he took two steps forward and shook hands with the other party.
In 1993, Jean Todt led the Peugeot team to win the top three in the Le Mans 24 Hours Rally. Although it is difficult to be called a household name, it is difficult not to be a Frenchman who pays a little attention to racing. know the name.
However, in the second year, because Peugeot rejected his suggestion to enter F1, Todt switched to Ferrari, the old F1 team that was already declining.
However, in the following years, although the team barely improved to a certain extent, it could still only hover between third and second.
This is why he is about to be ruined.
"So, in order to prevent me from being ruined, Mr. Byrne brought me to you, Professor Lorenzo. He said that you are one of the best people in the world in the field of computational fluid dynamics."
Todd, who was ridiculed, was not angry at all, but replied smoothly.
After all, this is not the first year that the media has written a similar title.
"Come on, I'm not interested in your racing career. Now I just want to teach in school."
Lorenzo waved his hand and refused almost without thinking.
In fact, it was certainly not that he was not interested in racing, otherwise he would not have recognized the unattractive Todd at a glance, but he had already experienced a failed office struggle at Dassault and was already aware of the chaos within the Italian red team. After hearing about it, I won’t go in person just because of some interest.
After turning your interest into work, you often lose interest.
Besides, for him who has already been engaged in aircraft design, although there is speed and passion in the racing field, there is really not much.
“Fernanio, Mr. Todt has recruited all the Benetton team’s winning team, which can completely isolate the influence from the Fiat Group headquarters. Now there is only one person left who is responsible for CFD calculations... …”
Rory Byrne also wanted to persuade this old friend again.
However, Lorenzo's attitude was decisive:
"I don't have that much energy to accompany you all over the world."
He waved his hand and sat back on his office chair. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he happened to see the emails on the screen.
This made Lorenzo hesitate for a moment, and then changed the subject:
“But, Rory, I can give you a suggestion.”
"What?"
"You can try to learn this thing."
With a tone that was 70% serious and 30% joking, Lorenzo turned the monitor in the direction of Byrne beside him. :
“If you believe my vision, then I dare to say that the efficiency of this thing is at least five years ahead of similar competing products.”
“TORCHMultiphysics... It seems that I have never heard of it before? ”
"Yes, although this is just a promotional page, I took a look and found that the content inside is still very reliable."
"LaChine...is it software developed by a Chinese company?"
>Byrne had an expression on his face that said, "Are you kidding me?"
"Yes, no joke, I am even considering bringing two doctors over to communicate with them."
Hearing Lorenzo say this, Byrne turned to look Todd next to me.
The latter nodded.
"So...do you mind if one more person goes with you?"
(End of this chapter)