Chapter 732: The French are stuck?
Not only Bernard Ziegler, who looked confident just now, but also Anne, who was sitting next to him and was just watching the excitement, was completely confused after seeing such a thing suddenly. For a moment.
Firstly, it is slightly different from the "simple metal plate" mentioned by the former. Secondly, this thing is not close to any workpiece in her cognitive range.
"Dr. Ziegler, is this...what?"
She turned her head and hesitated for a moment, but finally asked.
Although the forging process can produce tens of thousands of workpieces, considering that after they applied for a visit, China agreed almost without hesitation, so Anne reasonably speculated that the thing in front of her should still be related to aviation. That's right.
“The frame of the aircraft fuselage...what else could it be?”
Ziegler was almost turned red by this question. After all, he was swearing to try it just a few minutes ago. The production process will definitely involve making the simplest workpiece.
As a result, when the blind box was opened, a big guy was taken out.
But Anne didn’t mean anything sarcastic:
"But...this..."
She originally wanted to say that this thing looked different from the airplane partitions she had seen, but she quickly realized it after the initial mental shock:
"Oh...so this should be from a fighter jet..."
Ziegler nodded, his eyes still fixed on the forging press and the machine that had been hoisted into the air. On the workpiece:
"Yes, the rear fuselage of the fighter jet, and it looks like the size of this aircraft is probably quite small..."
While talking, the host on the stage announced the success of the trial production of product zero of the die forging press, and a wave of cheers and applause burst out from the stands in China.
Of course, strictly speaking, this is not actually the first workpiece produced by the die forging press.
During the equipment development and process testing process, there must be a large number of actual machine tests.
However, the semi-finished products or test products produced in those steps cannot be counted in the category of "products", and they will not have official production serial numbers.
Although the EU delegation will certainly not be as excited as the Chinese themselves, the atmosphere has reached this point anyway, so they also applauded, and some even imitated the good deeds. I shouted the familiar Chinese pronunciation several times.
Annie has never been exposed to military aircraft in her entire career, otherwise she would not have been able to recognize what this thing was just now, so she just asked in a confused manner while clapping along:
" But...it looks like there is still a big gap compared to the size of A320 and A330, right?"
Ziegler shook his head:
"Fighters naturally cannot compare with mainline airliners. Size, the spanwise size of this workpiece...well, the width. I visually measured it to be about 2.5 meters, which is slightly smaller than the A320. As for the height, the difference is even greater..."
"But on the other hand , passenger aircraft do not need to withstand as much overload as fighter jets during flight, so even if they are smaller, the structural strength of fighter jets may not be lower than that of small and medium-sized passenger aircraft..."
"In other words, do they really have the ability to produce large parts of the A320 airframe now?"
After a few pats, Annie put down her palm and asked in a low voice.
“No one can say that it is capable until the product is certified.”
Ziegler replied:
“However, at least judging from the size and size of this workpiece Judging from the usage, they definitely have this potential, so after I return this time, I will consider arranging a round of production appraisal. If it can pass, we can start to gradually transfer some of the fuselage structural parts to China for production. "
Although his judgment just now was a bit wrong, Ziegler is not a hard-tongued person.
Besides, as a senior leader of Airbus, the Asian Assembly Center is also beneficial to him.
Speaking of this, he suddenly turned to look at Anne next to him, and at the same time changed the subject:
"Mrs. Colombo, your JAA cannot set up additional policy obstacles in this regard."
In terms of industrial transfer, the interests of JAA as an industry management organization and Airbus Group as an enterprise are not completely consistent.
Although the original intention of the former's establishment was to improve the competitiveness of the latter, after so many years of development, it has already generated millions of workers of its own.
For example, many JAA executives have party backgrounds in several major European countries, and naturally hope to keep the aviation industry within their own borders.
However, this kind of interest relationship is not monolithic.
If the forces behind these people are from the opposition, they will hope that companies will get rid of all the jobs.
For example, the expansion of the Airbus Toulouse factory has caught up with such a thing.
The person in charge of the environmental assessment happens to be an opponent of the Midi-Pyrenees regional assembly, and he is unwilling to deliver results to his political opponents no matter how much money he pays.
Otherwise, Airbus would not have been so active in the Asian assembly center.
Annie waved her hand decisively:
"Don't worry, we have signed an agreement before to provide policy convenience for China's final assembly project."
But obviously, Such rhetoric alone cannot gain Ziegler's trust.
How can he still not understand the virtues of the EU institutions? If he really wants to interfere with it, it will be difficult to restrain it with just a piece of agreement.
Looking at the other party looking at her with a suspicious expression, Anne also knew that her organization was not very trustworthy. In fact, the reason why she was sent here to handle this package of projects was largely because she and her husband had highly bound interests with China, so they were more attentive to their work.
It’s just that this kind of thing must not be said in public, so Anne had to explain further:
“And it’s not just an agreement, revitalization The euro is now a top priority for the European Union, especially for several countries in the Eurozone. The Chinese have many cards in their hands, and no one will joke about it.”
"It's best..."
Ziegler said and looked forward again.
The workpiece has been placed on a special bracket at this time, and it looks like it is ready for viewing.
Sure enough, several staff members soon came up and said in less fluent French and English that the equipment had been locked and invited members of the EU delegation to visit the production area.
Compared to his colleagues around him, Ziegler had little interest in the majestic machine itself.
After all, the die forging press itself is already a very mature industrial equipment. The overall structure that can be seen at a glance from the outside is actually nothing interesting -
There are only a few types in total, and even a lot of the information is completely public.
The really valuable part lies in the design details of several core structural components, as well as the algorithms and operating logic of the corresponding industrial control system.
Especially the latter.
At present, the forging press in France is also in urgent need of CNC transformation. However, the Russians who built the equipment back then have lost a lot of technical data, so the progress of the transformation has not been optimistic.
As for several other similar types of equipment in the world, they are all antiques that were put into use thirty or forty years ago.
Only the Huaxia machine may have considered the application of CNC systems in the design stage and made targeted optimizations.
The reference value is still full.
Unfortunately, the tour itinerary did not include the equipment operation room.
Of course, this is also reasonable.
After all, the main purpose of letting outsiders visit this kind of equipment is to demonstrate capabilities, or to show off. No one would be stupid enough to reveal their own special skills.
Therefore, Ziegler came almost directly to the partition frame that had just been produced.
It was only then that he realized that the size he had just estimated was a bit too small.
The width is not 2.5 meters, but more than 3 meters.
And if only the fuselage frame has a width of 3 meters, then the entire aircraft...
"It should be a heavy fighter, right?"
Just when Ziegler leaned down to see if he could see any clues, a slightly smaller figure suddenly appeared from behind him. An unfamiliar voice.
is French.
He turned around and found that the person who came was a half-lived face that had some impression but could not remember clearly.
But in short, it must be someone from this delegation.
"Well, judging from the size of the fuselage structural parts, the aircraft itself must be the size of an F15 or Su-27."
Ziegler nodded, and then returned his attention to the workpiece again:
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“I remember that China should have signed a contract with the Russians to produce Su-27 fighter jets in their country. It seems that they should be used there.”
“Speaking of which , the Chinese air force equipment has been updated very quickly in recent years. I remember that when they held an air show the year before last, they only showed an improved version of the second-generation fighter jet. Only three years later, they were about to produce their own The third generation heavy fighter..."
The tone of this sentence reveals a bit of sourness.
Although the Mirage 2000 can be considered a third-generation aircraft, there is obviously a certain gap between it and its peers in terms of size and development potential.
This also reminded Ziegler of the other party's identity.
It should be the head of a certain department of Dassault.
But he can’t remember exactly which department it is.
“Isn’t your Rafale about to enter service soon? When I went to a meeting in March, I heard Dr. Fischeffer say that the first mass production model has begun to be manufactured, although it is still a bit small. But the technical level is definitely better than the Su-27 ten years ago, right?”
Daniel Fischeffer, head of Airbus’ combat aviation systems division, is responsible for developing combat-related software control systems for the Rafale fighter jets.
We are old colleagues with Ziegler.
"This was indeed the case before..."
The other party took two steps forward and stood side by side with Ziegler:
"But at the beginning of this month, General Electric Bian suddenly withdrew technical support for Snecma, so the situation is a bit hard to say..."
(End of this chapter)