Go back in time and be a chaebol

Chapter 1603: Pushing Boeing into a desperate situation (first update, please subscribe)
"Sir, are you saying that Washington will take action against us?"

Lin Kangwei frowned.

"This, this seems unlikely. After all, this is just a business competition."

The United States will never relax its crackdown on its competitors!

No matter whether this competitor is an enemy country or an ally!

Li Yian has always been very clear about this.

But many people don't realize this right now. This is also where they are naive, they actually think that business competition is just competition.

"Because now is the golden age of the United States. At this time, the United States still cares about its reputation. But in the future, it is uncertain."

When will it be in the future? Of course, it will be the oil crisis in a few years.

Although Saudi Arabia has been completely wiped out from this world after years of planning, Borneo Oil Company and Aramco still hold the oil fields that once belonged to Saudi Arabia.

However, the formation of OPEC was inevitable.

Both Iran and Iraq hope to gain a certain degree of oil autonomy and increase their own oil revenues.

Moreover, as a member of the oil-producing countries, or as the holder of the Persian Gulf and Libyan oil fields, Li Yian does not oppose a certain degree of oil price increase.

After all, for me, it is just a process of changing from left hand to right hand.

Moreover, from the perspective of the development of Iran and Iraq, the rise in oil prices is also beneficial to the economic development of the two countries.

The only problem, of course, was the Soviet Union—which would have earned even more petrodollars in the process.

This is what causes headaches.

In fact, in the Western oil crisis, there is another role that has been overlooked - the United States!
As the world's largest oil producer, what role did the United States play in that oil crisis?

What was the situation facing the United States at that time? The huge war expenses and the established task of protecting Western Europe became the two major forces that accelerated the inflation and depreciation of the United States. As a result, before the U.S. military completely withdrew from Vietnam, it was forced to end the Bretton Woods system.

The collapse of the Bretton Woods system has impacted the expansion of the US dollar. The Soviet Union needed petrodollars to ease economic pressure, and the United States may also need petrodollars to help it complete its economic transformation.

In this situation, the US dollar needs a new anchor.

And that oil crisis happened at the right time.

When many gas stations put up signs saying they had no fuel, and when angry people began taking to the streets.

Politicians in Europe and the United States also need to deal with multiple interrogations from domestic and foreign entrepreneurs, financial oligarchs and ambassadors of allied countries, and the situation is very passive. The whole world seems to have seen the end of the Western world and has never felt so deeply the importance of oil resources.

It was during this crisis that the U.S. dollar and oil became deeply tied together. Since then, the petrodollar has appeared on the earth, laying the groundwork for the unlimited expansion of the U.S. dollar.

As long as human beings cannot live without oil, the US dollar, which is pegged to oil, will be in a strong position worldwide.

Li Yian is not a conspiracist.

However, he believes that the United States must have played a role in fueling the oil crisis, otherwise, how could the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries tie the dollar and oil together?

There may not be any conspiracy in this world, but there are definitely some things that are deliberately planned. In other words, even if we try every means to prevent the oil crisis from happening, the United States will make it happen at the right time.

After all, the world needs to be made aware of the importance of oil in order to deeply tie the dollar and oil together.

Of course, it is too early to say all this now. The 70s was the most painful period in the post-war period in the United States.
The golden age that lasted for more than 20 years after the war came to an end, and the economy fell into a long period of depression.

In this situation, even the smallest thing is still meat, and the foreign aviation industry that was once tolerated in the golden age will become a thorn in their eyes.

Because he knew what would happen in the future, Li Yian started to plan ahead, saying:
"As the most important member of the US military-industrial complex, Boeing's influence in Washington is difficult for foreign companies to achieve. That is why the US has specially introduced laws to protect its aviation industry.

While protecting each other, trade conflicts in areas such as aviation have always been an inevitable issue between the two sides.

In this case, coming up with a targeted competing product would only further deteriorate the relationship based on competition, in which case, well…”

Li Yi'an said:
“I don’t think it’s a good option.”

"This... Your Excellency, are we going to give up the aviation market just for the feelings of the Americans? Or sacrifice our own aviation industry?"

Lin Kangwei's tone became a little excited.

"Sacrificing your own aviation industry for America?"

Li Yian shook his head and said:
"How is this possible? The first thing to consider is one's own interests.

Compared to the 4-engine heavy aircraft, I think we should compete with differentiation.”

“Differentiated competition?”

Lin Kangwei looked at you with some confusion.

"Wait a minute, you mean supersonic aircraft?"

The reason why Lin Kangwei mentioned supersonic aircraft is because it is the hottest topic in the world right now.

Although the C707 has made transoceanic travel possible in hours, people still think that this speed is too slow. People are in urgent need of a supersonic passenger aircraft to meet the needs of travel between the European continent and the American continent. Although everyone knows that the development of a supersonic passenger aircraft requires a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources, aviation experts in the United States, Europe and the Soviet Union have no doubt that supersonic passenger aircraft must be the future development direction.

While countries around the world were betting big on supersonic passenger aircraft, Borneo Aerospace Industries did not fully participate in the competition. Instead, it launched the world's first supersonic business jet - the Global Express.

It is an aircraft that only serves the rich. As for ordinary people, there is basically no chance for them to fly this kind of supersonic aircraft.

Now you mentioned differentiated competition. In Lin Kangwei's opinion, it must be supersonic passenger aircraft.

Shaking his head, Li Yian said: "No matter how good a supersonic passenger plane is, in the end it is just a toy for the rich. Whether it is now or for aviation, it is not the exclusive property of the rich, but a way of travel for the general public. What we need is a wide-body passenger plane that can cope with the impact of Boeing aircraft."

When Li Yian mentioned wide-body aircraft, he naturally thought of the success of Airbus.

"The 200-seat 707 aircraft has no advantage over the 400-seat aircraft. So, theoretically, this type of large aircraft with more than 400 seats does have a very bright market prospect.

But we must note that there are very few airports that can take off and land such large aircraft. At least for now, only a few hub airports can take off and land such large aircraft. "

When pointing this out, Li Yian naturally thought of the subsequent failure of A380.

It is true that the A380 has a large passenger capacity and more economical fuel consumption per person. However, it ignores the time and fuel economy costs caused by frequent transfers in the domestic route-intercontinental hub-intercontinental hub-domestic route transportation mode. Finally, when a large number of airlines opened international routes from second-tier cities to intercontinental hubs/second-tier cities with B787, B777, A350, and A330 long-range wide-body aircraft, the competitive advantage of the A380 disappeared...

This has a lot to do with technological progress, especially engine technology progress. However, at present, BMW's engine technology is still very advanced, even if there is a certain gap, but it is still very realistic to carry out appropriate technical research and then develop a twin-engine long-range passenger aircraft that can meet the requirements of Airbus A330.

After all, it is a plane from the 80s. Technically, it is not impossible to launch this aircraft in the next decade.

Thinking of this, Li Yian said:

"What we need is a twin-engine jet airliner with a long enough range and a large enough passenger capacity."

"what!"

Lin Kangwei said in shock.

"Now even the most daring designers design three-engine passenger planes. First, even if one engine fails, they can still land safely at the airport with two engines."

This is also the fundamental reason why three-engine jet airliners are popular. Compared with four-engine aircraft, it has one less engine and the cost is reduced a lot.

But, that's it.

After all, two engines save money. This is also the fundamental reason why twin-engine aircraft later became the mainstream of commercial aviation.

The reason is simply to save money.

In response to such doubts, Li Yian said.

"So far, has there ever been a passenger plane whose engine stopped working while in mid-air?"

Your question made Lin Kangwei silent for a while, and then he said.

“There shouldn’t be any such cases yet.”

There is indeed no such case, because all engines undergo long-term testing before being put into use. In addition to durability tests, there are also tests under various harsh working conditions. Because of sufficient experiments, the trouble-free service life of aircraft engines is far beyond the imagination of ordinary people. Moreover, before each takeoff, ground crew will conduct extremely strict inspections on the engines.

It is precisely because of the superior software and hardware that the failure rate of aircraft engines is very low.

"That's it, isn't it? Twin-engine wide-body aircraft definitely have a natural economic advantage over three-engine or four-engine wide-body aircraft.

I think we can focus on twin-engine wide-body passenger aircraft. In terms of the future development of the aviation industry, will the long-haul and intercontinental markets be dominated by twin-engine wide-body aircraft?
Intercontinental flights do not necessarily have to fly to hub cities. You can also fly directly to those second-tier cities. Such direct routes are more popular in the market.

Moreover, the larger the aircraft, the lower its occupancy rate. After all, it is not easy to fill so many seats. Considering these factors, I think we should still develop a twin-engine long-range wide-body aircraft. "

Then, Li Yian said with a smile.

"This aircraft is our trump card for market competition. We can use this twin-engine wide-body long-range passenger aircraft that can fly intercontinental missions to deal the most fatal blow to Boeing.

When they put all their chips on large hub aircraft, they launched a secondary aircraft that is smaller in size, carries fewer passengers, but has a similar itinerary and can land at many ordinary airports, using its flexibility to attract the market.

The market, ultimately the market will make the choice.

The design and development of aircraft are all centered around the market. We just need to find the right market position and we will definitely win the competition.”

Twin engines, wide body, long range...

For Lin Kangwei, he did not expect to gain these benefits from this trip to the official residence.

What you have pointed out completely subverts the current design concepts in the aviation field, but is this really the future?

Because he had some doubts, Lin Kangwei did not directly agree with your point of view, but said that he would conduct research in this regard with the company's marketing and technical departments after returning.

Li Yian doesn't care about this. After all, companies always have their autonomy.

If they look deeper, they will find the market potential for this wide-body aircraft.

It's not just market potential, they even have the potential to become a market monopoly, it's like another world.

最终B787、B777、A350、A330之类的远程宽体客机，淘汰了A380，而且还淘汰了波音747。

Maybe its size is not big enough, but it has a wider range of uses and is more flexible, which is its biggest advantage.

If AVIC can launch a similar aircraft now, is there a chance of eliminating Boeing?
Li Yian didn't know.

Just like when he first founded the Aviation Industry Corporation, his initial goal was to develop the aviation manufacturing industry and get a piece of the pie in the civil aviation market.

At that time, the C717 opened the door to the era of civil jet airliners, allowing engineers to truly think for the first time about how to reduce research and development costs by using existing designs and introducing the nose and cockpit of the Comet.

How to reduce the difficulty of aircraft manufacturing through international procurement, how to learn from the shortcomings of existing aircraft and make full use of their strengths to overcome their weaknesses, how to increase sales through marketing during the test flight stage, how to open up blank markets through more precise product positioning, how to design an aircraft that can truly make money commercially... They finally handed in a very good answer.

The answer is that Borneo Aerospace Industries has now become the second largest in the world, so now there is only one question left - when will it become the first in the world!

But he is very clear that the next decade or so will be extremely painful for Boeing.

In fact, what does Li Yian hope to see?
It is to drive Boeing to the brink of extinction! Even destroy it!

(End of this chapter)