I ask you to build tractors, but you build rockets?

February 1, Hongqiao Airport.

A group of elites with faces of different skin colors stood on the tarmac, applauding and applauding the C832 passenger plane being towed out of the aircraft stand.

This plane flew from Chengdu to Shanghai yesterday. It is worth mentioning that the pilots flying it were United Airlines pilots. They will fly directly to the other side of the ocean from here.

This passenger aircraft with registration number N755C1 is the first C832 exported to the outside world. It is also the first large-scale mainline domestic passenger aircraft purchased by Aramco from China, which is of great significance.

In July, taking advantage of the failure of Artemis 2, Commercial Air Lines was able to obtain the export qualification for 300 C822s and 100 C832s. Due to the pressure at the time, many Aramco Airlines also ordered some of them, adding up to Seventy or eighty is not a small number.

However, according to the agreement at the time, some non-core components such as the deicer, landing gear, and side windows of the export-oriented passenger aircraft were contracted to international companies. Although the design of the parts used in the C832 was not special, it took half a year to assemble them. Parts and components were used to assemble this "international" large passenger aircraft.

Among the first batch of aircraft available for export, there are 9 C832s and 14 C822s, which were delivered to six different airlines, three from Aramco, two from Southeast Asia, and one from Europe.

Among the lively crowd were Commercial Aviation President Zeng Xiangdong and Boeing Vice President Sheppard, as well as Star Airlines President Androv.

“Zeng, congratulations to you, you have exported a large passenger aircraft to Aramco that can fly ocean routes, which is great.

Moreover, your aircraft are very good, and it doesn’t look like they are the work of a cutting-edge airline at all. "

Shepard was talking about his true feelings. Although he agreed and was forced to purchase some passenger aircraft, Aramco would never give up looking for trouble in other aspects. When United Airlines sent crews to familiarize themselves with the aircraft, it let Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other established players The company sent technical experts over to find ways to find faults with the aircraft on the grounds of safety inspection.

However, what surprised these technical experts was that the body design of both C832 and C822 was quite mature.

Although it can still be seen from some details that the design team is not experienced, there are no fatal flaws or inferior mistakes.

Except for some structural designs that are difficult to judge due to different design ideas, other aspects such as workmanship and materials are completely impossible to criticize, and it is easy to see that it is a mass-produced process rather than the hard work of a small number of senior technicians.

If it is said that in terms of mechanics, they can barely find faults and try to find some indispensable defects, in terms of electronic control, these experts have nothing to comment on.

In addition to the fact that the fly-by-wire flight control itself requires a lot of flight experience to test reliability, and it is difficult to detect more problems through testing, more importantly, the fly-by-wire flight controls of C832 and C822 are based on ternary electronic technology, which is not good at all. Evaluate based on traditional experience.

In July, two chip production lines were finalized along with the aircraft export contract. Knowing that the night was long and the dream was long, the Science and Technology Commission continued to urge, and they bought two 28nm and 22nm chip production lines from TSMC at a low price while the iron was hot. It took three months to disassemble and dismantle them. Transportation and installation.

Then, modifications were made during the debugging process. While verifying the yield rate, some ternary chips were produced in small batches. They are much better than the domestic 28nm process. Not only are the heat and power consumption smaller, but the performance has also been improved to a certain extent.

The first users of this batch of chips were passenger aircraft, which were more than sufficient to meet the needs of fly-by-wire flight control and perfectly passed various stringent tests set by the FAA.

According to pilots trained by United Airlines, if you encounter really troublesome bad weather, you must trust the automatic landing system, because the system reliability of this aircraft is even higher than that of most pilots.

This really made the two aviation giants very interested, and they secretly planned to study the ternary electronic system.

Of course, they still don't quite believe that a fledgling airline can have such design skills. Even with the participation of XAP and a military-industrial complex, the design experience and technical level of large passenger aircraft are not directly linked.

Coupled with Androv and the An-1250 that looked very similar to the An-225, they deeply suspected that Lucia had gone crazy and sold off a large number of aviation technologies and experts, so this could barely make sense.

Both Zeng Xiangdong and Androv were somewhat benefited from Shepard's compliment, but the reason why Boeing sent people here was not simply to congratulate the delivery of the aircraft.

Androv thanked him for the compliment and then said:

“C832 is just the first step in our cooperation. In the future, the real new stars in the aviation industry will be C1000 and B3707.

Mr. Shepherd, I think we need to let the public know what the speed of travel should be in the 21st century. Forty years ago, it took people more than ten hours to cross the Pacific. It would be very disappointing if it remains the same now. "

Sheppard: "Yes, the information age requires speed, a high speed three times the speed of sound. From now on, people no longer need to sleep on intercontinental routes."

What the two were talking about was the cooperation between the two countries in developing trans-Pacific supersonic routes. China has basically acquiesced to it for a long time. Boeing and NACA persuaded the military and finally allowed Congress to quietly pass the Supersonic Flight Act 10 days ago. Act" to allow the opening of supersonic routes in some areas.

This bill was passed in a very low-key manner. The mainstream media only vaguely mentioned it. Human rights and environmental groups with noses sharper than dogs simply remained silent, and there was no news of opposition at all.

Boeing, which was completely relieved, finally no longer had to worry about the hasty ending of 2707 happening again, and began to develop a new generation of B3707 supersonic passenger aircraft with all its strength.

Not only are the huge profits brought by supersonic routes, but also an important boost is that the Air Force hopes to use this to research some aerospace aircraft technologies, and requires that the dead target of three times the speed of sound must be guaranteed, which means that it is a certainty.

Androv, who was a little depressed due to several changes at the base, also got rid of the gloom and prepared to devote all his efforts to the development process of the C1000 passenger aircraft.

In order to prevent another accident, Aramco's two airlines, Air China and China Eastern Airlines respectively ordered 15 C1000s or B3707s from each other, paid part of the deposit and agreed to conduct the first test flight before 2019 and deliver the first aircraft in 2020. , otherwise you will need to pay sky-high liquidated damages.

Both Shepard and Androv felt secure and shook hands enthusiastically. Zeng Xiangdong next to them was even more happy to see this happen.

Although the C1000 is designed by Star Aviation, it does not plan to produce it itself. They position themselves more like a design bureau and a key subsystem manufacturer, and the assembly of the passenger aircraft is left to Commercial Aviation.

The Yizhou Aircraft Production Base has been confirmed to be completed in June and will be officially put into operation to produce passenger aircraft in July. The orders for the three models of C822, C832 and C1000 have already destined them to have unlimited prospects and will surely become one of the best aviation consortiums.