Rebirth of the Military Industrial Overlord

After Tan Zhenhua finished speaking, the room suddenly fell into a strange silence. Lu Guangjie, Wang Qingping, and Ma Fengshan looked at each other, and a flash of embarrassment flashed across their faces.

Seeing their strange expressions, Tan Zhenhua couldn't help but ask: "Why, is there any difficulty in this matter?"

Finally, Wang Qingping coughed slightly, concealed his expression just now, and explained: "Um, Mr. Tan, this matter is really a bit embarrassing."

Tan Zhenhua knowingly asked: "What's the problem? Let's talk about it and discuss it."

"Uh, uh, in fact, we already have a "Speey" engine." Wang Qingping said hesitantly: "However, it is a military afterburner version of "Speey", which is not suitable for civilian airliners, but, only……"

"It's just that after I bought it, the imitation work was halfway through, and I was dismounted, right?"

"Huh? President Tan, do you know about this?"

Tan Zhenhua nodded slightly.

The "Speey" engine, to be precise, is its military afterburner version "Speey MK202". Its fate in China, like the "Yun Ten", is full of twists and turns, and it is tragic. At last there was a fairly satisfactory ending.

As mentioned in the previous article, as the relationship between China and the Western world gradually improved in the early 1970s, savvy Western businessmen also paid more attention to China, a huge potential consumer market with a vast land area and a population of 1 billion. The Britons, whose national strength is weakening, are obviously more urgent.

After successfully selling several "second-hand" "Trident" passenger planes to China through the Pakistan Railway, the British took advantage of the momentum and carried out a series of sales activities in China, and successfully sold this unsuccessful aircraft 39 aircraft, accounting for 33% of the total sales of 117 aircraft of this model, and making China China become the world's largest "Trident" user.

Of course, as the "Trident" passenger plane entered China at the same time, there was also the "Speey MK512" civil version of the "Speey" engine.

This engine, which was absolutely advanced at that time, immediately attracted the attention of the military when it showed up in early China. Its features of high thrust, low fuel consumption, good maintainability, long service life, and strong resistance to roughness immediately changed China. The "turbojet" used has been compared.

Therefore, when the chief instructor of the engine, Stanley Hook of Rolls-Royce, led a small delegation of four to China to promote a series of advanced equipment including the Harrier vertical take-off and landing fighter. There is only one final result, which is the military afterburner version of the "Speey" engine, "MK202".

In December 1975, China Huaxia signed a final contract with the "Rolo Luo" company, spending 76.79 million pounds to purchase a full set of patents, production licenses and 52 original engines, and immediately started imitation work.

At the beginning, this work went very smoothly. Using the "national system" that was always used for large projects at the time, the first "Speey Battle" was carried out vigorously in Xijing, including the then Vice Premier of the State Council. A number of high-ranking officials have visited on many occasions, and Mo Wenxiang, who was then the Deputy Minister of the Third Aircraft Department, even personally coordinated and participated in the organization and coordination group work between the various units of the "battle" at the "Xijing Aero Engine Factory" that was in charge of the project.

After discovering that Huaxia’s current production equipment could not fully meet the conditions such as "Speey" manufacturing accuracy, Huaxia spent more than 100 million pounds and imported more than 700 sets from advanced countries in the production of industrial machine tools in the West, including electrochemical machining and electronics. Beam welding, precision casting, precision forging and other advanced processing equipment, and mastered 13 process technologies of the world's advanced level, such as metal spraying, vacuum heat treatment, tube orbit welding, vacuum brazing, and CNC pipe bending. The production technology of "Xijing Aero Engine Factory" has jumped from the level of the 1950s to the international advanced level of the end of the 1970s!

After this series of efforts, based on the use of British parts blank masterbatch, it only took more than 3 years, and the people of China Airlines assembled 4 units with the same conditions as the British The engine was successfully tested in 1979.

In 1980, two of these four "Speey" were successfully tested on the British high-altitude platform and passed a 150-hour fatigue strength test. All parameters met the technical requirements. The representatives of China Xia and Britain signed the engine evaluation success document. China's domestically produced "Speey" engine was born.

At this time, 86.5% of the parts and 72.5% of the metal materials have been domestically produced for "Speey". Only some parts and material blanks are imported. It can be said that it has initially possessed the Chinese blood.

However, similar to the "Yun Ten" that was abandoned in the sky, the time when "Spey" was successfully trial-produced also became the beginning of its shelving.

The "J-9" and "Qiang-6" models that were originally scheduled to use this engine were discontinued one after another, while the "JH-7" was caught in the endless technical parameter debate between the navy and the air. "Bei" suddenly fell into the situation of "inorganic installation", so the state funding stopped, the process of localization of "Spei" was interrupted, the equipment purchased with huge sums of money stopped operating, and the Xijing Aero Engine Factory could only rely on The few "Turbojet 8" produced each year barely survive...

Even this year, there was rumour that Wu Daguan, who once presided over the localization of the "Speey" engine, would also leave Xijing and be transferred to Beijing to find another job!

From vigorous to deserted, this time only passed two years.

Therefore, when talking about the "Speey" engine, several people in the aviation industry who know the inside story, especially Wang Qingping, who is also in Xijing, have mixed feelings.

Now that Tan Zhenhua has opened up the old creation, Wang Qingping couldn’t help but say: “Mr. Tan, since you know the inside story, you must also know that the current attitude of the Xijing Aviation Engine Factory on this matter is simply what they think of the whole factory. The big scar! Besides, without sufficient funds and orders, it would be extremely difficult to start again. After all, once I was bitten by a snake, I was afraid of well ropes for ten years."

Tan Zhenhua smiled slightly: "Director Wang, of course I can understand the feelings of Xihangfa, but since I want to build a plane, it is of course impossible for others to get stuck on the neck of my engine. Therefore, this engine, I have to do it. Xihangfa has such a good foundation, and what I want to do is the same as the "Speey MK202". I think I can get started quickly."

Wang Qingping nodded. Of course he knows the development history of the series of products of "Speey". In fact, to put it simply, "MK512" is just "MK202" with the afterburner removed. In the "MK202" that has been obtained The imitation work of "MK512" and its increased thrust development model "MK606" on the basis of imitation can really be regarded as a multiplier, but...

Tan Zhenhua saw his doubts but didn’t mean to explain it anymore. Instead, he asked a question: “Director Wang, let’s change the position and imagine. If you are the director of Xihangfa, and there is such a chance, You have received orders for more than 500 "Speey" series engines in the next 10 years, can you do it?"

The expression on Wang Qingping's face quickly changed from embarrassment to consternation to flushing, and involuntarily asked loudly: "What you said is true?!"