Looking at Zhou Yuanhang's shaking his head with a smile, Liang Yuan also took several well-known American aviation companies such as Northrop, which produced B2 bombers, Boeing, the boss of the civil aviation industry, and Galaxy Aerospace, the parent company that produced Gulfstream business jets, to talk about things, all of which were vetoed by Zhou Yuanhang one by one. ～

After hesitating for a long time, Liang Yuan asked in an incredible tone: "Old Zhou, is this guest you are talking about a Mai Dao?"

McDonnell Douglas and the Republic's cooperation in the production of large airliners can be traced back to the end of the Great Movement era, when John Brisundyne, president of Douglas, happened to be the rotating chairman of the China-US Friendship Association's Trade Promotion Council at the time of Nixon's visit to China.

In addition, at that time, the field of civil airliners was full of gunsmoke, not only the powerful Lockheed launched the 1-1O11 wide-body three-passenger aircraft, but Boeing was close to bankruptcy because of the failure of the 2O27 airliner, and put all its energy on the life-saving large passenger aircraft 747, which gave the old avenue Glass a heavy sense of urgency in the civil aircraft market at that time.

Forced by the brutal competitive pressure in the global civil airliner market, McDonnell Douglas, which has been merged into the McDonnell-Douglas aircraft manufacturing enterprise, began to study the possibility of placing some passenger aircraft production bases in China in order to greatly reduce production costs.

By the end of the 80s, after nearly 20 years of hard work and accumulation, McDonnell Douglas has long been deeply rooted in the aviation industry of the Republic of China, no matter which aspect is considered, Liang Yuan did not see that McDonnell Douglas has the possibility and necessity of finding COMAC, not to mention commercial aviation, even if COMAC's partner MBB in the Federal Republic of Germany can enter McDonnell Douglas in the aviation field is between the two.

In the case of the MBA in later generations, McDonnell Douglas was merged by Boeing for many reasons. Either because of the reduction of military spending at the end of the Cold War, MacDonald, who was in charge of the military aircraft business, also collapsed, or because of the continuous internal friction between MacDonald and Douglas and the misjudgment of market demand.

However, no matter how you evaluate McDonnell Douglas, there is no such thing as McDonnell Douglas's technical level.

Nearly 20 years after Airbus' A38O jumbo airliner project, McDonnell Douglas noticed the high density of passengers in the point-to-point air transport business in the Asia-Pacific region, and then came up with a plan to open the MD12 four-engine long-range jumbo intercontinental airliner.

The MD12 passenger aircraft carried 43O passengers, originally planned to fly in 1995, and obtained the FAA airworthiness certificate in 1997, with a range of more than 14,000 kilometers. After the delivery of the batch of 43O seats MD12. Continue to develop two lengthened models of 5oo and 63o seats, and the development cost of the entire new model is 5o billion US dollars.

MD12 is an amazing technology exhibition program similar to Motorola's Iridium project, if successful, it is one of the greatest engineering marvels of human industry in the twentieth century, if MD12 can really go from the drawing to the reality. Whether the old face of the Boeing 747, which has been facelifted countless times, has a chance to appear in the sky of the 21st century is between the two.

It's a pity that McDonnell Douglas plunged headlong into two big pits on an ordinary large trunk airliner. The hapless wheat Trail was mistaken again and again. The loss was a mess, and finally in 1996, when he was unable to return to the sky, he was thrown on the table by Boeing and dismantled eight pieces.

In later generations, Boeing, which digested McDonnell Douglas, not only gained a lot in the military industry. The same is true in the field of civil aircraft.

After the new century, jet civil aircraft that have rolled off the assembly line, whether it is a business jet or a branch or trunk airliner, if the tip of the wing is not bent upwards for a short time, it is a little embarrassed to come out to say hello.

At that time, the early models of the ARJ regional airliner and the wings of the Y-2O large transport aircraft that were put into test flight by the Republic of China were ridiculed by many Hong Kong and Taiwan media as a symbol of backwardness because they did not have that little bend.

This seemingly inconspicuous curve, the winglet (Note 1), is one of the typical technical legacies that McDonnell Douglas left to Boeing.

Of course, the black-hearted Boeing charged the price of McDonnell Douglas legacy, and although the addition of winglets could bring airlines $40,000 in fuel savings per year, the optional cost of more than $100,000 per winglet also hindered the widespread use of McDonnell Douglas legacies on Boeing airliners.

Seeing Zhou Yuanhang smiling and nodding in confirmation, Liang Yuan fell into a lot of confusion.

In McDonnell Douglas's eyes, at this time, commercial aviation should be technical but not technical, talent without talent, equipment without equipment, capital without capital, strictly speaking, Yuanjia and McDonnell Douglas can still pull a little festival.

The MPC75 regional airliner project that has been renamed CM1OO is destined to be a competitor of McDonnell Douglas and Wu Song in the cooperative production of MD82 passenger aircraft in the Republic of China, Yuanjia and Grumman got the F14 fighter into the Republic of China, even if the F15 fighter does not see the possibility of entering the Republican ** aircraft market, but McDonald, who produces the F15 fighter, will definitely not be optimistic about the F14 fighter to expand its market share.

I really can't figure it out, what is McDouglas trying to find himself?Liang Yuan wondered.

Zhou Yuanhang looked at Liang Yuan for a long time and was silent, and said with a smile: "Dashao is very strange why McDonnell Dow found us, strictly speaking, McDonnell Douglas is very optimistic about our execution ability and future prospects, and at the same time regards us as one of his own life-saving straws." ”

"Where do you start?" Liang Yuan asked curiously.

Although Liang Yuan has made up for two years of information about the aviation industry, but the distance between Liang Yuan and large passenger aircraft manufacturers in the previous life is as far as the earth and Mars, except for some well-known signs and judgments on the general trend, Liang Yuan is almost ignorant of the internal information or specific grievances and entanglements between various companies in the industry, and it is precisely for this reason that Liang Yuan at this time is a new newcomer in the real transactional work of the aviation industry.

"Since the early '80s, McDonnell Dalwellall has been looking for partners around the world to counter Boeing, and Airbus's various companies have always been the main targets of McDonnell Douglas's lobbying. ”

Since West Germany was unrelenting about the four-range large airliner and had a series of conflicts with France within Airbus, McDonnell Douglas placed the main direction of lobbying in the Federal Republic of Germany. ”

Zhou Yuanhang suddenly stopped speaking of this, looked at Sun Zhuolin and said with a smile: "At that time, Mr. Sun was working at Boeing, and he was one of the parties at that time, and he should know a lot more news than me, who was watching the excitement on the sidelines." ”

Sun Zhuolin laughed, and then said: "McDonnell Douglas has always called Boeing the big bear from Seattle, in order to deal with Boeing's step-by-step pressure in the field of civil airliners, McDonnell Douglas once proposed to MBB and Mercedes-Benz Aerospace: using the fuselage of the MD11 wide-body passenger aircraft that they are preparing to drive, MBB and Mercedes-Benz Aerospace are responsible for driving the wings of the new passenger aircraft, and the two sides jointly develop four long-range large wide-body passenger aircraft suitable for intercontinental flights with more than 3oo passengers. ”

The British and French were furious, accusing West Germany of sabotaging the European consensus and luring the wolf into the house. ”

"Some time ago, when we had just entered the aviation industry, the French and the Germans had a big quarrel in the A33O/34O project related to McDonnell Douglas's mention of Yì, in order to prevent the Germans from accidentally getting on McDonnell Douglas's pirate ship, Airbus decided to set up the A34O intercontinental wide-body passenger aircraft project of the fourth project at the same time as the exhibition of Shuangshuang's A33O project to meet the wishes of the Germans."

Sun Zhuolin took a sip of water from the cup and continued: "This matter is not over, after learning that Airbus borrowed McDonnell Douglas's proposal and decided to carry out the A33O/34O project and kicked McDonnell Douglas aside, the US Congress was angry about this and began to accuse Airbus member states of improper subsidies, while Airbus ridiculed each other, accusing Boeing of benefiting from US arms purchases and NASA. ”

"Then the two sides will take the lawsuit to the GATT, and at the end of this year, the two sides will hold the 15th round of negotiations on the subsidy issue in Brussels, Belgium, and I estimate that this lawsuit will have to be fought for three or five years. ”

Liang Yuan heard that he understood a little, the situation of the Airbus A33O/34O exhibition was so tortuous and bizarre, there was such a drama before the birth of MD11, and the root cause of the subsidy for passenger planes between the United States and the European Union in later generations was actually here.

A smile flashed from Liang Yuan's mouth, Sun Zhuolin would never have imagined that the negotiations that had already begun fifteen rounds let alone three or five years, after the GATT was yellow, the European Union and the United States continued their past grievances in the newly established WTO, even before Liang Yuan wore it, there was no sign of the end. (To be continued!)

PS: Note 1: Although the working principle of winglets is current to NASA, the commercial application was first promoted by McDonnell Douglas, and the application patents of winglets in the early days were monopolized by McDonnell Douglas.

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