"Da Shao, the minimum number of passengers I saw in the CM series passenger aircraft in the COMAC Technology R&D Department is 89 people, right?" asked Li Guowei with some doubts.

According to Liang Yuan's description just now, Ryanair and Lufthansa Lufthansa's purchase intention for the MPC75 project was based on a 50-seat small advanced regional airliner, which is very incompatible with the actual size of the current CM series passenger aircraft, which is close to that of narrow-body trunk airliners.

At this time, the technical scheme of the CM100 passenger aircraft with a capacity of 89 passengers and the CM200 passenger aircraft with a passenger capacity of 115 passengers has been officially locked, and the first full-scale solid model is currently being used to manufacture wood for the research and development reference of avionics and interiors.

Liang Yuan turned his head slightly to look at Meng Dawei, who was walking side by side with him, and said with a chuckle: "Manager Meng should know this better than me." ”

Before Liang Yuan intervened in the MPC75 plan, the reason why the MPC75 project could not be promoted was that in addition to the difficult birth of the pit fan aero engine, the number of passengers was also one of the core differences between China and Germany.

Although the bigger the aircraft is built for Xifei, the better, even if it is bigger than the MD82 joint venture between Wusong Aircraft Factory and McDonnell Douglas, the problem is that Xifei doesn't care about Wusong Aircraft Factory, and for the MPC75 plan to take the development fund of its own MD82 project and develop its own MD82 project competition project, Wusong Aircraft Factory has long wanted the MPC75 project to die early.

Therefore, Wusong Aircraft Factory has always insisted that the number of passengers of the new advanced turbofan airliner developed by Xifei must be limited to less than 50 passengers, and the development plan of the aircraft must also be strictly defined as a small regional airliner platform.

Around this problem, Xifei and Wu Fei fought countless war of words, and in the end, Wu Fei was still the uncle, and the early technical architecture of the MPC75 project was locked as a small regional airliner platform with a tail crane twin turbofan carrying 31-50 passengers. The width of the fuselage is similar to that of the Dornier 328, which was developed by Daimler-Benz Aerospace, and each row has a 2+1 three-person layout, which is a small regional jet airliner through and through.

It can be seen from the early projects of the Dornier 328 and MPC75 that the Germans still follow the national talent of excellence in the aviation industry, and the same small regional airliner platform, the black-hearted Canadian Bombardier changed the seats of the CRJ200 from 2+1 to 2+2. More than 10 people are crammed into a similarly sized airliner, which directly leads to the CRJ series regional airliner's seat width of only a pitiful 17 inches (43 cm), and in the field of commonly used civil airliners, the ride experience of Bombardier's CRJ series airliners is definitely not comfortable, almost similar to that of crowded buses.

Although there is no essential difference between the accident rate of regional airliners and trunk airliners such as the 737, in the field of air transport in the Republic of the New Century, regional airliners are simply synonymous with backwardness and disaster.

Unfortunately, under the domination of the great nature of capital, around the turn of the new century, Bombardier and the Brazilian aircraft industry company still joined hands. Stepping on the corpses of many regional airliners, including the German Dornier 328, he ascended to the throne of the regional airliner field.

The desperate struggle of Xifei in the field of large aircraft coincides with the huge ambitions of the Federal Republic of Germany in the field of aviation, and the MPC75 project is still getting bigger and bigger, and the two conspire to use a new type of pulp fan aero engine After three years of formal development, the passenger aircraft platform has changed from a typical small regional airliner 2+1 seat layout to a wide 3+2 type, and finally grew into a narrow-body trunk airliner when Liang Yuan took over.

Meng Dawei and Li Guowei first concisely introduced the key information of the early days of the MPC75 project, and then continued: "The initial project of the MPC75 with the tail crane layout has completed the original design of 31-50 small feeder platforms, and even the wind tunnel blowing has been completed. With the establishment of CMB Aerospace, these technical materials have been merged into the new company, and there are no problems in terms of technology patents and reserves. ”

"The problem is after we officially inject capital. MBB's ambitions have also swelled, and if it were not for COMAC's insistence, MBB would not have planned to continue to develop a small branch line with a twin-engine turbofan layout with a tail crane, and wanted to focus all its energy on narrow-body trunk airliners to compete directly with Boeing's 737 and Airbus' A320 series. Meng Dawei said.

With at least $2.2 billion in hand in less than five years, MBB is full of excitement. If it weren't for Liang Yuan's command of COMAC to step on the brakes very resolutely, the CM300 and CM400 series passenger aircraft, which carry 140 passengers and up to 165 passengers, would have become a key R&D project of CMB Aerospace long ago.

In the future, more than 4,000 737-700 and 737-800 series trunk airliners were sold all over the world, and the number of passengers carried by the typical single-class cabin layout was only between 149 and 189, and at this time, the number of passengers of Boeing's main 737-400 narrow-body trunk airliner in the field of civil aviation was only 168.

If you mess with Boeing. To wake up this behemoth in advance, and to recreate the situation that was suppressed when Bombardier developed the C series airliner in later generations, CMB Aerospace is called self-defeating.

Of course, although the global aviation industry at this time has not been completely integrated by the two giants A and B, CMB Aerospace does not necessarily face the situation of unmanned supply of passenger aircraft subsystems, but even if it is only in the face of the consequences of the new generation of Boeing 737 coming off the assembly line ahead of schedule, it is not what the fragile commercial aviation is willing to bear at this time.

"Mr. Zhou, Mr. Sun, and I have been talking with MBB for more than three months, and we plan to restart the original plan of MPC75 and continue to develop a 50-seat turbofan engine regional airliner, but MBB considers that the parts and components of the 50-seat branch line and the narrow-body trunk line cannot be used universally due to huge technical differences, and we are not very optimistic about our proposal, and think that it will disperse the resources of the enterprise. ”

MBB wants big planes and bigger planes, but Liang Yuan is considering trying not to arouse the vigilance of Boeing and Airbus in advance, and use the equipment and technology of CM series passenger aircraft to build a simple and easy 50-seat small branch line first, so as to lay a solid foundation for commercial aviation in the field of aviation industry.

"Mr. Meng, if MBB is persuaded by us, will the 50-seat branch line plan adopt a 2+1 or 2+2 layout?" asked Li Guowei keenly.

"The original MPC75 project has an effective cabin width of only 83 inches, and it can only be equipped with a 2+1 seating layout. Meng Dawei said with a wry smile.

The effective width of the cabin of the CM100 passenger aircraft is 125 inches, the reserved width of the boarding aisle is 20 inches, and the 18-inch international standard boarding size of the trolley case is enriched by two units of space, which is used to reduce the number of collisions between baggage and seats when passengers get on and off the plane, speed up the transit speed of the passenger aircraft and improve operational efficiency.

In addition to the 20-inch space, the rest of the effective space is occupied by five 21-inch wide airline seats, and the German Hans of the straight line simply and rudely added two seats with a width of 42 inches to the 83-inch effective space of the original MPC75 project, making it an evolution similar to the CM100 of the mainline airliner.

If Liang Yuan took over the MPC75 plan earlier, he would definitely not have made the regional aircraft into a 2+1 tail crane layout by the Germans.

In the early days of the launch of the ERJ145 regional airliner, the Brazilian aircraft industry company focused on the 2+1 seat layout, claiming to be more comfortable than the trunk 737, but the airlines still complained a lot, until the Brazilian aircraft company repented and learned from the experience of Bombardier Canada, and turned the 2+1 comfortable layout of the ERJ145 regional airliner into a black-hearted 2+2 layout on the E175 airliner before it came from behind in the field of regional airliners and finally became one of the top two.

Of course, CMB Aerospace, which has the foundation of the CM series, does not need to worry about the growth of the small regional airliner platform, and when the passenger flow of the route is busy, it can guide the relevant airlines to directly purchase the CM100 series with a large passenger capacity.

"If, regardless of the development space of the platform, the 2+1 layout is not unacceptable, the only point is that the body is too narrow is not suitable for the engine to use the wing crane layout, which is a weakness from the maintenance point of view, but as far as I know, the next generation of small regional airliners planned to be developed by major aviation companies has not yet adopted the wing crane layout of the case, and everyone is on a starting line is not a bad thing. Li Guowei said.

It can be said that it is completely based on the wharf when Liang Yuan disembarks as the core area, near the simple wharf, several tall building tower cranes rise from the ground, and the main structure of the R&D building, avionics building, equipment testing workshop, part of the parts processing workshop, staff activity center and other buildings has been roughly completed, and it seems that the main buildings of the factory can basically be delivered before winter. (To be continued......)