Looking at Zhou Yuanhang's smiling and shaking his head, Liang Yuan also took several well-known American aviation companies such as Northrop, which produces B2 bombers, Boeing, the boss of the civil aviation industry, and Galaxy Aerospace, the parent company that produces Gulfstream business jets, 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, the field of civil airliners at that time was full of gunsmoke, not only the powerful Lockheed launched the L-1011 wide-body three-engine airliner, but Boeing was close to bankruptcy because of the failure to develop the 2027 supersonic 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 had long been deeply rooted and familiar with the aviation industry of the Republic, no matter from which point of view, Liang Yuan did not see that McDonnell Douglas had the possibility and necessity of finding COMAC, and to put it mildly, let alone COMAC, even if COMAC's partner MBB in the Federal Republic of Germany could enter McDonnell Douglas in the aviation field, it was between the two sides.

In the case of later MBAs, 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 two decades after the A380 jumbo airliner program surpassed Airbus, as early as 1988, McDonnell Douglas recognized the existence of ultra-high-density passenger traffic in the point-to-point air transport business in the Asia-Pacific region, and then came up with a development plan to develop the MD12 four-engine ultra-long-range jumbo intercontinental airliner.

The first flight of the MD12 passenger aircraft carried 430 passengers, and it was originally planned to make its first flight in 1995, and obtained an FAA airworthiness certificate in 1997, with a range of more than 14,000 kilometers. After the delivery of the first batch of 430-seat MD12s. We will continue to develop two lengthened models, 500 and 630 seats, and the development cost of the entire new model will exceed $5 billion.

The MD12 is an astonishing technological development project similar to Motorola's Iridium project, and if successful, it is one of the greatest engineering marvels of human industry in the twentieth century. 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 into two big pits, the three-engine and the tail crane, 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-20 large transport aircraft 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, which has been renamed CM100, is destined to be a competitor to McDonnell Douglas and Wu Song in the production of MD82 passenger aircraft in the country, and Yuanjia teamed up with Grumman to get the F14 fighter to the Republic of China, even if the F15 fighter does not see the possibility of entering the military aircraft market of the republic, 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 landmark events and judgments on the general trend that are familiar to the public, 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 has never given up on the four-engine ultra-long-range large passenger plane, and there have been many conflicts with France within Airbus, McDonnell Douglas has 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 has proposed to MBB and Mercedes-Benz Aerospace: using the fuselage of the MD11 wide-body passenger aircraft under development, MBB and Mercedes-Benz Aerospace are responsible for developing the wings of the new passenger aircraft, and the two sides jointly develop a four-engine ultra-long-range large wide-body passenger aircraft suitable for intercontinental flights with more than 300 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 over the A330/340 project and related to McDonnell Douglas's mention of the year, in order to prevent the Germans from accidentally getting on McDonnell Douglas's pirate ship, Airbus decided to set up a four-engine A340 intercontinental wide-body passenger aircraft project while developing the double-engine A330 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 from McDonnell Douglas, decided to develop the A330/340 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 development of Airbus A330/340 is so tortuous and bizarre, MD11 was born before there was such a drama, and the root cause of the subsidy for passenger planes sprayed between the United States and the European Union every once in a while is 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 was discovered by 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.