The Gulfstream IV, which has just landed, is a new aircraft transferred to Hong Kong from the Singapore base of International Aircraft Leasing Corporation.

Although Japan's economy is hot, but limited by its size and volume, its influence on the global economy is far less obvious than when the republic rose in later generations, and the 3,000-nautical-mile range of the Gulfstream series of business jets shows that the world's economic center of gravity is still on both sides of the Atlantic.

That's why Gulfstream IV will refuel at Kai Tak Airport and then fly to Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan, where it will arrive at Los Angeles International Airport at 9 a.m. the next day after hopping through three Pacific Island airports.

Liu Wenyue saw the crew of Gulfstream standing by the boarding ramp with a smile on their faces, pointed to the Gulfstream business jet and turned to Qi Lianshan and said: "Do you want to go up and have a look, Lao Zhou, they have already talked with Airbus's wing team, and Airbus's wing design team to join COMAC is a foregone conclusion. ”

"Da Shao is determined to take the original version of the 50-seat branch line back to domestic production?" Qi Lianshan asked curiously.

"Hmm. Liu Wenyue nodded.

However, there is no conflict with the CMB series, Lao Zhou has negotiated with MBB, before the two sides jointly license, the original version of the tail crane double-engine MPC75 regional line will be renamed CA50 series regional airliner, the maximum number of this series will not exceed CA50, the main business is concentrated in the field of regional airliners and long-range business jets below 50 seats, Gulfstream, Dassault, Hawker Beechcraft is the three largest competitors of COMAC in this field. ”

Although Liang Yuan knows that regional airliners will evolve in the direction of bigger and bigger in the future, MBB's design of regional airliners based on the design benchmark of 100-seat passengers is completely the right choice.

But Liang Yuan commanded COMAC has been acting as a stumbling block, and in the early days, he was really worried about arousing the vigilance of the behemoth Boeing in advance, although Boeing is now in a state of wandering to beat the world's invincible opponents, but the ability of this giant company to correct its own mistakes should never be underestimated, and the future Canadian Bombardier Aerospace suffered a big loss in this regard, thinking that Boeing and Airbus had reached a mess and had no time to take care of themselves trying to break through the ceiling of the trunk airliner, and as a result, the two giants joined forces to teach them to be people.

At Liang Yuan's insistence, COMAC has not given up the design of the small MPC75 of the original tail crane, but MBB has always disapproved of CMB Aerospace's distraction to engage in any small passenger aircraft, which has become a daily routine for China and Germany to quarrel at CMB Aerospace's senior management meeting.

Things took a turn for the worse when COMAC decided to buy Airbus' German wing team.

Due to Airbus's strange system, the German Airbus wing design department is not actually owned by a specific company, but a joint venture between the German Airbus member companies, and the alliance R&D department established for the A340 wing project is more appropriate than a company.

Behind the competition between Germany and France for the design of the A340 wing is a competition between a series of large companies operating in the electrical, hydraulic, metal materials and other industries.

It is difficult to imagine that the wings designed by the French wing design team will use processing equipment and raw materials from Germany when processing and manufacturing, and if it is the turn of the German wing design team to win the bid, it will not be much more noble than the French.

Regardless of whether the French are playing scoundrels or not, the order for the A340 wing has flown off, even if there is coordination between the two governments in the future, but the French are arrogant to throw some soup between their teeth, the order is gone, and the team set up for the order will naturally have a bad future.

Large supercritical intercontinental airliner wing design, although it sounds very high-end and atmospheric, but to raise a top large passenger aircraft wing design team needs at least 30 million US dollars a year, the failure of competition in addition to losing the market share of related industries, but also means a steady stream of high labor costs, God knows when the next Airbus will start the research and development of new models of passenger aircraft.

If the wing team is digested within the German Airbus, at least eighty or even ninety percent of the developers will be laid off, and the remaining backbone will be digested as seeds by the alliance enterprises within the German Airbus.

If the wing team is disbanded and goes to the member companies within the German Airbus, except for a very small number of engineers, most people's careers can only start from scratch or be demoted, which is also the biggest motivation for the wing team to sell itself as a whole.

After COMAC showed signs of acquiring the German Airbus wing team, the corporate image within the Federal Republic of Germany suddenly became much taller, and the Federal German government originally complained that COMAC had recruited a large number of Chinese aeronautical engineers from across the Atlantic.

In line with the momentum of striking while the iron is hot, Xinfengyuan Trade is lobbying Deutsche Bank to help it actively apply for interest-free loans from the Federal Republic of Germany for underdeveloped regions around the world in the second half of the year, although the amount is not large and only 200 million US dollars, but it is almost the same to lend to other underdeveloped regions, it is better to lend to Fengyuan Trade, which is equivalent to supplementing the German aviation industry with the help of commercial aircraft.

Under a good situation, Zhou Yuanhang took advantage of the opportunity to restart the old version of the MPC75 plan, and limited the focus of the plan to business jets and small branch lines below 50 seats, and finally in the name of being optimistic about the transportation of large cargo, a new special air cargo company called Eurasia Super Heavy Cargo Transportation Co., Ltd. was established.

CMB Aerospace's agreement to acquire SCHOTT Aircraft was delivered to CMB Aerospace by the deadline of May 15 without any formal written documents from the British and German governments, and since May 16, SCHOTT Aircraft has become an independent subsidiary of CMB Aerospace.

Prior to the acquisition, the British government divested SCHOTT's arms-related business, and SCHOTT's original anti-aircraft missile and toucan propeller fighter businesses were merged by BAE's defense division, and in addition to the Schott 330/360 turboprop regional airliners, which are still in production, the technical data of the Belfast transport aircraft were also left at SCHOTT under the name of large freighters.

However, the most strange thing is that the British also left Liang Yuan a great surprise/fright, in addition to the Belfast transport aircraft, the technical information of the Armstrong-Whitworth A.660" Argosy military transport aircraft, which will be known as the world's ugliest transport aircraft in the future, was also lost in Schott.

This ugly and crying cargo that was born in the fifties in the history of human aircraft is still in service with the British Royal Air Force, and I don't know what the British think, maybe they think that this cargo is also a transport aircraft, which can be regarded as a companion to Belfast's technical information.

After the completion of the merger and acquisition of the SCHOTT project, CMB Aerospace simply put the SCHOTT 330/ The 360 project is directly packaged with the production line in the UK, plus all the technical information of the Belfast transport aircraft, and the drawings of the A660 transport aircraft are included for free, with a total price of 12 million US dollars, and at the same time, the part of the technical property rights of the original tail crane 50-seat MPC75 belonging to MBB was priced at 1 US dollar, and all CMB Aerospace divestment business was sold to COMAC at an ultra-low price of 12 million and one US dollars.

The price of COMAC's ultra-low price sale package is that once the small branch lines and business jets that have been renamed CA series cross the break-even point in terms of sales, no matter how much additional investment COMAC subsequently makes, the original technical data worth one dollar will be automatically converted into 25% of the shares of the new project.

The reason why the contract was signed like this is mainly because MBB is a listed company in Germany, once MBB has a large number of shares in the new project, it must send relevant personnel to manage, MBB senior management itself is not interested in the development of business jets and small branches, but does not want to give up the opportunity to share the benefits of COMAC in case of success, as a result, after several discussions, the two sides reached this agreement that both parties are satisfied with.

Although the SCHOTT 330/360 passenger aircraft is a typical low-cost commuter passenger aircraft, its mature design and low cost of use, even with the high cost of labor production and sales in the United Kingdom, have a certain competitiveness in the international and domestic markets of the Republic.

In particular, after all the SCHOTT production lines are relocated to China, COMAC can rely on Brilliance Power to replace Pratt & Whitney's PT6A with the turboprop modification of the jewel turboshaft engine, and turn the SCHOTT 330/360 into a completely domestic product.

Of course, for Liang Yuan, it doesn't matter whether the SCHOTT 330/360 belongs to the project or not, the Belfast large transport aircraft is the focus of Liang Yuan's attention for a long time, and even the only purpose for Liang Yuan to acquire SCHOTT around the bend.

Zhou Yuanhang came up with the name of oversized special cargo transportation is not just a casual excuse, the civil aviation industry segmented assembly is already the trend of the times, CMB100 fuselage width is 3.2 meters in the sky, Belfast's cargo hold diameter is 4.9 meters, the floor is 3.6 meters wide, the rear fuselage large angle opening of the clamshell tailgate whether loading or unloading the CMB100 fuselage segment is easy and redundant.

COMAC is preparing for global outsourcing in advance, and even if there is a little noise, it is not a climate at all, and it can be ignored directly.

At the beginning, the British military ordered a total of ten Belfast large transport aircraft, and then due to the contraction of the British Empire's global strategy, all Belfasts were retired in 1976, and five of them were bought by the British THC Heavy Cargo Transport Company and converted into civilian cargo planes to transport large equipment.

In the early nineties, there were still three Belfast 10A left in good working condition, and after a flip of contact, Eurasia Super Heavy Cargo Transport purchased two intact Belfast 10A and one non-intact Belfast as a spare parts warehouse from THC Heavy Cargo Transport for $28 million.

The price of 28 million US dollars to buy two second-hand cargo planes more than 20 years old is not cheap, the new C130 civilian version is only more than 10 million US dollars, the problem is that even if the Soviet Union collapses, there are only a few large transport aircraft that can transport ultra-wide shipments in the world, the United States C5 Galaxy, C17 Global Overlord, Maozi's Ruslan and An-225, in addition to the United States and the Soviet Union, Belfast is the only choice.

Due to the low operating cost of Belfast's turboprop engines, even after the new century, there are still air cargo companies that are not willing to give up and try to repair Belfast, which has become a grandfather-level Belfast to enter the ultra-wide cargo transportation market.

Don't look at Belfast's pure background as a large transport aircraft, and it is even one step away from being able to mix up at the level of a strategic transport aircraft, but with Liang Yuan's temperament, he will not pin the order of a large transport aircraft on the military of the Republic at all.

Belfast can only exist in propeller models for at least five years, and when the northern neighbor just broke up, there were a lot of cheap Il-76s, which were purebred jets, and if you didn't consider the narrow fuselage, the style of the Il-76 was much higher than that of Belfast, which played with propellers.

On the one hand, it is in stock, and on the other hand, it may have just started localization, and God knows what the military of the republic will choose when the time comes.

Although Liang Yuan intends to resurrect the production line in Belfast, the previous detailed investigation work still needs to be done, and the super-heavy air cargo established by Zhou Yuanhang is the main force to obtain data.

Belfast is designed to fly more than 1,600 kilometres with a full load of 35 tonnes of cargo, and more than 7,500 kilometres with eight tonnes of cargo.

In the future, the best-selling cargo in the international cargo aircraft market, Boeing's latest 737-300F modified freighter, with a full load of 23 tons of cargo, can fly 2900 kilometers, as for the maximum range and Belfast is not comparable.

Although Belfast is equipped with four Rolls-Royce turboprop engines, the fuel consumption of each engine is only 40% of that of Boeing's CMF56 engines, which means that a fully loaded Belfast with four turboprop engines is 20% more fuel-efficient than a fully loaded 737-300F with two turbofan engines.

Of course, the 737 has a cruise speed of 830 km/h, which is much faster than Belfast's cruise speed of 540 km/h.

However, the 737-300F is already Boeing's main sales freighter in the first decade of the 21st century, and Belfast is indeed the technology of the 60s of the 20th century, and the potential for improvement is very huge.

For Liang Yuan, once Belfast has confirmed its potential as a cargo aircraft through operation, with the backing of Dongfeng Express, Liang Yuan will definitely restart Belfast's production line as soon as possible.

It was inconvenient to say something in front of the foreign crew members, and before going to visit the Gulfstream business jet, Liu Wenyue and Qi Lianshan briefly talked about the recent actions of the European aviation industry and commercial aviation.

After Qi Lianshan knew what to expect, the two got out of the car together and walked towards the Gulfstream business jet with the door wide open.