Chapter 31: The Airbus Rebellion
On a light beige varnish tabletop, two folders, one gray and one black, were spread out, and the early morning sunlight passed through the glass window in the corner of the room, leaving a bright band of light on the left side of the office desktop.
Liang Yuan held a pen in one hand against his forehead, his eyes wandered over the two documents, and the five fingers of the other hand gently tapped the table like playing a piano, and a small piece of da~da~ The dense crisp sound echoed in the quiet study.
After getting up early in the morning, according to the usual practice, the two girls practiced dancing and the other practiced long knives in the roof garden, and Liang Yuan was a little hesitant to hold the documents sent back by Liu Wenyue and Zhou Yuanhang from Europe last night.
At the beginning, the main reason why MBB took the lead in cooperating with the Republic of China on the MPC75 project was because MBB did not catch the fast-moving aviation industry express train of Airbus in Europe.
Due to Airbus's strange physique, Airbus is completely different from common aviation companies in the aviation industry, and there are countless slots and countless pitfalls when subcontracting projects.
Strictly speaking, it was the Germans who initiated the concept of Airbus into a real company, and the Federal Republic of Germany's Airbus Group is one of the oldest veterans within Airbus.
After the end of World War II, France and Britain, both of the down-and-out landlords, joined forces to ambitiously compete with the rural nouveau riche across the Atlantic and the red steamrollers in the east of Europe to engage in supersonic passenger aircraft competition.
Of course, history proves that Germany, which has finally gone out of shit luck, is fortunate not to be with the four hooligans of Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union, and has avoided the supersonic passenger plane, which seems to be shining but is actually bottomless.
Airbus belongs to the German, French and British government investment projects, when Airbus was first established, West Germany's enthusiasm was the highest, the West German government in response to the establishment of Airbus in West Germany, including Messerschmidt, Dornier, Berk, Hamburg Aircraft, Southern Aircraft Union, Siebel and other seven large aviation enterprises trapped together, at the end of the seventies Mercedes-Benz Group through the acquisition of Airbus.
When the Federal Republic of Germany Airbus was just established, the MBB fixed-wing aircraft business, which focuses on the helicopter industry, was not as good as the Republic's Hornhohid, and the Federal German Government failed to become a founding member of Airbus because of the optimization and integration of resources.
Although the Airbus headquarters determines the data of Airbus aircraft, the subcontracting of Airbus aircraft sub-projects belonging to the Federal Republic of Germany is in the hands of the second-level Federal Airbus, and MBB, as a competitor of the Federal Republic of Germany Airbus in the market, cannot enter the Airbus procurement chain at all.
This is also one of the reasons why MBB made a big fuss with the Federal German government in the name of unfairness and discrimination after the success of Airbus in the 80s, and of course it is also an important factor in the special happiness of the Federal German Government after the establishment of CMB Aerospace.
As long as you can shut up MBB, which has been jumping up and down for many years, it is easy to say that no matter what interest-free subsidized loans are.
The scuffle between Britain, France and Germany in Europe is comparable to the grievances between China, Japan and South Korea in Asia, coupled with the sneaky United States, the relationship within Airbus has never been straightened out.
After the new century, Airbus had a joke that was not a joke, and when the Airbus headquarters met in 2006, it had not yet been able to finalize the specific work quota that should be allocated to the various participating countries of Airbus in 1991.
The document called the internal uprising of Airbus sent by Zhou Yuanhang from Europe this time mainly says one thing.
The point is that according to the convention, the French and Germans within Airbus have pinched again, and on the Airbus ultra-long-range passenger aircraft A340 project, the design teams of the two countries have a huge disagreement on the design of the wing of the A340 passenger aircraft.
In the media of the Federal Republic of Germany, the German-led wing design is sturdy and durable, although the equipment is complex and slightly larger, but the aerodynamic effect is better than that of the French wing design team.
The Federal German media wrote with great indignation that although the arrogant French were forced to admit that the German wing was advanced, they were still preparing to install the French wing designed in France in the Airbus assembly workshop in Toulouse, France.
The French media, which took advantage of the work quota, pointed out calmly this time that although the German wing is advanced, it is a bit large and inappropriate like the A340 project, and the performance exceeds the cost, and the A340 project has to use French goods if it wants to make a profit.
The fact that the French went their own way and made the first move created an established fact, and the Germans, who were just talking about it, suffered a big loss, and then the German team responsible for the wing design of the A340 airliner completely exploded.
In Airbus's internal division of labor, the French were responsible for the nose including most of the avionics, the British were responsible for the wings, and the Germans were mainly responsible for the tail of the aircraft, the door and the fuselage.
Since the United States occasionally loses its winks across the Atlantic, Britain has always been half-hearted with Airbus, playing the trick of going in and out many times.
In view of the bad attitude of the British, the wing on the A340 project has become a competition between Germany and France, whoever wins the project will get more money, it can be said that the Germans are waiting for this opportunity to go crazy, and now the shameless French are rolling around and playing scoundrels, and the country hates and feuds and huddles together, can you still bear it, and now the entire European aviation community is moving a small bench and waiting to see the follow-up of this big excitement.
The wing design team of Airbus of the Federal Republic of Germany has 261 experienced senior aeronautical engineers, and Zhou Yuanhang wrote in the document that Andreas Heydrich, the head of the Airbus German wing team, contacted Zhou Yuanhang on behalf of the entire team, and planned to collectively jump ship to COMAC to prove the value of the team.
Due to Liang Yuan's insistence at the beginning, CMB Aerospace is somewhat similar to Airbus to some extent, strictly speaking, CMB Aerospace does not have its own employees, and all employees are either from MBB or from COMAC, which is also the reason why Andreas directly contacted Zhou Yuanhang.
There is no place for MBB, CMB Aerospace is just a shell, and only COMAC is the one who can accommodate the entire team at the moment, and people in the aviation industry of the Federal Republic of Germany know that although the acquisition of SCHOTT is the head of CMB Aerospace, MBB cannot look at the SCHOTT project that comes with the acquisition.
The Federal Republic of Germany, which already has various types of Airbus aircraft, whether it is a Belfast large transport aircraft or a Schott 360 propeller feeder, is not in MBB's development plan at all.
MBB's reason for promoting CMB Aerospace's acquisition of SCHOTT is ostensibly due to the British government's allocation of at least 600 million pounds, but it is not difficult to guess the purpose of commercial aviation hidden behind the scenes for CMB Aerospace to pay a second CM100 passenger aircraft production line to establish in the UK first.
Not to mention that MBB's financing channels in Germany are unimpeded, and there is no shortage of money at all.
Of course, even if these calculations under the table see the light, no one will admit that on the surface, Andreas's contact with Zhou Yuanhang includes sincere contact, but also with a bit of cautious temptation.
If the 261 senior aeronautical engineers engaged in the wing design of large passenger aircraft want to eat them all, they must prepare at least $30 million a year in wages.
And things will certainly not be so simple, once COMAC wins this technical team, COMAC's technical strength in the field of large wings will be formed overnight.
When the CM100 airliner was still called the MPC75 project, Yuanjia and MBB, who had nothing, agreed on the division of labor for the project.
At that time, the two sides divided the whole project into five large-scale sub-projects, of which the airframe accounted for 30% of the total project value, the aero engine accounted for 25%, the avionics equipment accounted for 15%, the electromechanical equipment accounted for 15%, and the aviation standard parts accounted for 15%, totaling 100%.
At that time, the two parties agreed that the aero engine, which accounted for 25% of the total project value, was discussed separately, and MBB accounted for 39% of the total project value of the remaining 85% of the aero engine, and COMAC accounted for 36%.
COMAC's project division table includes 18% airframe structure, 5% avionics equipment, 6% electromechanical equipment and 7% aviation standard parts.
MBB's project division table is stronger than that of COMAC from a technical point of view, including 12% of the airframe structure, 10% of the avionics equipment, 9% of the electromechanical equipment and 8% of the aviation standard parts.
However, in terms of the total value or the value of the value of the domestic customary term, the contract amount obtained by MBB is only 3% higher than that of COMAC.
After the establishment of CMB Aerospace, the original MPC75 project was cleaned up most thoroughly, and the unit price of the passenger aircraft was finalized.
The catalog price of the CM100 base model is $17 million, and the catalog price of the CM200 base model is $22 million.
Of course, due to the fact that the aero engine is not selected, the list price of the passenger aircraft does not include the power of the passenger aircraft, referring to the price of the new generation of civil push, with two aero engines, the purchase price of the CM100 is roughly 21 million US dollars, and the CM200 is roughly 27 million US dollars.
If the CM100 passenger aircraft were used as a standard, the purchase price of the aircraft would be used as a reference for the purchase price of the aircraft, and the commercial pilot would receive a purchase contract of roughly $7.6 million per aircraft, while MBB would receive a purchase contract of $8.2 million.
When the division of labor negotiations for the passenger aircraft sub-project was carried out, the two sides negotiated extremely difficult, although MBB had the upper hand, but it is difficult to say how big the advantage is, COMAC's concessions in the field of avionics and electromechanical have been compensated in the manufacture of the airframe, and the design and production of the wing of the CM series passenger aircraft are responsible for COMAC according to the contract.
However, due to the fact that COMAC has nothing, the wing design of the CM100 and 200 models is actually provided by MBB for a fee, and the subsequent 300 and 400 models of the CM series are taken over by COMAC.
For COMAC, if the pressure of personnel investment is not considered, the opportunity to reach the sky is in front of us.