In this plane after Qi Yiming crossed over, the project of the international version of Thunder Dragon is more like the previous Sabre II/Super Seven project. It's just that compared with the difficulties encountered by Cheng Fei in the original timeline, the current Cheng Fei is much better. To put it bluntly, the international version of the Thunder Dragon is a political product, there are not too many commendable things in technology, Cheng Fei can face a group of subsystem contractors with the attitude that he is an uncle, and he really can't talk about getting out, the Koreans don't want to order and break up, anyway, Cheng Fei has the Iranians' follow-up orders for 30 FC-1 and Pakistanis 50 FC-1, and he doesn't have to worry about getting new orders.

So Tu Jida, who is more backbone, also put on an attitude of "love comes and doesn't come to roll" from the beginning, because it involves equipping some equipment from the United States, which requires the approval of TAA, that is, the technical support agreement. Just as another plane cunning American wants to use this opportunity to obtain technical information about the Thunder Dragon, so he came up and asked for the technical indicators of the whole machine, otherwise he would not approve the TAA, under the instruction of Qi Yiming, Cheng Fei had to be tight, and Qi Yiming, who was well aware of the political ecology of the United States, spent a little silver and found a lobbying company on K Street in Washington through Jacqueline's connections, conducted a round of public relations and lobbying for the US government, and approved the TAA in only two weeks.

In later generations, many Chinese companies have repeatedly suffered losses when doing business with the United States, especially American companies involved in the government, and large companies that have been forced to withdraw from the American market abound. Huawei's case certainly involves sensitive communications security, but Ren Zhengfei has spent less than seven figures on government public relations, which shows that Chinese companies really have no understanding of the political and economic ecology of the United States.

As a returnee, Qi Yiming is accustomed to seeing the faces of the US government and enterprises, and some of his behaviors are also very Westernized, and he can hit seven inches when he comes up, and dealing with such things is nothing more than two magic weapons, pulling one faction to fight another, with the support and support of the interests of the United States and the alliance, and the other is willing to spend money and effort on meaningless lobbying.

In addition, Qi Yiming believes that the reason why the international version of the Thunder Dragon project is easier to pass than the Super Seven case is that it is originally a mature model, which can be regarded as cutting meat for the Americans, not like the Super Seven, which needs a lot of help from the Americans. In the Super 7 project, the TAA stipulates a large number of projects that are not allowed to hand over data to Chengfei, such as fatigue spectrum, air inlet design, front fuselage shape design and other messy things. The reason for this is that the United States is afraid of taking this opportunity for the Chinese to learn things and eventually improve their own design field of the aviation industry, which is also the consistent trick of the Americans.

However, China's fighter jets have shown their unique side in many aspects, and there may still be a gap between them and the US aviation industry as a whole, but it is undeniable that China really does not need to learn anything through the United States. The information fed back by Grumman and other company technicians surprised the US authorities, and they launched a plan to poach Chinese technicians.

So much so that in the international version of the dragon plan, the US government could not make many stumbling blocks, and could only honestly hold the meat and bones that the Chinese were not willing to throw.

Generally speaking, the Chinese side has ceded at least about 20% of the proceeds to the United States, of course, the American companies get more, but the road ahead is very clear - take less or not, as long as you have a little IQ, you know how to choose. In addition, because some of the equipment comes from the United States, there is also a part of the income from subsequent maintenance and replacement, which can be regarded as a relief.

After the South Korean Air Force arrived in Chengdu, the evaluation work was actually not meticulous, and the level of the pilots they came to was not very sufficient, and they were not even qualified pilots, so even if they got into the back seat of the dragon and gave some guidance, they could not immediately fly by themselves, nor could they talk about what was ugly, so they could only say: "Very advanced, very good Smecta." ”

Of course, the sticks are not without ambition, and when carrying out the evaluation project of the Thunder, South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Yoong-so mentioned to a manager of AVIC: "I heard that your country has developed a heavy fighter similar to the F-15 for Saudi Arabia, I wonder if we can visit it?" ”

The manager had already accepted the explanation, and replied seemingly enthusiastically and detachedly: "There is no problem, our Leopard B fighter is a heavy fighter independently developed by our country, and its combat power is quite strong, but because the fighter is too powerful, there are still restrictions on exports." ”

When he said this, it was tantamount to making it clear in disguise that this leopard B can be sold to Saudi Arabia, but it is unlikely that it will be sold to you Nanbang.

Choi Yoon-so was a little disappointed, but it was also expected, just like when they bought the F-16 before, if they could buy the F-15, where would they choose the medium-sized F-16. After all, heavy fighters must be sold to the most hardcore allies, and it is not difficult to understand that China is wooing Saudi Arabia, which is a big financier, and China does need to strengthen its relations with Middle Eastern countries. But if too strong weapons are sold to South Korea, it is inevitable that the Korean Peninsula will add another storm.

Looking back, it is already a very satisfying thing to be able to get the FC-1, the price is cheaper than the F-16, and the general evaluation is that the combat power is higher than the F-16, which is suitable for the South Korean army to reorganize its combat strength. It is better to grasp the reality than to hope for unrealistic things now.

The Koreans finally decided to choose the FC-1 as their new fighter after a three-month expedition, with a total purchase of 60 aircraft and a total contract value of 7. $200 million, including some costs for weapons and training. South Korea is also the third country after Iran and Pakistan to decide to adopt the Thunder, and the total number of sales of the Thunder has reached 210 (including 70 F-14 replacement aircraft), and it has become a dazzling new star in the international military trade market for a while.

The outstanding performance of the Thunder Dragon has also affected the export situation of other Chinese military products, such as the Saudi side, which has become more inclined to the Leopard B. Even Prince Bandar, who was inspecting the Leopard B in China, after learning that the South Koreans had decided to purchase 60 FC-1s, the Saudis actually proposed to conduct an inspection of the Thunder.

The Saudis could not get any benefits from the British, but Qi Yiming could be unscrupulous in China, and as soon as the prince with unclean hands and feet arrived in China, Qi Yiming gave him a luxury red flag extended car made in the base. For himself, the cost is almost nothing, but for Bandar, he thinks that it is at least a million dollars worth.

Qi Yiming participated in the meeting with the Prince of Saudi Arabia about Al? Another round of negotiations on the Yamaha agreement, and now they are the main frontrunners, and Qi Yiming is full of confidence in winning the contract.

"Mr. Qi, our pilots of the Saudi Air Force recently visited and inspected your FC-1 Thunder fighter, and the evaluation is very high, although our military procurement this time is mainly to purchase fighters with good ground capability, but it is clear that although the Thunder is a light fighter, there are considerable points in air and ground. Alas, it's a pity that we don't have enough pilots to run these fighters. Bandar may have said this to compliment China's aviation industry, but the speaker had no intention of listening to it.

Qi Yiming suddenly smiled at this time and said: "As you can see, Your Royal Highness, the Thunder Dragon is indeed a good multi-purpose light fighter, if it has a certain number, it will be very helpful for Saudi Arabia to form a tactical battle advantage in the Middle East, and it is not even a problem to make it much better than the United States." ”

Bandar's eyes lit up, but then it dimmed again, it was useless to have planes, no one to drive, no support, and it was still a country like a weak chicken. How can I say that money cannot buy modern national defense.

Qi Yiming agitated like a reed, and said: "If there is a lack of pilots, I don't think this is a problem, if necessary, we will establish a flight training school in Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia can choose to take a stake, this flight training school will have the ability to train hundreds of excellent professional military and civil aircraft pilots for Saudi Arabia every year, and the Saudi Air Force can completely outsource the training and training tasks of pilots to this training school." ”

When Bandar heard this, he thought it was a very good idea. In fact, this kind of outsourcing pilot training by the air forces of small countries is not new three decades later, and it is relatively rare in this era. In particular, some small developed countries or developing countries like Saudi Arabia that have money and no ability can hardly establish their own complete pilot training systems and hardware equipment, so some powerful countries run private flight schools to train pilots of fighter or civil aircraft for these small countries.

Qi Yiming also came up with this idea for a while, it is obvious that there is a bulging wallet and a huge market for pilots in the Middle East, but they themselves lack the ability to train pilots, of course, Saudi Arabia also wants to operate a larger air force, but it is unable to pull up a large team of pilots, so it can only serve pilots in Pakistan and other concessions.

In addition to Saudi Arabia, countries such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and other countries also have similar problems, if this flight school can run a professional and good reputation, I believe that it can attract a large number of flight students from the Middle East to come, and can also sign long-term and lucrative pilot training contracts with some countries.

From another point of view, this flight school can also become a customer of Hongdu's training aircraft, the first teaching -6, L-15 Falcon, and even the two-seat coach version of the Thunder Dragon, Flying Leopard, Qi Yiming can be placed in this school to provide training guarantee for customers using domestic export military aircraft.