Amur Komsomolsk, Sukhoi Gagarin Aircraft Factory, Soviet-era No. 126 plant. On the other hand, this well-known aviation factory provided a series of fighters such as Su-27 and Su-30 for the Chinese Air Force, and China's order also saved the Gagarin plant on the verge of collapse, and later China began to copy the J-11 Flanker series by itself, which made the financial situation of the Gagarin plant deteriorate, and it was not as proud as in the previous two years.

However, in this plane, the Gagarin plant in Komsomolsk Amur has become an asset of the Far Eastern Republic since the independence of the Far Eastern Republic, and has little to do with Sukhoi. In the wave of "marketization" in the Far Eastern Republics, the Gagarin plant, which was poorly managed and could not pay wages quickly, was sold to a powerful Chinese company, China Shenghua Group.

Asimolov was a senior engineer at the Gagarin plant, and he was also saddened by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence of the Far Eastern Republics, his hometown was not in the Far East, but in Ukraine, but he had already established his life in Komsomolsk, had a wife, and had two children.

At the beginning of the independence of the Far East, Novorzlov announced that employees of some state institutions could come and go freely, and that those who did not wish to stay in the Far East could return to West Russia or elsewhere. However, many people, including Asimolov, did not choose to return to their homeland, but stayed in the Far Eastern Republic and continued to serve in their original units.

It is not difficult to understand this, as newspapers and television in the Far Eastern Republic report on how difficult life was in Western Russia, including in the former republics, with chaotic markets, a shortage of goods, and the inability of most factories to operate, and more importantly, political instability and the possibility of war at any time discouraged many people.

For example, Asimolov, although the Gagarin plant is not profitable, but at least the salary can be paid, his wife is a teacher at the Komsomolsk Conservatory, and she also has income, and Komsomolsk, as the third largest city in the Far East, has always received all kinds of consumer goods from China, and the prices are relatively stable, and people's lives are not as bad as they imagined. Leaving life here and going to West Russia to suffer is not a decision that normal people can make, especially for someone like Asimolov who drags his family and needs to think more about his family.

In fact, Asimolov, as the technical backbone of the factory, still has a lot of opinions about being acquired by Chinese companies. Although China has made great achievements in national defense construction in recent years, and the Shenghua Group, which acquired them, can even develop a new generation of stealth fighters, these people at the Gagarin plant do not even have a concept. But Asimolov is still resistant to the entry of Chinese counterparts and management.

Resistance is useless, after Shenghua entered the Gagarin factory, first appeased the employees of the factory, issued a stipend, so that some workers who lived a relatively tight life were grateful to Dade for a while, and then a large number of new equipment was shipped from China, and the Chinese engineers commanded the employees in the factory to assemble.

Asimolov had never seen such modern equipment, and after the whole production line was completed, he felt that the Gagarin plant was immediately tall, which also made him have an admiration for his Chinese counterparts that he did not want to admit but existed.

A few months ago, a team of engineers from China, accompanied by Asimolov and an interpreter, compiled some technical data from the Gagarin plant. Asimolov couldn't help but sigh that the results of so many years of research in the Soviet Union have all become Chinese things, although it is a pity, but it is also realistic. He doesn't have so much to take care of now, and after the new owner takes over, at least his salary has increased by 60 percent, and the factory even has a Chinese-made car for a skilled man like him. Asimolov drove the car to pick her up from his wife's school, which made his wife's face shine.

He was determined to work hard, and now that times are different, the pursuit of personal happiness has become more urgent.

Today is another very different and significant day for Asimolov and the Gagarin plant, because after the change of ownership, the Gagarin plant has received a lot of orders from Chinese enterprises to make some aircraft parts, and the profit from the production of these parts is not as large as the production of complete aircraft, but it can maintain the continuous profitability of the Gagarin plant and have certain benefits. But for the employees of the Gagarin plant, who had a lot of thoughts, it was difficult for them to accept that they could not build a fighter for a long time.

Today, a new fighter was finally born on the production line of the Gagarin plant, and Asimolov also felt very unbelievable about it. Because this fighter is a team of Chinese engineers after studying their Su-27 fighter, it has been modified and redesigned, some details of the fuselage have changed slightly, and most of the electronic equipment inside is made of Chinese products, it can be said that this fighter is very Soviet-style in addition to the appearance, everything in it is basically Chinese standard, and even the text on the screen is Chinese characters.

Asimolov himself was involved in the improvement and manufacture of this type of fighter, and was well aware of the huge advantages of this fighter over Soviet fighters such as the Su-27. Its size and weight have been improved, and it has been replaced with a WS-10 series engine from China, with a single reaction engine with a rear fuel thrust of up to 155kN, and the engine is also an axisymmetric vector nozzle, which makes the fighter much more maneuverable.

Its weapons system uses all Chinese products, abandoning a series of Soviet-made missiles, but it can be mounted with PL-8, PL-12, LT/LS/FT series bombs, YJ anti-ship missiles, etc., which can not only complete air supremacy operations, but also be able to attack the ground and sea, and is a well-deserved heavy multi-purpose fighter.

In terms of avionics system, the new fighter adopts an active phased array radar, which has a large power and a wide detection range, and has a very high level of anti-jamming capability and electronic countermeasures.

From these details, Asimolov can see that the technical level of Chinese aviation people has far surpassed that of the Soviet Union, which makes him sigh and rejoice that he has finally returned to the first-line lineup in the industry.

"Xia Gong, when our new fighter is manufactured, can we get an order from the Chinese Air Force or HNA? As far as I know, the J-9 fighters used by your Air Force are very close to our new fighters in terms of performance, and your Hainan Airlines also has such models as the F-14, so I am afraid that it will be difficult for our new fighters to find a space. Asimolov said with some apprehension, in his opinion, it is impossible for Siberia and the Far East to purchase new fighters now, and the only possible way to buy new fighters is the Chinese Air Force, but the Chinese air force is equipped with luxurious equipment, and there are many kinds of fierce competition, which makes him quite a loss and a loss.

Xia Gaohong, a Chinese engineer who presided over the research and development of the new fighter, is a Red Alert engineer, who previously presided over the localization of the F-14 in Shen Fei, and can be regarded as a master of Qi Yiming's skills. Our new fighter has received the internal number of the military, which is called the J-16 fighter. Everyone is a colleague and it is nothing to explain to you, HNA is equipped with hundreds of J-7A fighter-bombers, but the design of these fighter-bombers is relatively conservative and can no longer meet the needs of HNA for multi-purpose, so HNA hopes to get a heavy multi-role fighter with excellent performance and not very high price to replace J-7A, well, but the Air Force and HNA are now basically two teams, the Air Force uses J-9, then HNA is unlikely to use J-9 Shadow Leopard, so HNA has taken a fancy to the potential of the Flanker, It is hoped that on this basis, an easy-to-use multi-purpose heavy fighter will be developed. ”

Asimolov nodded again and again and asked, "So how many J-16 fighters will China HNA procure?" ”

Xia Gaohong said: "It is conservatively estimated that there are 200 planes, at least one to one replacement with the current flying leopard." ”

Asimolov said excitedly: "Two hundred, this is a big order, at least we won't have to worry about anything in four or five years." ”

Xia Gaohong smiled, patted Uncle Maozi beside him, and said: "It's not that simple, our new fighter is still flying test, and then it will have to pass the review and test of Hainan Airlines before we can determine whether to enter the procurement process." And even if we enter the procurement process, it is not as four or five years as you think, 200 fighters must be delivered within 20 months according to our domestic requirements, and now the Gagarin plant does not have such production capacity, and our production line is bound to expand production capacity. ”

Asimolov was full of ambition after hearing this, because he had not experienced the feeling of doing the tasks assigned by his superiors with such high spirit and serious attitude for a long time, and the work gave people a sense of satisfaction and achievement, and Asimolov was also full of hope for the future.

The technical source of this J-16 prototype is naturally the Red Alert base, and another Chinese copy of the Su-30 and added a lot of its own elements to this fighter. The Red Alert engineers combined a lot of Su-35 features to remake this fighter, making it have better air supremacy and strike capabilities, worthy of the super version of the fourth-generation +++ fighter.

Hainan Airlines' flying leopards, which have been in service for five or six years, have not even reached one-third of their lifespan at this time, but Hainan Airlines has gradually become less interested in these aircraft, and Shanghai Airlines' economic situation has improved, so it hopes to purchase better fighters. Qi Yiming gave HNA this trick, HNA has also localized Tomcats anyway, and it is not a big deal to localize the flanker. That is, some people have some opinions on outsourcing the manufacture of fighter planes to the Gagarin plant, but Qi Yiming laughed at this, saying that now there is not much difference between the Far East and the South Seas, both of which are China's backyards, and they are economically connected and controlled. Moreover, in addition to parts such as the fuselage, a series of various internal parts are made in China, which is no different from domestic manufacturers.

After the production of the J-16 is completed, Qi Yiming also wants to try to push this fighter to foreign markets, and even the five Central Asian countries, the Far East, and Siberia can also be equipped with this aircraft in large quantities in the future. For Russia to want to export their Sukhoi fighters in the future, it is definitely a suppression.