Chapter Ninety-Nine: A Ready-Made Plan

Regardless of whether the country can now afford to equip the cockpit with partial glass displays, the new project will definitely have to use such a cockpit, because that is a hard requirement from the Saudi side.

And as for training pilots for Western third-generation fighters, a cockpit without glass displays would certainly not be accepted by the Pakistanis.

So if this plan is to be realized, the only way is to look abroad and think of other methods. It is now relatively easy to introduce some foreign technologies and equipment, and since this is an export product, bringing in Western technology becomes even less difficult.

Cooperation with Western companies in aviation manufacturing was a very fashionable topic in the nineteen-eighties. Just speaking of the projects that existed before nineteen eighty-three alone, there were quite a few.

A typical example was a batch of J-7 fighters exported by Factory 0132 to Jordan. How many things were altered on those J-7s? Not many. The modifications were focused precisely on the avionics, including radar, radios, head-up displays, and other electronic flight systems.

There was also the JF-9 project at Institute 0603. That project went up and down several times. During that period, 0603 even sent an inquiry to West Germany’s MBB Aerospace, asking whether they were interested in working together. At the time, MBB was overjoyed.

After the war, Germany’s aviation industry was almost ruined; it had entirely lost the experience of complete aircraft manufacture. Now that there was a chance to help build an advanced fighter-bomber together, they were thrilled beyond measure. They did not even ask for the early consulting fee, but hurriedly designed several schemes. Yet by the time those schemes were sent to the Chinese side, the JF-9 project was about to be shelved again, and MBB had to leave disappointed.

But later the JF-9 was restarted. One of the reasons for that restart was that the people at Institute 0603 took MBB’s project proposal and laid it out before their superiors: look, our aircraft technology is advanced; even the aerodynamic shape designed by the Germans is almost exactly the same as ours.

In this way the JF-9 was restarted. Although the Germans no longer took part in the entire development process, the fact that Institute 0603 had consulted MBB in the early stages was undeniable. This showed that, at this time, cooperation between the domestic aviation industry and foreign partners was fashionable, prestigious, and high-end.

After thinking so much, Yang Hui felt it was time to speak. "Chief Engineer Yu, as for this cockpit issue, I think we should still seek help from the West. We can’t handle this ourselves right now. Besides, if we adopt Western avionics, there is still a great convenience to be had."

Without Yang Hui needing to mention the import of Western avionics, everyone would eventually think of it anyway. The only thing still puzzling them was what convenience Yang Hui meant.

After a short silence, it was the professional designers who first figured out what Yang Hui meant. Since they were all working on the J-7, there were many links between Base 0011 and Factory 0132. Not to mention the distant past, even the J-7s produced by the base today owed much to 0132.

Back then, Factory 0132, Base 011, and the factory in Shenyang had all been manufacturing the J-7 together. In the early nineteen-seventies, Base 0011 had already trial-produced the J-7. But because higher authorities ordered mass production of the J-6, the base’s J-7 effort was left unresolved. It was not until the late nineteen-seventies, with help from 0132, that they took up the J-7 again.

So they knew quite a bit about what 0132 had been doing, including the negotiations begun in nineteen eighty to introduce the avionics system from British Marconi. Chief Engineer Yu knew this very well. What Yang Hui was talking about must be that project. Chief Engineer Yu slowly explained the new J-7 avionics program.

“I think the convenience Yang Hui is talking about must refer to the Marconi avionics system introduced by 0132. That project should still be ongoing over there. If nothing goes wrong, they should already have achieved results on the cockpit side of the new J-7 variant. We ought to be able to try moving that avionics suite onto our new aircraft. That is the greatest convenience, isn’t it?”

Who would have thought there was such a good thing? It was truly a blessing from above. If they had such a fine piece of equipment in hand, one major obstacle could almost be said to have been removed. In that case, the progress of the entire new aircraft project would be greatly accelerated. At most, it would take three years to finalize the new model. For a new aircraft, the greatest enemy is time.

In reality, many new aircrafts were dragged down by technical challenges for too long, until a careless delay brought the whole project crashing down. That lesson from the past had to be taken to heart.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. And when the time comes, we may even invite researchers from 0132 to participate in the new aircraft’s development. To be honest, their experience is certainly far richer than ours right now, and it is entirely possible for us to ask them for technical support. They designed the entire cockpit of their new J-7 themselves; Marconi only supplied the system components.”

As for inviting 0132’s researchers to join the development of the new aircraft, that was not impossible at all. Though peers are often rivals, in the years after nineteen eighty-three the new aircraft exported to Jordan had already been completed, and 0132’s research department was actually in a vacuum period with no project in hand.

Why? The reason was simple: the development of the J-7-3 had been snatched away by Institute 0611 next door, so Factory 0132 naturally had little to do. Even if they were called in together to tackle the problem, would 0132 happily work side by side with the institute that had stolen its project? Ridiculous. Of course not.

If Base 0011 came along at that moment and laid the money on the table, the researchers from Factory 0132 would naturally follow Base 0011 to work on the project. It was the same old J-7 improvement work; if the other side was willing to pay handsomely, what could 0611 offer? Add to that the grudge over the stolen project, and if they could work together with 0611 at all, that would be truly strange.

After hearing Yang Hui’s suggestion, everyone was quite interested in it. It was not that these plant and institute leaders from the bases could think as far as Yang Hui did; rather, they held 0132 in very high regard. Look, aren’t the J-7s we are producing now built on technology they provided? So inviting the “teacher” to come and work on a project is perfectly normal, isn’t it? Besides, our new project has money and profit. We will still give them proper compensation, after all.

“Yes, if we can obtain technical support from their side, our project will certainly be much easier. If we split off a little of the work like this, then it won’t count as us eating alone.”

Indeed, as the factory director from Shuangyang said, this was exactly what the old gentleman meant by dividing a few smaller projects among the sister units. It seemed to be very necessary after all.

Thinking of the benefits, Yang Hui felt this was truly a two-birds-with-one-stone move. He encouraged Chief Engineer Yu to seek 0132’s technical support for the cockpit design.

“Chief Engineer Yu, I think that makes perfect sense. We should do exactly that. We are all third-line aviation enterprises in the great southwest, so we ought to help one another. Now that we have a good project, we must not forget our brother units.”

Just listen to how Yang Hui put it: clearly what was needed was technical support from others, yet with a few words he turned it into a spirit of mutual help between brother enterprises, the communist sentiment of never forgetting comrades in hardship when good things come along.

Though Yang Hui’s wording was a little amusing, Chief Engineer Yu was quite in favor of the suggestion. If there is ready-made technology to draw upon, why not make use of it? Could it be that they must stubbornly go off and reinvent everything through technical breakthroughs all over again? Wouldn’t that be foolish?

“Good, I think this method is very reliable. When the time comes, there should be no problem at all for us to go to 0132. I’ll go personally to make the invitation.”

As he said this, he pressed especially hard on the word invite. It seemed Chief Engineer Yu had quite a bit of history with the people at 0132.

Now that Chief Engineer Yu had agreed to the plan, the rest became much easier. They could simply prepare the proposal and bring it forward for review. Of course, that was only one part of aircraft design. If they wanted to build the new aircraft properly and spend up to six hundred million dollars in a truly worthwhile way, there was still another important piece of the puzzle.

The new aircraft’s engine, the so-called heart.

In the future, the issue of engine trouble in the republic’s fighter aircraft would be a notorious long-standing problem, and at present that heart problem had already begun to worsen. How, then, should the new aircraft’s engine be chosen? That was the shadow hanging over everyone’s minds.

“Right now, for most aspects of the new aircraft, we already have a fairly reliable plan. The only remaining problem is the engine. The turbojet-seven currently used on the J-7 obviously cannot meet the needs of the new aircraft. The turbojet-thirteen, which is nearing completion, can barely be used, but in terms of fuel consumption, thrust, and other indicators, it is still far from satisfactory. Using the turbojet-thirteen would still prevent our new aircraft from fully realizing its strength.”