Chapter 192: Diverse Motives

Yang Hui returned to the exhibition booth, waiting to see if any unexpected surprises would arise. Meanwhile, news regarding the new Super-7 project spread rapidly. It would be foolish to assume that since it wasn't yet the second day and newspapers and magazines hadn't been printed, the news wouldn't spread on a large scale.

Which journalist attending the press conference didn't have some connection to the aviation manufacturing industry? Ordinary citizens might have to wait for the newspapers to learn about the Super-7, but specialized companies knew long in advance. For instance, Northrop was in a state of panic right now.

"What is going on? Where did this Super-7 project come from? Why didn't we receive any prior information? Facing this Super-7, we are in an extremely passive position."

The speaker was John, the head of the Northrop delegation attending the airshow. The situation surrounding Northrop's F-20 was already looking rather ominous.

Before coming to the Farnborough Airshow, the F-20 had suffered several major setbacks, leaving it without even a single letter of intent for an order. Initially, the F-20's market was built upon the premise that the United States would not permit the export of the F-16. Ironically, export approval for the F-16 had now been granted.

It had suffered crushing defeats in several competitions against the F-16, and shortly ago, even the order from the mighty superpower that the company had pinned its hopes on had fallen through. Having made its maiden flight back in 1982, the F-20 now found itself in the embarrassing predicament of having no operators, causing immense headaches for Northrop's top management. Consequently, they had invested heavily in promotions at this Farnborough Airshow.

Yet, instead of the anticipated orders, they were greeted by the emergence of a peer competitor, which practically infuriated John. The prospects for the F-20 now looked even grimmer.

It was obvious without thinking that if this Super-7 were successfully developed, it would undoubtedly thrash the F-20 mercilessly. It wasn't that the F-20 would lose to the Super-7 in terms of raw hardware capabilities; on the contrary, the F-20's technology was likely slightly superior to the Super-7's.

However, that was completely useless. Just looking at the production cost alone was enough to make Northrop want to drop to its knees. According to Northrop's projections, the unit cost of the F-20 would likely be no less than ten million dollars. Now, looking at this Super-7, its price would probably top out at six or seven million at most.

Consider the backing behind the two aircraft: within the United States, the F-20 was an unloved stepchild. With the F-16 holding ground above it, the F-20 had absolutely no chance of standing out. On the other hand, the Super-7 appeared to be the Republic's most advanced fighter jet, and John simply could not believe that the military of the Republic would not throw its full weight behind it.

Comparing the two highlighted the stark gap. The exact same light multi-role fighter received vastly different treatment in different countries, leaving Northrop filled with profound emotion.

In truth, Northrop was still bound by its own inherent mindset, constantly fixated on the glorious achievements of its past F-5 fighter and hoping to recapture the glory of the F-5 in a new generation of fighters.

For example, the YF-17, the predecessor of the F-18, followed this exact path. The YF-17 also evolved from the F-5. It had competed in the U.S. light fighter program against the F-16 and suffered a crushing defeat. It barely managed to set sail again by hitching a ride on the Navy's new fighter-attack aircraft program, only to be ruthlessly swallowed up in a backstabbing move by McDonnell Douglas.

Taking the meager hush money McDonnell Douglas paid out like charity to a beggar, a heartbroken Northrop picked up its heirloom F-5 once more. Hoping to capitalize on the window where the U.S. forbade F-16 exports, they tweaked the F-5, swapping out twin engines for a single one, and thus the F-20 was born.

Who could have predicted that heaven has unpredictable winds and clouds? That wretched dog of an F-16 was let loose by the President once again, directly poaching the market the F-20 had already mapped out. Thus, looking at it now, Northrop was truly driven to its death by its domestic teammates in the United States.

The F-5 was heavily modified into the YF-17, which subsequently evolved into the F/A-18, and later further modified into the F/A-18E/F. Today, who would dare to imagine that the Super Hornet and the F-5 shared such a genetic lineage? Similarly, the F-5 was also heavily modified into the F-20. All of this goes to show that heavy modification isn't just something the Chinese do; some people play the heavy modification game even more ruthlessly.

All of that is straying far from the point. Let's return to the main topic. Facing this current situation, John felt quite ominous. With the Super-7 and the JAS-39 blocking the path ahead, and the F-16 hunting from behind, it could truly be described as being cornered on all sides. For the first time, John entertained the thought of abandoning the F-20. Once this dangerous idea sprouted, it began to continuously grow and take root.

To the point where John didn't even have the heart to send his subordinates to investigate the Super-7 any further. A deeply depressed John sat off to the side, eliciting sighs from onlookers. Against such a reality, there was simply nothing that could be done.

Meanwhile, representatives from General Electric were overjoyed. Seeing the depressed state of the Northrop president nearby, they felt for the first time that this red Republic didn't seem quite so evil after all, as at least they had now driven Northrop into a corner.

Perhaps they could make contact with them, provide some assistance to accelerate the Super-7's progress, and hurry up and kill off this annoying F-20, lest it continue to compete with them domestically for the massive National Guard order.

General Electric was well aware that the National Guard had a massive order for over two hundred aircraft, but the National Guard had been using the F-20 to pressure the F-16, hoping to force a price drop on the latter. This greatly annoyed General Electric. You're already a dying entity, yet you still come out to disgust us and ruin our good fortune? You truly deserve a beating and a swift demise.

The enemy of my enemy is a friend. General Electric currently held this exact sentiment, preparing to head back and ponder whether they could actually pull this off. However, would Yang Hui really fall for it and help General Electric eliminate the F-20 early?

One must remember that the F-20 is likewise a light fighter. Once the F-20 was gone to draw the fire, General Electric might concentrate its efforts, turn around, and crush the Super-7 instead, paving the way for the F-16 to roost within the Republic. Such possibilities always had a market domestically, though how it would ultimately develop was beyond Yang Hui's ability to predict.

During the same time window, there was no shortage of people harboring their own secret agendas, and such scenes were playing out constantly at the airshow. At this moment, the Italian company Selenia was similarly hosting a group of yellow-skinned East Asian visitors.

Selenia was a standard European underdog at the time—lacking money while its technology wasn't particularly stellar. For this airshow participation, they had even shared a booth with other companies, making it look utterly shabby. Today marked the first time someone had actually come to their booth to discuss business, which thrilled the Selenia airshow director to no end.

"Oh, so you are in need of an advanced medium-range missile? That is easily arranged. Our company has just such a fine product, perfectly suited for your needs. You can look over our missile catalog; all of these are available for purchase."

They were astonished to see such an extensive catalog, filled with a seemingly vast and comprehensive array of missiles. However, upon carefully examining the parameters, they finally understood why there were so many items on the list. Bloody hell, this was clearly an attempt to swindle an amateur! Did they really have the nerve to drag out this scrap metal just to pad the numbers?

Compared to the massive stockpiles sitting in their own warehouses, these items showed no discernible advancement whatsoever. Some were even inferior to their own. After flipping back and forth through the catalog several times, the legendary Aspide missile was nowhere to be found. Could such a missile not exist?

With a slap, the catalog was tossed onto the table. There was no further need to look at these items. Picking up the cup of coffee on the table, the visitor took a sip, whereupon their facial expression underwent a series of dramatic contortions, taking quite a while to recover.

"Ahem, we have looked over this catalog. To be frank, we already possess items of the same caliber, so these fail to catch our eye. We require a more advanced medium-range air-to-air missile, one comparable to the Sky Flash."

There it was—the visitor had explicitly defined the scope right down to third-generation air-to-air missiles. What more could be said? They simply had to admit they couldn't produce such a thing because they lacked the funds for research and development.

"Regarding that, we truly apologize. We simply do not possess such a third-generation air-to-air missile. At present, internationally, only the United States and the United Kingdom are capable of producing such items."

Naturally, the only course of action was to leave and go check out the British side. As they walked away, they muttered complaints about how Yang Hui could have picked up such unreliable rumors from the grapevine, labeling them utterly untrustworthy.

"What Aspide? We've walked through every Italian company and found no trace of this missile. What a waste of excitement."

Though spoken in a very low voice, the words were still overheard by someone attentive. It turned out this person had come specifically for the Aspide, meaning the door hadn't been completely shut on the matter just yet.