Chapter 887 The Gust of Wind that Returns to the Blue Sky

At the same time Chang Haonan attended the J-11B delivery ceremony.

Air Force Base No. 125, Villaroche, France.

Istres Flight Test Center.

A black fighter jet slowly emerged from the huge temperature-controlled hangar and drove smoothly towards the taxiway.

The aircraft had no visible tactical numbers and no locating markings commonly seen on prototypes.

In addition to the circular emblem of the French Air Force, the French flag and the Dassault logo, only the three characters "C01" on the side of the vertical tail can indicate the identity of this aircraft.

Rafale C is the prototype No. 01 of the mass-produced Rafale.

In fact, this aircraft completed its first flight ten years ago and had already completed all its test tasks.

As long as the Rafale officially enters service, it can be honorably retired together with the earlier Rafale A01 and enter the memorial hall.

But at this critical moment, the twists and turns of the M88 engine project still pulled this ten-year-old comrade out of the hangar——

The M88-2 engine after design modification was replaced and the test flight was carried out again.

And today is the moment it returns to the blue sky.

…

In the flight command center not far away, Serge Dassault was flipping through the test logs in front of him, while glancing at the C01 prototype gliding smoothly past the window out of the corner of his eye.

"To this day, it's hard for me to believe that we actually found Chinese people to solve the problem."

He said in a rather unbelievable tone:

"Judging from the high-altitude platform simulation test and ground installation test, some of the performances of these two M88-2 engines are even... better than the previous solution proposed by General Electric..."

Although Dassault is the head of the company, he is also an engineer, so he does not doubt the rigor of this test log.

I just simply feel that this plot is a bit magical:

"Vesta, I remember you said before that it only took eight months from the time you officially started cooperating with China to the time they came up with this plan?"

Having said this, he raised his head and looked at Ian Vista, who was sitting on a chair not far away.

The latter is a senior engineer of Snecma Group and has participated in the entire process of cooperation projects with China, from negotiation to research and development.

"Strictly speaking, it's 7 months and 23 days."

Vesta shrugged and replied:

"The other engineer named Liu told me that the focus of this version of the M88-2 is to solve design problems that may affect flight safety so that the Rafale C can have an available engine for mass production as soon as possible, so there is no involvement of The overall structure has been extensively modified, and the development and testing processes have gone very quickly. ”

"Then they are quite nice people..."

Dassault continued to flip through the test log, only halfway through, and then stopped:

"You just said that there was no extensive modification to the design...but I saw that the maximum thrust has increased by 100kg compared to before?"

Vista nodded:

"In order to solve specific flight conditions, which are mainly surge problems at low speeds and severe speed changes, it is necessary to optimize the working curve of the compressor. Thrust growth is an incidental result of this process and is not the initial goal."

"And no model's increase target is set in units of 100kg..."

Hearing this, Charles Edelsteiner, who had been standing next to him without speaking just now, interrupted:

“In fact, compared to the maximum thrust on paper, the most obvious improvement of the M88-2 compared to the previous one is in the flight envelope, which almost completely eliminates the previous additional restrictions on the aircraft pitch angle at the flight control level to avoid surge. "

"It seems...the test results so far are very optimistic..."

Dassault closed the logbook on the table in front of him, put one hand in his pocket, and looked at the C01 prototype that had stopped at the end of the runway and was about to turn on the afterburner to take off:

"I hope the flight test goes well as well."

"Otherwise, if we activate the backup plan, we will be in trouble..."

At the edge of the apron, there is another aircraft painted in white and very similar in appearance to the C01.

It is the Rafale A01 prototype that completed its first flight earlier.

It is also the final backup of the entire project——

After the cooperation between Snecma and China was reached, General Electric, realizing that it had lost its money, immediately lobbied Congress and once again approved the export of F404GE400 engines to France.

Therefore, the A01 prototype was also pulled out of the exhibition hall and reorganized as a backup just in case.

If viewed separately, most people may not be able to tell the difference between the two aircraft.

But if you stop them together, it will be easy to see that the Type C, designed around the M88 engine, is a whole circle smaller than the earliest Type A.

Therefore, if we switch back to the F404 engine, we will even need to reincarnate the abandoned A-type airframe.

This workload is huge.

Moreover, as the basic model, the F404GE400 has a maximum thrust of only 7.2 tons, but the A-type body has a greater empty weight than the C-type.

Over and over again, the agility and maneuverability advantages that Rafale hoped to focus on when designing will completely cease to exist.

Therefore, the success or failure of M88 basically determines the success or failure of the entire project.

While the three of them were talking to each other, the C01 prototype on the runway also stabilized its thrust.

Then, release the brake.

The 15.2 tons of thrust pushed the aircraft's nose upward slightly, accelerating lightly on the runway.

Serge Dassault in front of the window clenched his fists almost subconsciously.

Fortunately, it was calm.

The plane reached takeoff speed almost in the blink of an eye. The front and rear landing gears left the ground one after another. The entire plane deflected slightly with the canards and rushed into the sky at a huge angle.

After the test flight work was interrupted for nearly a year due to a "heart attack".

finally.

Another Rafale prototype is back in the sky.

As a limited improvement that has only been partially designed and improved, there is no need to start the test of the M88-2 step by step from scratch.

In addition to some necessary basic items, just make up for the content that failed in the past.

Therefore, several difficult tests were arranged for the first day of test flight.

Such as thrust transient and left boundary operating envelope tests.

These are also two long-standing problems that have plagued the M88 engine before.

Sometimes the flight has been successfully completed on the high-altitude platform, but abnormalities still occur during the test flight.

Although it did not cause any major accidents involving aircraft crashes or fatalities, countless engine parts were damaged as a result.

Even test pilots have figured out a way to shut down the faulty engine and then start it in the air.

It's as good as the F14A.

However, in today's test session, there was no chance to use this "stunt".

At the minimum flight speed at various flight altitudes, the engine's steady-state and transition-state performance is normal.

Serge Dassault, who was sweating a little, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

His thoughts also returned from heaven to earth.

"Vesta."

Dassault turned around and looked back at Ian Vista, who had also stood up at some point:

"I remember you just said that the focus of M88-2 is to solve safety problems."

"It means that there should be more in-depth improved models in the future?"

"That's right."

The latter put one hand in his pocket, half-leaned on the edge of the table next to him, and nodded:

"China showed us a complete three-step plan."

"M88-3 will completely eliminate hidden dangers at the core machine level and restore actual performance to the paper level of M88-1."

"The M88-4 will redesign some components while maintaining the overall structure unchanged, and try to bring out the maximum potential of this core machine structure. As for the specific extent of this... the Chinese people have not said clearly."

After receiving this explanation, Dassault did not answer immediately. Instead, he lowered his head and stared at the cracks in the tiles on the ground, thinking.

"Can't we complete the latter two processes ourselves?"

A few minutes later, he spoke again, confirming to Vesta.

"At least it's difficult to get to M88-3."

Vesta told the truth without hiding anything:

"As for the third step...it depends on how much our design level can be improved in the next few years..."

"Look at it this way."

Dassault paced back and forth in front of the window:

"It seems that we need to come up with some chips to tie up the Chinese people..."