Chapter 956 We Will Provide the Samples

Faced with Liu Yongquan's explanation, Ian Vesta fell silent for a while.

After all, what the former said makes sense.

We need to improve performance, but not reduce reliability, and not increase costs and working hours...

How can you take all the good things?

And compared with the first two, it seems that the third point is indeed a relatively unimportant thing.

After all, the French Navy and Air Force are limited in size, and they don't actually need many Rafales.

This leads to the fact that in the quotations of the first few batches of products, the allocated R&D expenses actually account for the majority, and the production costs are only a small part.

Therefore, the increased cost of engine manufacturing is not reflected in the price of the whole machine.

Not to mention, the bare machine price of Rafale is almost only about 60% of its competitor Typhoon.

Even if the price is slightly higher, as long as the performance can keep up, the overall advantage is still great...

However.

Money is only one aspect after all.

The world is material. It doesn't mean that if you have money, the engine can grow out of thin air from the production line.

The problem still lies in the working hours.

As a veteran who has been immersed in the field of aeroengines for most of his life, Vesta is naturally not just a paper talker.

On the contrary, he actually came from a factory and has a very clear understanding of the production process.

As for the design shown on the PPT now, compared with the simple fan-shaped air film hole used on the M88-2, the processing difficulty is not at the same level at all.

It takes at least 3-4 times as long to process each blade.

It is equivalent to the production capacity directly becoming about 30% of the past.

This does not take into account the problem of reduced yield rate caused by complex processing.

In actual operation, it is not an exaggeration to directly reduce it by an order of magnitude.

Of course, if it is only the M88-3 engine, it is not unacceptable.

Anyway, the installation object is only a gust, so it is slower.

But as Liu Yongquan said just now.

In the future, the SeA series engines will also use this hot end design.

That is the power of Dassault's business jets and even the regional passenger aircraft product line that may appear in the future.

The demand is still slightly larger.

Moreover, the civil aircraft market is an open, or at least semi-open competition area.

If there is a delay in delivery, it is not like the military aircraft where you can just drink three cups of wine as punishment.

The penalty for breach of contract must be at least a large one...

For a while, Vesta was in a dilemma.

But...

He soon realized that he seemed to have nothing to worry about -

because the design process is now controlled by others.

Snecma said it was a partner, but in fact it had little say.

And when the M88-3 index requirements were mentioned before, there was no mention of working hours.

Dassault has many Rafale Cs that have already built the body and are waiting for the engine to be installed and delivered.

Whether from the perspective of contract provisions or the actual situation, he has no possibility of rejecting this design plan.

No choice.

If it doesn't work, he can only consider expanding the scale of the factory.

"Mr. Vesta."

At this moment, the voice from the other side finally woke Vesta up from his thoughts.

The speaker was naturally Liu Yongquan:

"Now, we have introduced the main performance of the high and low pressure turbines after the upgrade. Next, in order not to delay the development schedule of these two engines, we hope that you can complete all installation tests by the end of this year... at the latest before February next year, so that we can start the next stage of design work..."

"?"

Hearing this request, Vesta, who had just barely convinced himself to calm down, was shocked at the time:

"Wait... wait."

He quickly stopped Liu Yongquan:

"Today is already... November 19th."

Vesta pointed to the watch on his wrist and said with a ghostly expression:

"After we go back, we still have to sort out the information, verify the process, organize production... and wait until the quality stabilizes before we can test it. And there is also a Christmas in the middle. How can we get the test results in such a short time?"

"Hmm..."

In fact, this air film cooling solution was proposed by Chang Haonan after all, and it has been tested at the component level, so Liu Yongquan is still relatively confident that the next step of design does not really have to wait until the test is completed before it can start.

The reason why I said that just now was just to strengthen Snecma.

However, Liu Yongquan did forget about Christmas, and thought that the end of January was just before the Spring Festival.

A bit embarrassing.

However, at this critical moment, you can't swallow back what you said, and you can only continue to act according to the script:

"Then... According to your estimate, when will this round of testing be completed?"

In fact, from a technical point of view, the component installation test can also be done directly in China.

However, Snecma is the de facto "Party A" after all, and it has to check it out, so it specifically stipulates the ownership of each test in the contract.

Vesta did not respond immediately, but bowed his head and pondered for a moment.

"Probably... We can strive to complete all projects before June next year."

"..."

This answer made Liu Yongquan laugh directly:

"Dr. Vesta, let's not talk about M88-3 for now."

"According to Dassault's plan, the first prototype of Falcon Z will fly for the first time in 2003. If the test of a hot-end component is delayed until June next year, how are you going to ensure that it will be delivered to Dassault before the end of 2003? Provide the SeA650 engine for the first flight?”

"this……"

Vista was speechless.

When the SeA series engine development plan was finalized, the hot-end development work was completely handed over to China, so he never expected that the other party would come up with such a complex design.

Now that we are facing the construction deadline issue, I am really sweating.

And Liu Yongquan is naturally pressing forward step by step:

"In addition, if a breach of contract is caused as a result, will Snecma bear the liquidated damages alone?"

"..."

The atmosphere that was harmonious a few minutes ago suddenly became a little anxious because of this sentence.

For a moment, the conference room was quiet and only the sound of Vesta's slightly heavy breathing could be heard——

The old man didn't get much rest to begin with. He just managed to cheer up before the meeting started. Now that he was so excited, he actually felt a little dizzy.

Liu Yongquan, who was sitting across from him, also noticed that Vista's body was shaking slightly, and his heart sank suddenly. He thought to himself that I might have made the old gentleman faint because of my excessive firepower just now...

Fortunately, the latter quickly opened his eyes again:

"The time required for this process from the drawing to the product is determined by the specific design. The plan you came up with is so complex, so naturally we need to spend more time preparing for testing. This is normal..."

Seeing that everything seemed to be normal in Vista, Liu Yongquan finally breathed a sigh of relief.

However, he didn't dare to use too much force.

If the other party is angry to death in China, it will undoubtedly not be a good thing for both parties.

Therefore, Liu Yongquan temporarily decided to delete the remaining parts of the script and fast-forward directly to the most visible part:

"So be it, Dr. Vesta."

He deliberately acted like "I really can't do anything to you":

"We at Huaxia Aviation Industry Group can provide a complete set of finished turbine parts required for installation testing. You can directly start the testing process after you take them back, and then feedback the results to us."

"Of course, in accordance with the agreement, we will still provide production-related process and technical data. If you later want to reorganize production and testing yourself, we will not interfere."

Vista frowned slightly.

This solution sounds like the best of both worlds.

The test itself actually doesn't take long, and if the samples are readily available, it won't be difficult to get the results out by the end of the year.

The development of SeA series engines will also not be affected.

As for Snecma's production, it can proceed as planned, and there is no need to hurry up or slow down in order to match China's efficiency.

But somewhere, he just felt like something was wrong.

"So...do you have a ready-made sample in hand?"

Vesta decided to confirm a few more details.

"No."

Liu Yongquan shook his head:

“We have already used all the previously produced samples during our own testing.”

Vesta thought to herself, "I'm afraid you're kidding me. If we don't have a ready-made product, wouldn't we have to re-produce it, which would save us the time of process verification?"

However, before he could think of what to say, Liu Yongquan had something else to say:

"However, we can guarantee to produce a complete set of new samples within ten days, which will give you at least a month."

"Considering that this round of testing does not involve the issue of the full life cycle,... one month should be enough."