Rebirth of the 1980s: The Military Industry Empire

The safety of passenger planes is extremely important. A single accident could ruin an entire brand. Therefore, in the early stages of passenger plane development, imported engines were necessary.

If one direction doesn't work, another will. If the Americans don't support us, we can build a good relationship with Europe and use European engines to support the initial commercial operation of the Y-10.

"President Qin, our own WS-8 turbofan engine is also under development, and the progress is quite good," said Old Ma.

"Good, then continue to develop it. Once it's mature, install it on military aircraft first to accumulate enough flight hours before expanding into the civil aviation sector. Don't even think about equipping our own domestically produced engines on civilian airliners within the next ten years."

Old Ma was stunned for a moment, then understood: "President Qin, we'll listen to you."

Purchasing European engines serves two purposes: one is to give a portion of the profits to the Europeans, allowing them to benefit from the development of the Y-10; the other is to ensure the better development of the Y-10, avoiding reputational damage due to engine failures. Domestically produced engines, after all, are not reliable enough. Military use is acceptable, but civil use requires extreme caution.

In later generations, the same approach was taken with the C919 and C929. In fact, suitable domestic engines were already available, but imported engines were still planned, giving profits to foreign manufacturers, which was criticized by some as being 'strangled by the engine.' But that era is long gone.

Times have changed. Foreign manufacturers are also afraid of the rise of Eastern aviation industry, which would cause them to lose market share. So, they still wouldn't issue airworthiness certificates. Now, if someone says the East can build advanced passenger planes, who would believe it?

While relations with the West are good, secure the airworthiness certificates to prepare for the Y-10 to fly all over the world in the future.

"Next, the Europeans will send the materials, and we will use our hydraulic press to form the landing gear. We need to learn as much as possible and see what their techniques are, then apply them to our blanks," Qin Yang continued to arrange.

We also don't understand the production process of large aircraft landing gear and main beams. Now, we are providing equipment for foreign customers to process, and we can learn the process along the way. Perhaps, for convenience, customers will simply place the production of landing gear here in the future, which would be easier to promote.

Our passenger planes use the same engines and landing gear as Airbus! But our prices are lower!

"Yes," Old Ma nodded.

With this matter settled, Qin Yang was also very tired. As he was about to go back to rest, he casually asked: "How is the development of our AWACS aircraft going?"

"AWACS? It should be ready for its maiden flight."

Although Israelis had seen AWACS aircraft with mushroom-shaped radar domes at the flight test center before, it was just an empty shell at the time. After all, the development of AWACS aircraft takes a long time and cannot be done in a short period.

And now, the AWACS aircraft has finally completed assembly and is about to take its maiden flight!

Qin Yang was full of anticipation: "Really? That's great! I have to go see it."

"President Qin, wait a few days until you've finished negotiating the contract with the Germans, and our AWACS aircraft is also ready for its maiden flight. Then we'll invite you over."

"Okay."

To send our own AWACS aircraft into the sky in the 1980s, what a remarkable achievement! The Air Force is finally about to solve another shortcoming!

With fighters, AWACS, and air-to-air radar, the skies of the motherland will become indestructible!

A few days later, at the flight test center.

The modified airborne early warning aircraft was quietly parked on the tarmac, bathed in the golden morning sun, surrounded by a large group of people, extremely excited.

The entire aircraft looks very similar to the E-3, both being large four-engine passenger planes with a mushroom-shaped radar dome on its back, looking very beautiful. Below the nose, four large red characters were painted: "Air Guard 2".

Seeing this designation, Qin Yang was stunned: "Air Guard 2, who came up with that?"

There are still more than ten years before the new millennium, but many pieces of equipment have begun to lean towards the 2000 designation. For example, Dassault's Mirage 2000. When it came to the twin-engine heavy fighter, it was difficult to come up with a designation, so they simply doubled it and called it Mirage 4000.

The tank jointly developed by China and Pakistan is also called MBT2000, facing the 21st century. Therefore, our AWACS aircraft can of course be called Air Guard 2000. How domineering!

"Okay, then it'll be called Air Guard 2000," Old Lin nodded. It's just a name, no need to insist. Besides, Air Guard 2000 does seem more domineering than Air Guard 2.

At this time, a large number of technicians were still busy inside, doing various tests before takeoff.

"I'm embarrassed to go up there. Everyone is busy," Qin Yang grumbled.

"President Qin, you're here?" Just then, a female engineer came down from inside and excitedly called out when she saw Qin Yang.

"Engineer Zhang? How is it going?" Qin Yang was also excited to see Zhang Yue.

"Yes, it's almost ready," Zhang Yue said. "Wait another ten minutes, and it should be able to take off."

"Can I go up and participate in the maiden flight?"

"No!" Several voices spoke at the same time.

The maiden flight is dangerous. Even though the Y-10 with the radar dome has flown many times, it was just an empty shell. Even with ballast, it couldn't simulate the real situation. This time, the radar has to rotate and check the system matching. What if something goes wrong?

Qin Yang can't go up there. If something happens, no one can bear the responsibility!

"Okay, after the maiden flight returns, I'll go up and enjoy it. By the way, how is our post-processing circuit arranged?"

"We purchased four servers from IBM, the latest RISC architecture," Zhang Yue said. "Only this kind of computer can meet the data processing needs of our AWACS aircraft."

Currently, China's computer level is still at a disadvantage. This is still waiting for Qin Yang to promote. It can't be taken care of for the time being, so we can only purchase from abroad.

In fact, military computers have their own separate models, but these are too expensive and cannot be bought. We can only buy civilian products. Compared to military computers, its computing power is excellent. As long as the anti-interference shielding is done well, it is the best equipment.

"Our AWACS aircraft can search for high-altitude targets at a distance of more than 500 kilometers, and low-altitude targets can also achieve a search distance of 300 kilometers. It can also process data for more than 200 targets simultaneously, track 60 of them, and guide 10 of our fighters to fight at the same time," Zhang Yue continued to introduce these data.

The basic parameters have reached the level of the E-3. Of course, there is still a big gap compared with the phased array radar AWACS of later generations, but for the Air Force, it is already a very powerful existence.

"Very good, my post will be on the AWACS aircraft from now on," Old Lin nodded.