The military-industrial scientific research system of the academic master.

While Chang Haonan and engineers from the 14th Institute of Electrical Engineering were busy designing the new FPGA required for the No. pod, they were preparing to conduct ground input and output testing again.

Three time zones away, Tashkent, an oasis city located in the desert area of ​​central Eurasia, is preparing to welcome a group of somewhat special guests——

A high-level delegation from China for arms purchase negotiations.

Of course, there is actually nothing attractive about Uzbekistan itself.

However, the Chkalov Aviation Production Complex, which is connected to the Ilyushin Aviation Group, is located here. At the peak of Big Brother, it could produce more than 70 large transport aircraft every year, as well as a larger number of small and medium-sized transport aircraft or passenger aircraft. .

But now, the factory has not received any decent new orders for nearly two years.

Even several aircraft that had been built before were parked alone in the assembly shop because no one was finishing the work.

In order to retain the idea of ​​reselling these aircraft, the factory even has to regularly spend material and financial resources to maintain them. In fact, it is almost time to untie the pot.

Including the Ilyushin Group itself, the situation is already in danger.

After the last Xiangzhou Air Show, Mikhail Pogosian's proposal to establish a company specifically responsible for the foreign trade of aviation equipment quickly gained unanimous approval among several major aviation industry companies in Russia.

Therefore, in January 1997, United Aviation Technology Export Co., Ltd. of the Russian Federation was formally established.

Among them, the ones with the most say are naturally the Sukhoi Group, which initiated this matter, and the Miri Moscow Helicopter Factory, which has made a fortune in recent years.

The first thing Ilyushin Group did after joining as a launch member was to quickly invite a Chinese delegation to visit the Chkalov factory.

Sergey Lozko, who had been to Xiangzhou last year as the leader of the accompanying security team and has now been promoted to the director of the group's marketing department, is very aware of the other party's current needs.

In the civilian field, judging from its operations in the past six months or so, China is obviously preparing to break away from the US aviation industry system that it has been considering in the past, and instead plans to develop a new set of things on its own.

In the military field, they are also facing tremendous pressure from their old rivals on the other side of the ocean. They urgently need to change the state of relative armament in the past ten years and quickly build an army with acceptable combat capabilities.

Moreover, Chinese people are not the kind of people who can only see everything in front of them. They are more accustomed to calculating the long term, so there will also be a demand for some technologies and equipment that "may not be useful for the time being, but will definitely be useful in the future."

These are all opportunities for the troubled Ilyushin Group.

Lozko is not the only one keeping an eye on the delegation.

According to the agreement during the assembly of the aviation export company, other major participating members such as Tupolev, Sukhoi, Kamov, and Yakovlev also sent representatives to accompany them, ready to see if there were any opportunities that could be missed.

In addition, the mayor of Tashkent, Shokaiti Mirziyoyev, also joined the queue to pick up the plane with his own team.

Before the alliance was disbanded, the Chkalov Aviation Factory was almost the pillar industry of the entire city and even Uzbekistan at that time, making a huge contribution to the local economic development.

As the number of orders has plummeted in recent years, the local economy has also been directly affected.

Therefore, the latter also hopes to keep some orders from China locally. Even if not talking about profits and taxes, it can at least solve part of his urgent employment problem.

The two people have common aspirations in this regard.

But that’s where it ends.

As a senior executive of the Ilyushin Group, Lozko knows very well that it is impossible to leave aircraft manufacturing capabilities in an uncontrolled place for a long time. In the long run, new production lines must be established in Russia. Today, taking orders is just to maintain The Chkalov plant only has experienced workers and engineers. Once the situation improves and the new plant is built, most of the production capacity and even employees will be taken away.

Mirziyoyev, who represents local forces, certainly does not want to see such a situation. He hopes to keep Ilyushin's production capacity in Tashkent.

The two bedfellows waited on the tarmac of Tashkent International Airport for about twenty minutes with the pick-up team, and finally saw a large, four-engine wide-body passenger plane emerging from the light clouds and descending slowly.

"Il-86?"

Standing behind Lozko, Kucherov, the director of the Chkalov Factory, was the first to recognize the model of the aircraft:

"And it should be a new aircraft just delivered to Voronezh the year before last. The wings and the front and rear sections of the fuselage are all manufactured by our factory."

Mirziyoyev, who was standing nearby, was attracted by these words and looked here, and blurted out in surprise:

"After 91, have you ever delivered new aircraft to China?"

Obviously, his knowledge of the situation at the Chkalov Plant was limited to the surface, and he had no idea what had happened in the past few years.

In fact, Mirziyoyev was originally an important member of the open and liberal factions after the disintegration of the alliance. Although he once worked as a mechanical engineer, he has been out of technical positions for a long time. In addition, he has just taken office, so he is not so Knowing the current situation of the factory is understandable.

But this still made Director Kucherov frown slightly unhappy.

After 91, the Chkalov Factory and the Ilyushin Group broke away from the relationship of affiliation and turned to cooperation. As the director of the factory, he naturally became the focus of the struggle between the two parties just mentioned.

Both sides hope to win his support, and the unintentional question just made obviously made the local faction lose a lot of points in Kucherov's heart.

Lozko naturally would not miss this opportunity, and replied calmly from the side:

"Yes, in 92, China's Beijiang Airlines purchased three IL-3 aircraft from us. At that time, in order to solve the livelihood problems of several manufacturing plants, some parts were specially distributed to Kazan and Tashkent for manufacturing. This should be one of them.”

In fact, the Il-86 was first completely produced by the Voronezh factory, but the scale of the factory was relatively small. When preparing to upgrade equipment to manufacture a newer generation of Il-80 passenger aircraft in the late 96s, a considerable part of the production capacity of parts was transferred Arrive at Meletz PZL factory and Chkalov factory.

"The fact that they specifically chose to come on this plane should be a signal of goodwill."

Lozko straightened his suit and looked up at the passenger plane that had landed in the distance and was about to enter the taxiway, with an excited look on his face:

"We must seize the opportunity. This time I have talked with Minister Vladkov of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations. As long as the price offered by the Chinese is sincere enough, he will not set the price for the Chkalov factory's products. Exit threshold.”

A few minutes later, the IL-2016 numbered B86 stopped steadily in front of everyone.

The first person to come down the gangway was a general who looked to be of a certain age.

It was Huai Guomo who had previously completed the negotiations with the EU delegation with Chang Haonan.

Most of the delegation members following him were also wearing military uniforms.

Lozko, who was already prepared, took the lead to greet him:

"Welcome to you, I am the head of delegation of United Aviation Technology Export Company, Sergey Lozko, and the director of the marketing department of Ilyushin Group."

"Huai Guomo, deputy director of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense in charge of foreign military technical cooperation."

The two parties spent a few minutes getting to know each other, and then boarded a convoy arranged by Tashkent locals and prepared to go to the Chkalov Aircraft Factory.

As the main large aircraft production base before the disintegration of the alliance, aircraft of the size of the Il-86 can actually take off and land directly there.

But Mayor Mirziyoyev played a little trick.

He planned to take the Chinese delegation to look at other valuable places in the city on the way.

If the other party is willing to invest, that's even better.

Even if he wanted to buy it directly, he could offer a relatively low price.

You can also make a fortune from it.

However, this plan obviously did not take into account the identity of the delegation members.

The Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense is not responsible for commercial affairs. Moreover, China in 1997 was not like twenty years later. It really had no spare money for foreign investment.

It just so happened that Huai Guomo, the person in charge of China this time, had a technical background and had a lot in common with Lozko, who was also an engineer.

Therefore, Mirziyoyev did not even have much chance to intervene in the conversation of the other two people on the way to the destination.