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

The convoy circled the streets of Tashkent for more than an hour before finally arriving at the Chkalov Aircraft Factory in the east of the city.

The lively atmosphere inside the stretched Mercedes-Benz started to become a little heavy the moment it drove into the factory gate.

Through the side window glass, Huai Guomo could clearly see the tall workshops in the factory, the vast runway, and several old-model Ilyushin aircraft parked randomly on the tarmac not far away.

Everything tells the glorious past of Asia's largest aircraft manufacturer.

But as long as you pay a little attention, it is not difficult to see through the decorative flowers and plaques a few pieces of broken glass on the side of the factory building, as well as the weeds growing out of the cracks in the stone slabs on the ground.

Although it has only been a little more than five years since the alliance disintegrated, the general surface level can no longer even cover up the slight dilapidation and desolation that has been revealed here.

The convoy slowly passed a row of IL-62 aircraft in various states. Judging from the condition of the aircraft, no one had maintained them for a long time.

On December 1991, 12, these aircraft may have been sent here for overhaul or upgrade, but everything that followed made them lose their users and were forced to stay in this inland Gobi city forever.

Perhaps noticing Huaiguomo's gaze, Sergei Lozko broke the air that was about to freeze at the right time:

"These are old models that your country is very familiar with. They are outdated today. I will show you some of Ilyushin's latest aircraft later."

The Chinese entourage quickly translated this sentence to Huai Guomo.

The latter was stunned for a moment, and then let out a hearty laugh:

"Okay, then we'll see."

A few minutes later, the mighty motorcade stopped at the door of the No. 2 assembly workshop of the Chkalov Factory——

A large factory with the capacity to produce hundreds of aircraft per year would naturally not be able to put all models in the same place for final assembly, which would make it difficult to improve efficiency.

After getting off the bus, the first thing was a brief welcome ceremony.

As the leader of the Chinese delegation, Huai Guomo naturally had to go through the three-step standard process of shaking hands, speaking, and taking photos.

Finally, I received the bouquet and gifts from the dressed-up Uzbek girl.

The Chkalov Factory obviously put some thought into it.

But his attention was not on that.

I didn't realize it when I looked at it from a distance, but now I can feel the amazing scale of this factory when I see it in front of me.

Although the two assembly workshops are separated by number, the buildings themselves are actually connected together. From Huai Guomo's perspective, the entire production building can be said to be continuous, like a hill.

As the leader of the Science and Technology Commission in charge of the national defense industry, he had naturally seen the aircraft manufacturing factories in China in the past.

But I have to say that arriving here today refreshed his understanding a bit.

Although he had concealed his surprise well, his absent-minded state was still noticed by Lozko.

Fortunately, he just thought that these Chinese soldiers didn't like red tape very much and just wanted to get to the point as quickly as possible, so he didn't think much about it and just motioned to Kucherov next to him to quickly end the process.

When a group of people actually entered the assembly workshop, they felt an unconcealable sense of desolation.

At a glance, more than a dozen semi-finished aircraft with varying degrees of completion were parked on the ground in an orderly manner. In the corner on the other side of the factory were several fuselages and wings that had not yet entered the final assembly process. As for other parts , and machines and equipment are even more difficult to count.

However, only two of the aircraft that looked nearly complete were surrounded by assembly frames, with several workers climbing up and down with tools.

Huai Guomo, who came from a technical position, quickly realized that they were not assembling the aircraft, but only performing necessary maintenance.

As a complex industrial product with a complex structure and an extremely large number of components, the final steps of aircraft assembly are difficult to complete with any automated equipment and are highly dependent on experienced workers.

However, human control of position, especially long-distance position points, is obviously not accurate enough. Therefore, in order to improve the accuracy and efficiency of aircraft assembly, engineers will design based on a model's positioning point position, positioning method, fixation method, shape and other factors. Develop specialized aircraft assembly frames.

For frame-assembled aircraft, without this equipment, the final assembly process is simply impossible.

Obviously, except for the two lucky ones, the other semi-finished products should already be in a semi-abandoned state.

Seeing this scene, Huai Guomo felt his heart bleed.

Although these aircraft may not look big, in terms of quantity, they are almost equivalent to China's entire year's production.

But as he moved forward, the full view of the two planes gradually appeared in his field of vision.

An extremely familiar feeling arises spontaneously.

Huai Guomo frowned, and a model that he had seen in the documents when he was negotiating with the European delegation flashed through his mind.

"Is this thing similar to MA60?"

Huai Guomo turned his head and asked Liang Zhuoping, the chairman of the Aviation Industry Corporation next to him, in Chinese.

You can't blame the former for not having much impression. In fact, before Chang Haonan helped 603 Institute to make major changes to it, which greatly improved its commercial competitiveness, the MA60, or the past Yun7-200A, was basically a small machine. transparent.

And more importantly, before this year, although this model was nominally a dual-use model for both military and civilian use, it was actually managed by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, and the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry took over the full operation in just three months.

Huai Guomo spent more than two months dealing with negotiations.

However, before Liang Zhuoping could answer, Lozko, who was walking at the front, had already arrived next to the plane, turned around and introduced:

"This is an IL-114M that is about to complete final assembly. It has 60 seats and a maximum take-off weight of 21 tons. It can fly 500 kilometers at a speed of 1000km/h when fully loaded and 3.6 kilometers under a commercial load of 2800 tons. The performance is completely comparable to the European ATR42, which is a very good regional airliner... Pay attention to the cables on the ground and don’t fall.”

"In terms of positioning, this model is planned to replace the past An-24, which is the Y-7 transport aircraft produced under your country's license. It also has a certain inheritance relationship with the old model in terms of technical details and flight operations, regardless of the manufacturer. Users can adapt quickly..."

Lozko had clearly done some homework before the trip.

But not much.

He knows that China's civil aviation industry is in urgent need of advanced models. There are a large number of old aircraft such as Y-7 in service on the front line, and the aviation manufacturing industry is also undergoing transformation and upgrading.

As long as this trip can be advanced one year, the IL-114M in front of us will be very attractive to China, which is struggling to even transport the 7-200A.

However, when the MA-60 has already secured an Italian partner and is about to obtain airworthiness certificates from 15 EU countries, it seems a bit inappropriate for you to tell us this again...

"Mr. Lozko."

Taking advantage of the opportunity when the other party finished speaking, Huai Guomo interjected with a complicated mood:

"I thought maybe I should reveal some secrets to you in advance."

"what?"

Clearly, the Russian is fashionable and feels good about himself.

"According to the agreement reached between China and the EU some time ago, the MA-7 passenger aircraft improved by our aviation industry on the Y-60 platform should soon enter the European market, so there may not be much demand for the model you just mentioned. "

After the translator translated the words into Russian, there was silence.

"..."

Lozko suddenly felt a little dizzy.