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

Faced with Liu Yongquan's explanation, Ian Vista fell silent for a moment.

After all, what the former said makes sense.

We need to improve performance without compromising reliability or increasing costs and man-hours...

How can you get all the good things?

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

After all, the French navy and air force are limited in size, and they don't actually need that many Rafales.

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

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

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

Even if the price goes up a bit, as long as the performance is comparable, the overall advantage is still huge...

however.

Money, after all, is only one aspect.

The world is a material one. Just because you have money doesn't mean that engines can grow out of thin air on the production line.

The problem still lies in working hours.

As a veteran who has been immersed in the field of aero engines for most of his life, Vesta is certainly not just a talker.

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

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

It will take at least 3-4 times as long as before to process each leaf.

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

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

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

Of course, if this is only the case with the M88-3 engine, then it is not unacceptable.

Anyway, the installation process is just a gust of wind, so it doesn't matter if it's slow.

But as Liu Yongquan said just now.

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

That is the driving force behind Dassault's business jets and even the possible future regional jet product line.

The demand is slightly higher.

Moreover, the civil aircraft market is an open, or at least semi-open, competitive field.

If there is a real delay in delivery, it is not something that can be forgiven by drinking three cups of wine as punishment as a military aircraft.

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

For a moment, Vesta was in a dilemma.

but……

He soon realized that there seemed to be nothing to worry about.

Because the design process is now controlled by others.

Although Snecma claims to be a partner, it actually has little say.

Moreover, when the M88-3 index requirements were proposed, there was no mention of working hours.

Dassault has already built a number of Rafale C aircraft, which are eagerly waiting to be installed with engines and delivered.

Whether from the perspective of contract provisions or the actual situation, there was no possibility for him to reject this design.

No choice.

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

"Mr. Vesta."

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

The person who spoke 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... or at the latest by February next year, so that we can start the next stage of design work..."

"?"

Upon hearing this request, Vesta, who had just managed to calm herself down, was shocked:

"wait wait wait."

He quickly stopped Liu Yongquan:

"Today is already... November 11th."

Vesta pointed to the watch on his wrist and said with a look of astonishment:

"After we go back, we still have to sort out the data, verify the process, organize production... We can only conduct testing after the quality is stabilized. There is also Christmas in the middle. How can we get the test results in such a short time?"

"Well……"

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 quite confident that the next step of design does not really have to wait until the test is completed.

The reason I said that just now was just to increase the strength of Snecma.

However, Liu Yongquan did forget about Christmas, as he was thinking that the end of January was right before the Spring Festival.

Kind of embarrassing.

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

"Then...according to your estimation, when will this round of testing be completed?"

In fact, from a technical perspective alone, component installation testing can also be done directly in China.

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

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

"Probably... we can try to complete all the projects before June next year."

"..."

This answer made Liu Yongquan laugh:

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

"According to Dassault's plan, the first prototype of Falcon Z is to make its maiden flight in 2003. If the test of a hot end component is delayed until June next year, how will you ensure that you can provide Dassault with the SeA2003 engine for the maiden flight before the end of 650?"

"This……"

Vesta was a little 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 complicated design.

Now facing the issue of construction period, I am really sweating.

Liu Yongquan naturally pressed on:

"In addition, if a breach of contract is caused by this, will the liquidated damages be borne solely by Snecma?"

"..."

The atmosphere, which was harmonious a few minutes ago, suddenly became a little tense because of this sentence.

For a moment, the conference room was so quiet that only Vesta's heavy breathing could be heard.

The old man hadn't had a good rest to begin with, and he had just managed to perk himself up before the meeting began. Now he was stimulated by this and actually felt a little dizzy.

Liu Yongquan, who was sitting opposite, also noticed that Vesta's body was shaking slightly, and his heart sank suddenly. He thought, maybe I was too angry just now and made the old man faint...

Fortunately, the latter soon opened his eyes again:

"The time required to complete the process from the blueprint to the product is determined by the specific design. Since the solution you proposed is so complicated, it is normal for us to spend more time preparing for the test..."

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

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

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

So Liu Yongquan decided to delete the rest of the script and fast forward to the part where the real plot was revealed:

"Well, Dr. Vista."

He deliberately pretended to be "I really can't do anything to you":

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

"Of course, according to the agreement, we will still provide the process technology information related to production. If you want to reorganize production and testing by yourself later, we will not interfere."

Vesta frowned slightly.

This plan sounds like the best of both worlds.

The test itself doesn’t actually take that long, and if samples are readily available, it shouldn’t be difficult to get the results before the end of the year.

The research and development of the SeA series engines will not be affected.

As for Snecma's production, it can proceed as planned, without having to rush to match China's efficiency.

But somehow, he felt like something was wrong.

"So... do you have any ready-made samples?"

Vesta decided to confirm a few more details.

"No."

Liu Yongquan shook his head:

"We have already used up all the samples we produced previously when we tested them ourselves."

Vesta thought to himself, you must be kidding me. If you don’t have ready-made ones, you will have to produce them again, which means you save the time of process verification.

However, before he could think of what to say, Liu Yongquan had more 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 full life cycle issues, one month should be enough."