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- Source/Evidence of Literature and History
- Author/Witness Literary History
As we all know, there are three major aero engine manufacturers in the world, they are General Motors of the United States, Rolls-Royce of the United Kingdom and Pratt Whitney of the United States. And among these three, Rolls-Royce is the leader. But such an "air supremacy" actually in 1973, 50 engines exported to China were shoddy, and the reason for this is to be revealed.
History
The name Rolls-Royce may be unfamiliar to Chinese people, but another translation of Rolls-Royce is familiar: Rolls-Royce.
How powerful this company is, let's mention one thing to know, in today's modern times, no matter what industry knows about anti-monopoly, almost every industry has supporting anti-monopoly measures, but in many areas of aviation, Rolls-Royce is a monopoly. And it's an oligopoly.
The oligarchs are the big monopoly capitalists or groups of monopoly capitalists who control the huge amount of financial capital and actually control the lifeline of the national economy and the state power. This begs the question, why does an engine manufacturer control the lifeblood of the national economy?
Let's take an example to see what Rolls-Royce is in the British economy. In 2020, due to social reasons and a forced Brexit, the UK's domestic income fell by nearly 10%, and Rolls-Royce can be said to be unmoved, and even took out a large amount of social assistance in the context of the industry-wide recession, and then issued 2 billion shares.
First of all, people have gathered all the upstream and downstream industries to truly open up sources and reduce expenditures, and Rolls-Royce also has an identity as an energy development and research company. I believe everyone has heard the saying that energy is the lifeblood of today's world, and Rolls-Royce holds the lifeblood in his own hands.
The second point is that Rolls-Royce also knows that it is good to enjoy the shade with his back against a big tree, and he has never refused the government's invitation to cooperate. At the request of the British government, Rolls-Royce was contracted to develop engines for most of the Allied fighter jets during World War II.
The submarine engines of the British Royal Navy have always been provided by Rolls-Royce, and when Rolls-Royce was in trouble, the British government was willing to participate in the shares in time to pull them along.
Third, the long-term vitality of R&D is the guarantee of Rolls-Royce's success today. Since the founding of Rolls-Royce, the company has always been sensitive in the field of aerospace technology renewal, and has always been a leader in technology. It even once promoted the productivity development of the entire industry.
Connecting with China
On December 26, 1971, Premier Zhou Enlai pointed out at the symposium on the quality of aviation products: "The aviation industry has heart disease, and it is necessary to treat this heart disease." ”
Premier Zhou said that the heart disease is the engine problem. At that time, limited by the level of productivity, Continental's aero engines generally suffered from low thrust, high fuel consumption, low maintainability, and short service life.
On May 19 and May 23, 1972, Premier Zhou and Vice Chairman Ye Jianying listened to the reports of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the reception team twice. In the end, it was decided to purchase the patent for the "Spey" engine.
In fact, before this, the mainland Beijing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics had spent a lot of money to buy test equipment, arranged many internship experiments, and tried to overcome the technical barriers of the "Spey" engine, but unfortunately due to the scientific and technological level and productivity at that time, many times of the experiment ended in failure.
It was very difficult to get this technology from Rolls-Royce, and it would not only cost a huge amount of money, but also face various restrictions on the British side. After all, as mentioned earlier, Rolls-Royce is highly bound to the British government, and this purchase is to study from another regime.
Even if the engine is introduced, a series of projects such as surveying, mapping and imitation, localization, and type improvement will be carried out, and it will take decades and millions of people to participate in this technology before it can truly become the technology of the mainland. Therefore, within half a year from February 1973, China and Britain held five rounds of negotiations on price, quantity, technical services, and assessment conditions.
Due to the enormous restrictions on mainland diplomatic work at that time, coupled with the fact that Britain belonged to NATO at the time, NATO, for ideological reasons, was unwilling to give up technological control over China. So much so that both sides have strong political shackles. Under such circumstances, the difficulty of this negotiation has become very intense, and there are countless people with lofty ideals in front of and behind the stage.
Finally, at the sixth negotiation at the end of 1973, the two sides reached an agreement. The Chinese side bought 50 engines for the British experiment and 100 engines for the flight at a price of 76.79 million pounds. In addition, the British side needs to organize training and send experts to help the mainland solve problems and master technology.
China sent more than 200 engineers to the UK for training, and the UK also sent scientists to China to help master the technology.
slipshod
Quality inspection of engines is not a simple task. It's not like buying transportation in the private sector, just pull it out and run two laps. It's not a knock on it that determines its usability. It was necessary to equip the corresponding test bench, but unfortunately, China at that time had not been able to produce a matching test bench.
Out of concern about quality, the Chinese side requested that the UK sample a few of the 50 experimental engines and re-disassemble, reassemble and re-test them in the UK. It must be approved by the Chinese quality inspector before it can be delivered.
You must know that the amount of work to disassemble a complete engine and inspect the parts one by one is enormous, and as the cutting edge of the aviation field, the sales manager of Rolls-Royce maintains a high degree of confidence in the quality of his brand, so he insists on not allowing the Chinese demands.
In the end, the Chinese side put forward the requirement that the UK had promised to guarantee random inspections of the first batch of products when introducing the products. As a result, the Chinese side immediately signed a quality inspection contract of 800,000 pounds with the British side, and sent a sampling team of 20 experts to the UK in January of the following year.
As the Chinese representative expected, the two engines sampled this time were simply full of loopholes, which made the British side pay a price of far more than 800,000 pounds, and during the observation, the Chinese side learned a lot of technology about engines, which provided conditions for the mainland to overcome the technical barriers of European and American countries in the aviation field.
Today, Rolls-Royce has established a production base in China with a complete production line, and has cooperated in all aspects, and the mainland's aviation industry has flourished thanks to the efforts of countless people, all of which are inextricably linked to the purchase plan in 1973.
Resources
More stories waiting for the engine to be built China Youth Daily 2018(12)
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