Of course.
These things couldn’t be said outright.
That was how Zhang Gangchuan understood it, yet what he never expected was that Zhao Yi would actually be able to stop the airplane design work and co up with a design so stunning it impressed the group’s senior managent and the military.
He hadn’t attended that eting and didn’t know how advanced the Warhawk-1 was; however, from the subsequent support for the WZ-A1 from the group’s executives, he knew that their minds had been completely changed.
Yet, Zhang Gangchuan still believed that the tuning of the WZ-A2 prototype was more important and was the most core work.
Even if it was an astonishing fighter jet design, it was still just a design. Who knows how long it would take to build, and even then, most high-end designs would, for various reasons, end up only on paper.
The WZ-A1 engine was too cutting-edge, with many designs and demands exceedingly high. Even if you "patched" together the components and assembled them into an engine, tuning would reveal nurous problems, and so might be insoluble.
But the WZ-A2 engine was different.
By modifying many of the high-end requirents in the design, the difference between WZ-A2 and WZ-A1 was significant, lacking any design that far exceeded manufacturing capabilities, so naturally, there wouldn’t be any large problems of ’unmanufacturability’.
Once tuning of the WZ-A2 engine was finished, it could be fitted into the J-20 fighter jet. Even if it was assembled on the J-15 again, it would be sufficient to support the group’s continued investnt, striving for mass production of the WZ-A2 engine.
The WZ-A2 engine had a broad future!
As for the WZ-A1...
"How long do you think it will take for them to achieve their first test flight?" Zhang Gangchuan pondered and asked Zhou Kai.
Zhou Kai sneered and said, "What do I think? Three years, four years? Maybe they won’t even complete it. It’s still a long way off. Our Kunlun took two years and ’Number 1’ is so high-end..." He suddenly thought better of committing to a tifra and changed tack, "But Academician Zhao is genuinely capable, perhaps so obstacles can be overco."
"So, three years? If they can reach that point in three years, that would be really impressive. That design is truly beyond imagination!"
"It could also be faster, for instance, if we complete the first phase of tuning, send a small team over..."
Zhang Gangchuan nodded as he listened and continued to ask, "What about us?"
"A year should be enough!" Zhou Kai said confidently, "We have experience, just that the technical staff are sowhat insufficient, after all, the WZ series wasn’t designed by us."
Zhang Gangchuan nodded and said, "Not our design, but when it cos to engine tuning, we are the most professional. One year... I think it could be done even sooner, perhaps in just ten months?"
"Let’s hope so, anyway, we’ll do our best!"
"Do our best!"
...
As the Kunlun engine team invested themselves into the WZ-A1 prototype tuning, the Warhawk engine team had also completed the assembly of the WZ-A1.
The assembly of the WZ-A1 took longer than expected.
The reason was Zhao Yi.
Zhao Yi’s plan was to get involved in the tuning at the factory after the assembly of the prototype was complete. But after Forbes exposed his wealth, and he beca the subject of jokes by acquaintances and inundated with a ss of trouble, he simply arrived at the factory ahead of ti.
Once he got there, he realized that coming early was quite the right decision.
During the assembly of the prototype, Zhao Yi found many problems. For instance, the oil pipeline of the first combusting chamber delivered was made too narrow, not a huge difference and hard to tell with the naked eye, but a fuel delivery test showed the discrepancy clearly after so ti.
This was not a big issue.
The biggest problem Zhao Yi found was that of two turbine blades shattering. Since the manufacturing requirents were quite strict, the turbine blades were moulded in one piece. The densely packed channels within the blades could easily cause quality issues, and the factory’s inspection couldn’t possibly be so ticulous. Fortunately, the parts delivered included extras, so replacing two turbine blades was easy.
Though most of the problems found were minor, a collection of minor issues in an assembled prototype could be enough to stop the initial tests from running smoothly.
Once all the parts’ issues had been addressed, the reassembled engine still faced many problems, mainly the coordination between components. Since the actual performance of the manufactured parts differed from the original design, and each varied, it led to coordination problems.
After the prototype was assembled and ready for testing, Zhao Yi walked around the engine and suddenly said, "Take down the compressor."
"Huh?"
The surrounding engineers were stunned.
Zhao Yi continued, "Take it down when I say take it down."
The others didn’t know what was going on, but the engineers still felt that taking down the compressor was right, and by the ti it was removed, it was already afternoon, aning the day’s planned tuning could definitely not be completed.
After the compressor had been removed, Zhao Yi asked soone to disassemble a supercharging blade and use a slted original tal material to plug the blade’s internal channels, carefully polishing it again before reinstalling it onto the engine.
This series of operations was baffling to the onlookers.
Zhao Yi explained, "I thought about it carefully, the performance index of the compressor is still too high, it might place pressure on the exhaust channels. If it’s at a high power point, there’s a risk of surge."
"A surge, that serious?"
A surge is when the internal pressure is too great, directly opening the relief valve and causing a large amount of high-pressure, high-temperature air to rush into the exhaust channels, leading to damage.
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