Back in 1978, I was admitted to Northwestern Polytechnical University.

Chapter 180 Sonic Cruiser

Outside the Y-10, a group of reporters had gathered, watching the Boeing experts examine the Y-10 closely. After Steiner got off the plane, he stood in front of the reporters and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, here I solemnly declare that the Y-10 is not a copy of any Boeing aircraft. It is the result of ten years of hard work by the East!"

Mr. Ma was incredibly excited. "Great! The Boeing vice president has spoken. Who else dares to slander us? From now on, if anyone says that the Y-10 is a copy of the Boeing 707, we'll shut them up with the Boeing vice president's words!"
Thanks to Qin Liang, he paved the way for the Y-10!

Sunlight shone on Qin Liang, giving him a golden halo. He looked at everything with a smile. His trip to the United States was almost over. The visit to General Electric was just a cursory glance. They wouldn't show us their top-notch aero-engine technology.

However... Boeing can still be fooled a bit.

In the conference room.

"The civil aviation market is huge, and we at Boeing welcome the Y-10 from the East to enter this market and create an era of fierce competition!" Steiner said.

The Y-10 is still an outdated four-engine passenger plane, while under their impetus, intercontinental passenger planes are about to enter the twin-engine era. Therefore, even if the Y-10 is built, it will not be competitive in the market! No matter how much the Spey is modified, it is impossible to generate 20 or 30 tons of thrust. Without first-class engines, the East will not have first-class passenger planes.

Therefore, they are not worried about the threat posed by the Y-10 at all.

"Thank you for the compliment, colleagues!" said Mr. Ma. "We will continue our efforts and strive for further development..."

Mr. Ma was just being polite, but Steiner had already realized something: "You have new passenger plane plans?"

"Ahem, well..." Old Ma was a little embarrassed. He was just being polite, why did you all take it so seriously?

"That's for sure. We believe that current passenger aircraft designs are too conservative and outdated. Northwestern Polytechnical University, in collaboration with Shanghai Aircraft Factory, plans to conduct entirely new research and development on the second passenger aircraft!"

What new passenger plane? I don't know! Old Ma stared at Qin Liang with wide, surprised eyes.

"Ahem, Mr. Ma, I'm sorry, since you disagree, I won't say anything more..."

The Boeing employees were somewhat disappointed.

“Mr. Ma, we are all in the same industry, and we should communicate more with each other! I heard that you plan to apply for an FAA airworthiness certificate for the Y-10. Please rest assured, we will help you.”

What help? It's more like a threat! If you don't tell us, we'll make things difficult for you later!
Old Ma smiled awkwardly: "Since that's the case, Liangzi, just say it!"

Qin Liang nodded: "Traditional passenger planes are generally single vertical tail, low-wing monoplanes with large sweepback, and two or four engines mounted on them. We won't talk about the crappy ones with engines mounted on the vertical tail. The advantage of this type of aircraft is that it is fuel-efficient, but the disadvantage is... that it is too slow!"

Most passenger planes have a cruising speed of around Mach 0.8. Even with the use of supercritical wings in later passenger planes, the speed only increased to around Mach 0.9, which is too slow!
"So how do you plan to design it?" Dick Taylor's eyes lit up. "Is it a supercritical wing?"

"No, no, the speed of the supercritical wing isn't enough either. We need to completely transform the aircraft's shape!" Qin Liang said, standing up and walking to the whiteboard in the conference room to begin drawing. A twin-tail canard configuration, forward-mounted winglets, a blended delta wing main wing, and two high-thrust engines integrated with the wings—it looked very futuristic.

"Is this shape... meant to reduce transonic air resistance?" Dick Taylor asked.

"Yes, this aircraft doesn't have an official codename yet. We call it the Sonic Cruiser. The purpose of this design is to reduce transonic air resistance. The design speed is around Mach 1, which is 200 kilometers per hour faster than ordinary passenger planes. From our capital to New York, it can shorten the journey by two and a half hours compared to existing passenger planes..."

Long flights are tedious, and shortening them from more than ten hours to less than ten hours is of great significance!

All the engineers stared wide-eyed at the design drawing, their minds racing, wondering if this solution would work.

“If we need to shorten the time, why not use the Concorde-style approach?” one engineer suggested.

"For the Concorde to fly supersonic, it had to use afterburners. While this saved time, it consumed three times the fuel of other aircraft, making it very uneconomical. Our supersonic cruiser design does not require an engine with an afterburner. If we use a new generation of high-thrust turbofan engines, it can achieve the fuel consumption standards of other existing passenger aircraft of the same type. I believe this is the best solution."

What do airlines care about most? Not speed, but fuel consumption and operating costs! So, from a technical point of view, Concorde was successful; from a commercial operation perspective, Concorde was a failure!
The Sonic Cruiser didn't take any risks; it only aimed for Mach 1, which was a wise choice!

Everyone looked at each other, and Steiner spoke up: "Mr. Qin, your design is very good, but... designing such an aircraft requires a lot of investment. Your East is currently undergoing reforms, and I'm afraid you don't have the funds to develop such a project, right?"

"Sigh, this really is a big problem," Qin Liang nodded.

"How about this... we can transfer this project to Boeing, and Boeing, together with Northwestern Polytechnical University and MIT, we can collaborate. What do you think?"

Yang Duo'er's eyes sparkled. Her father was about to become the dean of the School of Aeronautical Engineering, and he probably wouldn't be able to go to the East for a while. If the two sides had a cooperative project, their relationship would be even closer. However, this was, after all, an East project, which was essentially snatched away by Boeing. Was that appropriate?

"No." Qin Liang shook his head: "We can't cut ties with the Shanghai Aircraft Factory. Our R&D team needs to include the Shanghai Aircraft Factory so that they can also have the right to produce the aircraft after successful development."

This guy is indeed uncompromising when it comes to Eastern interests. However... the East lacks the necessary equipment. Even with the design blueprints, they would need American cooperation. Moreover, the East is even less capable of producing things like engines...

Of course, the best solution is to break away from the East and go it alone after achieving a breakthrough in research and development!
Thinking of this, Steiner nodded: "I was careless just now. We really can't leave the Shanghai Aircraft Factory behind. So let's do as you said and work together to develop a modern passenger plane!"

Qin Liang chuckled inwardly. This project actually originally belonged to Boeing. If it weren't for 9/11, Boeing would have developed this aircraft!
Moreover, Boeing has gradually transformed from a company dominated by engineers to one dominated by finance, completely losing its technological support. Now, Boeing is still led by technical talents, so it naturally approves of the supersonic cruiser project!

　PS: The illustration is of a Sonic Cruiser.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)