Chapter 108: The Eastern rotor is better than French-made products!

The helicopter rotor looks like a long strip of a board, but actually this thing is not ordinary; for example, the rotor of the world's largest Mi-26 helicopter, just one blade, weighs one ton!

The Dolphin Helicopter is not big, its rotor diameter is only 11.5 meters; even so, each rotor blade weighs over a hundred kilograms, two strong men can indeed lift it, but...... it is absolutely not as easy as it appears here!

One person stands under the truck bed, lifting the part of the bed that sticks out; another person stands on the truck bed, lifting the thing extending to the front of the cab; these two people lift it easily, even with just one arm, the rotor they are lifting seems as light as a goose feather!

This......

Qiewaliye widened his eyes: 'Is this foam?'

In his view, only foam could be this light! You guys must be joking!

"Of course not, this rotor is made according to technical requirements." After Qin Miao got off the vehicle, he began directing the unloading; hearing the other's doubt, he immediately replied.

"What technical requirements? Just this? How could this possibly meet our technical requirements! The helicopter's rotor has very high requirements!"

Qiewaliye's face was very solemn: 'For example, the tensile strength needs to reach 1.5 GPa, the yield strength needs to reach 825 MPa, the elastic modulus also needs to match the aeroelastic requirement, specific strength...'

"We made it according to these requirements; its performance is only higher, not lower..."

"That's impossible! Any propeller blade that can meet these requirements must weigh at least a hundred kilograms! Yours... looks like only about fifty kilograms, this is impossible, absolutely impossible!"

"Cough cough, sir, we in the East have a saying: practice is the sole criterion for testing truth; don't jump to subjective conclusions, let's test it and we'll know; our Harbin Aircraft should have the matching test equipment, right?"

"That's right." Zhang Zhiqiang nodded: "Come, bring it over here!"

The two workers easily carried the propeller to the test bench, and the machine was turned on.

"Yield strength, 900 megapascals!"

When the first data came out, Qiewaliye widened his eyes: 'This hard?'

Hardness and elasticity are two mutually restricting quantities; the higher the hardness, the worse the elasticity performance certainly won't be especially good, but when he lifted it, he saw the rotor wobbling, full of elasticity, and the strength was still this high; this is simply...

"Tensile strength, 3.5 GPa!"

"What? This is impossible!" Qiewaliye widened his eyes; this tensile strength being so high, it is actually three times their requirement!

This... must be the machine broken!

"Recalibrate the machine, then do it again!"

The result was still 3.5 GPa!

"You... what material did you use?"

"Carbon fiber! You also use this material, don't you?"

"We... used... of course also carbon fiber!" Qiewaliye felt embarrassed to say; when they promoted, they just said composite material, but never specified what exactly; composite materials come in many types! Carbon fiber also comes in many types; they used the easiest to obtain pitch fiber, while this Eastern one is probably polyacrylonitrile fiber!

Who would have thought, the Eastern technology is actually more advanced than the French!

"There's also the fatigue limit test, this is more important!" Qiewaliye said.

"Yes, this fatigue limit life, if we can't do it well at Ha Gong Da, we send it here; after passing the fatigue life test, we'll start formal mass production."

The rotor's fatigue life requirement is ten million cycles, which means it needs to endure ten million impacts on the test machine; this requires time to wear down.

Of course, if it doesn't pass, it's no problem; three million cycles is not enough, so later when installed on an aircraft, it would be replaced after three million cycles; after all, it's self-produced, much cheaper than imported...

"Good!" Zhang Zhiqiang nodded: "Let's just test it here; the other data are so good, the fatigue test definitely won't be bad either; by the way, is this expensive?"

"Of course!"

"How expensive?"

"For a set of four rotor blades, at least... one hundred thousand yuan!"

The first person to get off the vehicle, Director Mao, almost popped his eyes out.

The cost of one rotor blade is at most five thousand yuan; four blades would be only twenty thousand yuan, yet you quote one hundred thousand yuan— isn't that too expensive?

"I thought it would be cheaper; an imported set costs three hundred thousand, and that's in dollars! Indeed, our domestic product is cheaper! As long as it passes the test, we'll use our domestic product!"

Beside him, Qiewaliye's mood was complex.

Originally he still wanted to sell some accessories to keep making money, but who would have thought... the Easterners actually have it! However... for the French Aerospace Company, this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

"Alright, we came today with nothing else; we'll leave this thing with you for testing and then head back!"

Seeing them about to leave, Qiewaliye could no longer hold back.

"Wait!"

"What's wrong? Do you have something?"

"Do you sell this kind of rotor?"

"Of course, one hundred thousand US dollars!"

The price is still the same, but the unit behind it has changed!

The current official exchange rate is 1.5, meaning 1.5 yuan per 1 dollar; however, this is only the theoretical rate under the planned economy regulations; actually, in the black market, the rate at least doubles!

Even if calculated according to the official exchange rate, this is equivalent to being another half more expensive domestically!

Director Mao was completely stunned. The thing we developed is actually worth this much? The materials department is also going to get rich!

"Good, after the fatigue test results come out, we will place an order; now... could you answer a few questions for me?"

"Speak!"

"Is this material polyacrylonitrile carbon fiber?"

"That's right."

"How is this material produced?"

"Well, this is our secret; if you want to know... we won't sell it even for money!"

Qiewaliye was stunned: 'In this world, money can buy anything! You also spent money to purchase our helicopters, along with the technology, didn't you?'

Qin Miao nodded: 'Alright, one hundred million US dollars!'

"What? You're asking for a lion's share! This technology is worth at most ten million!"

"Then forget it, we're leaving!"

"Hey, if you don't sell, we French can also develop it; you see, on this helicopter we already use a large amount of composite material, not just the rotor, the fuselage also uses... ten million, which is already the most suitable price for you; if you don't sell, you'll definitely regret it later..."

"This fuselage is nothing but paper-mâché." Qin Miao shook his head: "Even if it were given to us for free, we wouldn't want it; your French technology is just like that."

"Stop right there! You actually slander us so unreasonably, seriously damaging our friendship!" Qiewaliye's face turned stern.

"Slander? I'm merely stating the facts; the fuselage of the Dolphin Helicopter is nothing but paper-mâché."