Li Rongcheng was caught off guard when Xu Cang asked for a complete set of drawings of 737NG. A conflicted look appeared on his face and he stood there, not knowing how to answer.
This actually made Xu Cang feel surprised!
To be honest, he asked Li Rongcheng for the complete set of drawings of 737NG just now because on the one hand he wanted Li Rongcheng to give up and avoid bothering him again in the future. On the other hand he suddenly thought of Chen Jinwu. If Chen Jinwu could have the complete set of drawings of 737NG, it would be a reference of great value.
Of course, from a rational point of view, Xu Cang didn't believe that Li Rongcheng would really agree to him, so he was more inclined to get rid of Li Rongcheng. However, the current situation was completely different from what Xu Cang expected.
Li Rongcheng was actually thinking about this issue seriously!
Xu Cang did not leave, but carefully looked at Li Rongcheng's facial expression. Soon Xu Cang screamed in his heart: "Damn, he is really considering it!?"
In Xu Cang's opinion, shouldn't this question be rejected without hesitation?
"Xu Cang, this condition... is rather difficult to meet. Maybe you can change to another one?" Li Rongcheng asked tentatively.
Xu Cang wanted to change to something else. If possible, what he wanted most was of course the blueprint of the Boeing 787. However, according to historical development, the Boeing 787 should still be called 7E7, and it is still something that mainly exists in concept. As for the later 737MAX, Xu Cang had no idea at all.
Not to mention that its MCAS maneuvering characteristics augmentation system will cause two serious air crashes in the future, the 737 model has almost come to an end with the NG series, and the MAX series is just a clumsy work hastily launched by Boeing to compete with the A320NEO.
The reason why the future of 737 is cut off is that when Boeing 737Original was designed, the designers had limited vision and did not think that the future 737 would be equipped with high-bypass turbofan engines similar to CFM56, so that the 737 is born with short legs.
Even in the second-generation 737NG series, Boeing engineers ingeniously offset the engine's accessory gearbox, thus temporarily solving the problem of the engine's low ground distance.
But problems will not disappear just because of a genius idea. In the third-generation 737MAX, faced with the larger CFM International LEAP-1B engine, Boeing engineers were helpless and could only solve the problem by slightly increasing the landing gear height and moving the engine forward.
But is the problem solved?
The 737MAX did not solve the problem of the A320NEO's unrivaled success, but instead put the lid on the last rays of the Boeing empire.
Of course, no matter how notorious the 737MAX is, it does not prevent the 737NG series from being a perfect model. If this model can be fully mastered, it will provide unparalleled experience for the development of domestic large aircraft.
In this era, the Boeing 747 is too big, and the only aircraft that still has some value is the Boeing 777 that is about to be launched. However, Xu Cang knows that in a few years, the Boeing 787, which can be regarded as the pinnacle of Boeing, will be launched, and the Boeing 777 will be swept into the garbage dump of history like the Boeing 757.
"Boeing 757?" Xu Cang thought for a moment and felt that it was a bit too much to ask for the blueprints of the 737NG, Boeing's best-selling model. But as a second choice, an outdated model like the Boeing 757 should not be that difficult to get.
After coughing twice, Xu Cang said expressionlessly, "If the 737NG is not okay, the 757 will be fine, right? And I don't just want the 200 basic model and 300 model of the 757. I want all of the 757-200ER, 757-200PF, 757-200SF, and 757-200M. Of course, if possible, you can also give me the military model of the 757. I don't mind."
Li Rongcheng was stunned and laughed out of anger: " Mr. Xu , do you know what the military model of the Boeing 757 is?"
Xu Cang said without blinking: "Of course I know, it's C32!"
"Do you know C32?" Li Rongcheng gritted his teeth and said, "What does C32 do? Do you know?"
Xu Cang smiled even brighter: "You mean... Air Force Two?"
That’s right, the military model of Boeing 757 is also called the C32 special aircraft, commonly known as Air Force Two, and is the plane of the vice president of a certain country!
Li Rongcheng's temples were throbbing. He held his forehead with his hand, suffering from a severe headache. "Don't even think about the military model. As for the 757-200ER model you mentioned, it only exists in the design stage and there is no actual aircraft."
Xu Cang smiled and said, "I don't want the actual machine either, I just want the blueprint. The 737NG series is your signature product, so I can understand if you don't want to give it to me. But why are you hiding something like the Boeing 757 that is about to be eliminated?"
As far as Xu Cang knows, Boeing 757 has already started to reduce production at this time!
"Mr. Xu, I really don't understand. It's normal for you to ask for money and a position. What do you mean by asking for drawings?" Li Rongcheng was really speechless: "What on earth do you want to do?"
Xu Cang's smile was still bright: "Mr. Li, you should have guessed what I want to do. No one wants to be made money by others for a lifetime."
Li Rongcheng was stunned for a moment, then smiled bitterly: "I didn't expect Mr. Xu to have some patriotism. But the issue of the blueprint is of great importance, I need to consult with the higher-ups."
"It doesn't matter!" Xu Cang waved his hand and turned around: "As for the Boeing 757, even if you don't agree now, you will agree next year."
Li Rongcheng was puzzled: "Mr. Xu, what do you mean?"
"No, just talking." Xu Cang nodded, and said nothing more. Instead, he walked out of the store neatly, leaving only one sentence at the end: "I'll leave the video matter to Mr. Li."
As Xu Cang's figure completely disappeared from his sight, Li Rongcheng sighed and felt a deep sense of powerlessness. It was really difficult to ask others to do things for you.
Just when Li Rongcheng was worried, a young voice suddenly came from behind him: "How dare they try to get their hands on our design drawings? Even if we give them the drawings, can they build it? It's ridiculous!"
Li Rongcheng said in a deep voice: "Mr. Ye, you and he share the same blood. You can think that his idea is naive, but you shouldn't laugh at him."
Li Rongcheng turned around and saw a young man in his twenties walking towards him. His skin was as white as jade, and like Li Rongcheng and Xu Cang, his eyes were also black. He held a sports timer in his hand, and he kept pressing the pause button on it. Every time he paused, the time displayed on the timer was always an integer, without any deviation.
"You can't say that. My grandfather emigrated more than 50 years ago. I have nothing to do with him except that I have black eyes and black hair." Ye Xian sneered disdainfully: "Li Rongcheng, Boeing didn't give you such a high position to betray its own people."
Li Rongcheng frowned. He didn't like this kind of people whose thoughts were completely westernized and who didn't have any Oriental identity except for their appearance.
People with different ideologies cannot work together. Li Rongcheng did not want to talk too much with Ye Xian, so he went straight to the point: "The headquarters asked you to come here to see if Xu Cang can be your partner. What do you think?"
"Tell me the truth!" Ye Xian pressed the timer button for the last time, and it showed a full minute, without even a 0.01 second error. He threw the timer onto the table next to him: "If you think Xu Cang can be my partner based on this trick, isn't that too ridiculous?"
The timer hit the table with a dull sound, and the number displayed on it fell into Li Rongcheng's eyes, causing the corners of his mouth to twitch a little. It is true that Xu Cang impressed Li Rongcheng for the first time because he accurately pressed the integer time twice in a row, but this thing seemed to be no difficult task in Ye Xian's hands.
Even if he disliked Ye Xian, Li Rongcheng had to admit that this guy was very capable. It was for this reason that Boeing headquarters identified him as one of the candidates for the subsequent verification of Boeing 777.
There couldn't be only one person in the cockpit, so they had to find another pilot to partner with Ye Xian, and Li Rongcheng chose Xu Cang. Out of respect for Ye Xian, Boeing headquarters asked Ye Xian to come over to check on this possible partner.
"Let me put it this way." Ye Xian licked his lips: "Actually, I don't care who you are looking for. If it weren't for the regulations, I would rather fly alone. Bringing one more person would be a burden."
Li Rongcheng couldn't stand Ye Xian's attitude of treating everyone as nothing. "You should know that the FAA is better. There will definitely be many difficulties over at EASA in Europe. The 777 only has one chance, and there can't any mistakes. No matter how powerful you are, can you stand up to the entire EASA? The headquarters asked you to come here to evaluate Xu Cang, not to let you complain to me."
Ye Xian shrugged his shoulders, showing an extremely indifferent attitude towards Li Rongcheng's scolding. He took out a silver coin from his coat pocket, flicked his thumb, and the coin flew into the air. Then Ye Xian covered it on the back of his hand.
He smiled and said to Li Rongcheng: "Is it a flower or a word?"
Li Rongcheng's face froze. He knew that Ye Xian liked to let others guess the heads and tails of a coin the most. He really couldn't understand why Ye Xian enjoyed this game so much.
Li Rongcheng didn't want to guess, because he felt that as long as he cooperated with Ye Xian, no matter whether he was right or wrong, he would just be like a clown. So, he smiled and said, "You can go ask Xu Cang!"
Ye Xian's eyes lit up: "Yes! Is he a mediocre person and worthy of being my partner? Do I need to observe him for so long? I can find out by tossing a coin once."
Li Rongcheng's eyelids twitched. Could it be that all geniuses have such strange trains of thought?
…
Coming out of the coffee shop, Xu Cang half-closed his eyes in the sunlight, his mind still quickly flashing through the scene of his conversation with Li Rongcheng. But when the scene of the Boeing 757 flashed by, Xu Cang couldn't help but reveal a barely perceptible smile, and whispered to himself: "Hey, Air Force Two!"
However, if you think about it seriously, Li Rongcheng's performance just now did seem to be too serious about him. At first, Xu Cang instinctively thought that Li Rongcheng invited him because he saw his talent in flying.
But when he mentioned asking for the blueprint, Li Rongcheng actually thought about it seriously, which was obviously abnormal. No matter how talented a pilot is, he can't compare to the blueprint of a model. The two are completely unequal. Xu Cang is still self-aware of this.
"Could it be that something went wrong with Boeing?" Xu Cang recalled briefly that at this time in his previous life, Boeing didn't seem to have any serious crisis. But if everything was normal, why would Li Rongcheng's behavior be so abnormal? Or was there something inside that he didn't know?
Just when Xu Cang was puzzled, a man jumped out from the side. It was Lu Jinghua who had been waiting outside for a long time.
Lu Jinghua grabbed Xu Cang's arm and said, "How's it going? Are you easy to talk to?"
"He's easy to talk to." Xu Cang hummed, "He will send the video to Boeing headquarters."
Lu Jinghua clicked his tongue: "I didn't expect Mr. Li Rongcheng to be so humble and helpful. I didn't expect that."
Xu Cang shook off Lu Jinghua with some disdain, and then asked Lu Jinghua in a serious tone: "Has Boeing sent any news recently, such as any problems within the company?"
"No! A company of our size doesn't communicate much with Boeing. Except when there are problems with the aircraft or when we buy aircraft, no one cares about us." Lu Jinghua asked curiously, "Why do you care whether Boeing has problems?"
Xu Cang didn't think that Blue Sky Airlines had such a big reputation to get the inside information of Boeing, so he was not disappointed. He just waved his hand and said, "That's fine. Go back and wait for the news. This place is very close to where I live, so I'll walk back."
"Yes." Lu Jinghua did not insist on sending Xu Cang back, but instead gave him some instructions before he left: "Behave yourself recently and wait for news from Boeing. I will do my best to deal with Mr. Yu, but don't cause any trouble, otherwise no one can protect you."
Xu Cang nodded: "I'll try my best!"
Lu Jinghua clicked his tongue and said, "What do you mean by try your best? Just because a small part like the L-shaped fastener was damaged, it made Mr. Yu so angry. What else do you want to do?"
"Brother!" Xu Cang suddenly looked solemn. "There are some things I can't explain to you too clearly, but the matter of 4724 this time is different from the matter of 1566 last time. I can ignore the matter of 1566, but not 4724. You can't imagine what terrible consequences will be if we ignore the problem of 4724."
Since the two of them became closer, Xu Cang has rarely been so serious. Lu Jinghua also gradually stopped smiling and scratched his head: "You make me a little nervous."
"It's okay, I'm just talking casually." Xu Cang chuckled: "I understand, let's go!"
Lu Jinghua nodded, not quite understanding: "Then I'll see you at the company."
Xu Cang hummed and walked along the street alone.
Lu Jinghua looked at Xu Cang's back gradually going away, shrugged, turned a corner and went to the parking lot.
Xu Cang walked for a while, and the expression on his face became more serious. The more he thought about it, the weirder it seemed. After thinking for a while, he called his master Chen Xiangdong.
As the call was connected, Xu Cang asked, "Master, can you help me get some information?"
Chen Xiangdong's slightly joking voice came over the phone that day: "Don't ask me to do anything illegal!"
"How could I let you make a mistake!" For some reason, when talking to his master, Xu Cang's tone became relaxed unconsciously: "Instead of asking about our news, help me find out about the outside world, about Boeing's news! Mainly, to see if Boeing has encountered any trouble recently?"
"Why are you suddenly concerned about Boeing?"
"I just got curious all of a sudden." Xu Cang said with a smile: "Master, you should be able to help me, right?"
"Help, why not help!" Chen Xiangdong didn't even ask about Xu Cang's intentions: "Wait, I'll tell you when I get the news."
"Yes." Xu Cang said: "Then Master, I will wait for your good news."
After hanging up the phone, Xu Cang let out a sigh of relief. For some reason, Xu Cang felt more and more that he had asked for too low a price.
"If we can figure out what happened to Boeing, it might be a good opportunity to blackmail it."
Xu Cang couldn't help but rub his hands excitedly. Boeing, a giant company with a history of nearly a hundred years, has so many good things hidden in it. If he just tapped it a little, he would benefit a lot.
…
Time flies. Two days later, Xu Cang, who had just woken up, was still curled up in bed playing with his phone when a text message popped up in his message bar. He clicked it and saw that it was from Li Rongcheng: "Mr. Xu, the headquarters has issued a notice about your video. If it's convenient, could you please provide me your email address so I can send you the notice."
Xu Cang was overjoyed and quickly sent his email to Li Rongcheng. Soon, a notification popped up on his phone that a new email had been received. With a little trepidation, Xu Cang opened the email and found that the attachment was indeed a formal notice.
Xu Cang first looked at the scope of the announcement, and found that it was only limited to Blue Sky Airlines, which made Xu Cang feel a little uneasy.
The content of the notice is very long, but it mainly explains the working principle of the S2 master locking system. The last few paragraphs are really useful. The main meaning is that the S2 master locking system may have a performance that is contrary to the original design intention on a certain individual aircraft, that is, the power is cut off after the door is closed. However, this phenomenon is extreme and rare, and is not representative. Even if the rotation of the C-type door latch is triggered in some unpredictable circumstances, the L-type retainer can still ensure safety.
Throughout the article, Boeing only admitted that there were individual faults in the S2 master locking system, but refused to admit that the S2 master locking system itself had defects.
However, although Boeing swore that there was no problem with the S2 switch or the L-shaped fastener, in the final recommended measures, it suggested that Blue Sky Airlines replace the aluminum L-shaped fastener with steel, but the deadline was not marked, which means that this suggestion is not mandatory and is for reference only.
"Damn it, has Boeing lost its mind?" Xu Cang couldn't help but curse after reading the notice.
Xu Cang didn't believe that Boeing's technical department couldn't see the flaws in the S2 main control locking system with the video. But even so, Boeing still chose to ignore it.
The only explanation is that Boeing feels that this problem with the S2 master locking system is extremely unlikely to occur, and there is no need for Boeing to ground all Boeing 747s because of a problem that is basically impossible to occur. This is obviously not a good deal.
Perhaps Boeing could not come up with a simple solution to the S2 master lock system problem in a short period of time. In this case, they started to play ostrich. Anyway, they believed that without controlling the S2 switch, the electric motor would not work spontaneously even if the power was not cut off. As for the short circuit problem mentioned by Xu Cang, Boeing also estimated that it would not happen.
Of course, Boeing cannot be said to have done nothing. At least, they pretended to "suggest" Blue Sky Airlines to replace the L-shaped anchor with a stronger steel one. However, even with this statement, Boeing has not set a deadline, but has completely handed the choice to Blue Sky Airlines.
Based on Xu Cang's understanding of Blue Sky Airlines, this time Blue Sky Airlines has lost all its capital on this 747, so how could it possibly stop the plane to replace parts? If Boeing had forced it, it would probably be possible. Now Boeing's double-faced behavior has no binding force on Blue Sky Airlines at all. If it relies entirely on self-consciousness, there is no way Blue Sky Airlines can replace the L-shaped fixture.
In his heart, Xu Cang really cursed Boeing. He had found such a big safety hazard for them despite being scolded by the vice president of maintenance, but Boeing turned a blind eye to it.
All I can say is that Boeing’s future decline is no accident, it’s just tit-for-tat. Boeing is arrogant to its core!
After thinking for a while, Xu Cang gradually calmed down. He called Lu Jinghua and asked, "Have you received the notice from Boeing?"
Although this kind of notice is related to the aircraft structure, it is generally distributed to the flight department. As long as it reaches the flight department, Lu Jinghua will definitely know about it.
Although Xu Cang did not mention the name of the notice, Lu Jinghua knew which one Xu Cang was talking about. He just smiled bitterly and said, "Got it!"
Xu Cang asked anxiously: "What do you mean, is there any news from the maintenance and support department? Will the L-shaped fastener be replaced?"
He didn't expect Blue Sky Airlines to cancel the lease of the 747 at this time, but he asked for a replacement of the L-shaped anchor. In fact, Xu Cang didn't know whether the steel anchor was strong enough, but there was nothing he could do. It was unrealistic to expect too much.
"I asked after receiving the notice." Lu Jinghua's voice was a little low: "The maintenance and support department said that there was no deadline marked on the notice, and they have no plans to replace it for the time being. We will wait for instructions from above."
Xu Cang's face darkened instantly: "What does this mean?"
"I checked. The 747's schedule has been fully booked for the past two months. I feel like the maintenance department won't be allowed to replace the fixture for at least the next two months."
Even though he had roughly guessed what Blue Sky Airlines was doing, Xu Cang still felt a tightness in his chest when he actually heard it. Blue Sky Airlines and Boeing are exactly the same.
No! Boeing is bad, Blue Sky is stupid, stupid people who only care about money.
After more than two months of high-intensity flying, who knows if anything will go wrong! Xu Cang's anxiety is growing rapidly.
At this moment, Xu Cang's phone vibrated again. He looked at the screen the dispatcher was calling again. Xu Cang quickly told Lu Jinghua and then turned to the dispatcher: "This is Xu Cang, what's the matter?"
It was Yue Hai's voice on the other end of the phone: "Xu Cang, you have a class tomorrow, are you going to fly?"
"Fei, why not fly?" Xu Cang was very anxious because he had missed a lot of time cooperating with the 9211 investigation some time ago.
"It's like this! There's a plane that made an emergency landing in Pengcheng. You can add a crew and fly the plane back, okay?"
"Pengcheng?" Xu Cang was stunned for a moment: "Does our company have direct flights to Pengcheng? Or should we buy a ticket to go there?"
If there is no direct flight of its own, the airline will buy tickets from other companies for the pilots, which is quite common. As far as Xu Cang can remember, Blue Sky Airlines does not seem to have direct flights to Pengcheng.
Yue Hai smiled and said, "It didn't exist before, but recently, in order to cooperate with international flights, a route from Jianchuan to Pengcheng was opened. You just need to add that crew."
Xu Cang felt a little strange in his heart: "What international route? What kind of plane is flying from Jianchuan to Pengcheng?"
"You are asking even though you already know the answer. What other aircraft does our company have for international routes?" Yue Hai said, "It's the Boeing 747 that Mu Hua brought over. You probably haven't flown a large aircraft yet, so I'll let you try."
Xu Cang's face changed: "Damn it!"