"Did it really come out? I don't remember spending that much money!" Mr. Huang couldn't help but mutter as he headed to his aircraft manufacturing company in Chang'an.
Although Mr. Huang had largely forgotten about this company, once he started to recall, many details came back to him, such as the company's decision to move the manufacturing plant from Shanghai to Chang'an to save on office costs.
This would reduce the cost of factory land and leverage Chang'an's aircraft manufacturing resources, as Xi'an's Yanliang District had Xi'an Aircraft Industry Group.
Also, the amount of money this company required wasn't that much, only a budget of a little over a billion yuan annually. Compared to the other companies under Jiangnan Group, which had annual budgets easily reaching tens of billions, this was truly a small amount.
Keep in mind that this was an aircraft manufacturing plant, and a large aircraft manufacturing plant at that. A little over a billion a year, it was hard to imagine what could be done with it. Perhaps a few sets of machine tools would be gone.
Over the course of seven years, with an investment of no more than 10 billion yuan, they had actually managed to build a large aircraft. This left Mr. Huang greatly astonished. After all, China would later spend hundreds of billions to truly build a domestically produced large aircraft, and their cost was only 1/10th of that, which was indeed incredibly unbelievable.
Thus, driven by curiosity, Mr. Huang visited this company, which he normally paid little attention to, for the first time.
Speaking of which, Mr. Huang didn't seem to care much about this company, named Jiangnan Aviation Equipment Manufacturing Company. The only one to greet the esteemed Mr. Huang, their boss, was a driver from the factory, and then there was no one else.
Of course, this driver also explained to Mr. Huang that the factory was severely understaffed, and the only person who could spare the time was him, the driver, and he hoped Mr. Huang wouldn't take offense.
Mr. Huang said nothing because upon arriving at the factory, he found that in addition to the workers, there were also many heavily armed security personnel.
Mr. Huang swore to the heavens that he later reviewed the entire company's budget application forms, and they absolutely did not include salaries and expenses for nearly a reinforced company of security personnel.
Clearly, here, Mr. Huang was merely the nominal boss. However, this was also normal. After all, such technology could not be controlled by Mr. Huang, a businessman; it had to be in the hands of more reliable people.
But since Mr. Huang was the boss here, none of these security guards stopped him. They allowed the driver to take Mr. Huang into the massive manufacturing workshop, where Mr. Huang then saw his company's large aircraft.
A colossus several times larger than an entire basketball court stood quietly in the workshop, with staff constantly working on installing or inspecting various equipment.
"Boss, seven years. The order you placed back then, I've finally completed it for you!" At this moment, a slightly excited voice said, and then a man with a completely bald head, appearing to be around thirty or forty years old, hurried up to greet him.
The driver beside him quickly introduced him, saying that this was the company's general manager, Yang Yunhe, who was also the chief designer of this aircraft.
"You don't look like the old man from seven years ago!" Mr. Huang examined him carefully. In his mind, he recalled the old man he had met seven years ago, who had spoken eloquently about how to build a perfect aerial fortress. The appearance of this person did not match.
"That was my master!" Hearing Mr. Huang say this, Yang Yunhe's expression immediately dimmed. He took a breath, then sighed, "My master passed away three years ago. He died working on this aircraft!"
"Why didn't you inform me of such a thing?" Mr. Huang's hand trembled as he asked.
"My master said there was nothing worth mentioning, and not to disturb you with other matters before the aircraft was built," Yang Yunhe said, forcing a smile. "Boss, let me give you a tour of this aircraft!"
With that, led by Yang Yunhe, Mr. Huang boarded the aircraft's cabin.
Yang Yunhe first recited a string of aircraft data. Mr. Huang didn't understand much of it, as it wasn't his area of expertise. So, Mr. Huang interrupted Yang Yunhe and directly asked, "In other words, how much of a gap is there between this aircraft and the international advanced level?"
"Alright!" Yang Yunhe nodded and then said, "Overall, this aircraft is still about 20 years behind the international advanced level, but there are also some areas where we lead other countries."
"Oh! In what areas have you achieved leadership?" Mr. Huang asked curiously. He hadn't expected that this project, which had grown like a wild child, would actually achieve leadership in some areas.
"They are all very minor details!" Yang Yunhe scratched his head and said, "If I had to say there were any major areas where we have completely surpassed the international advanced level, it would be our aircraft's electronic control system and fuel consumption, which have surpassed the international advanced level."
"Be more specific!"
"Yes, currently, almost all large aircraft internationally still use relatively simple electronic control systems, integrating buttons for various equipment into the cockpit, requiring the pilot to manually control these devices. Although many aircraft have autopilot systems, these autopilot systems are very rigid and can only follow preset programs, unable to cope with sudden situations, and requiring manual piloting by the pilot at critical moments," Yang Yunhe said as he led Mr. Huang directly into the aircraft's cockpit.
"But our aircraft is different. We have integrated the electronic control system for the entire aircraft. Although this cockpit you see now seems no different from other large aircraft, with all sorts of switches."
"But these switches are actually for the pilot to use in emergency situations. Under normal piloting conditions, the aircraft's pilot only needs to use this tablet in front of them to directly control all the aircraft's equipment."
"In addition, we have also introduced AI intelligence into the aircraft and inputted detailed aircraft data into this AI intelligence. During actual piloting, the AI will determine the optimal piloting plan based on various data. If a mid-air disaster occurs, the AI can also immediately identify the source of the problem and automatically provide corresponding solutions and full control authorization for the aircraft, and so on."
"We have calculated that after installing our electronic control system, the aircraft's safety rate can be increased by more than 45%. This is because many historical air crashes were caused by pilots being unable to cope."
"For example, that famous 'Ghost Passenger Plane' crash. Because ground crew set the air conditioning mode to manual, but in flight, the aircraft's air conditioning should be in automatic mode to automatically regulate the oxygen content inside the cabin."
"However, the ground crew forgot to switch it back to automatic mode after their inspection, causing the cabin's oxygen content to drop rapidly after takeoff. All passengers on board fell unconscious due to lack of oxygen, including the captain and first officer. During the entire process, only one flight attendant woke up and reluctantly tried to pilot the aircraft, but he had no aircraft piloting skills, so he was ultimately powerless, and watched as the plane crashed into a mountain, killing everyone on board."
"This is the limitation of traditional aircraft electronic control systems. Conversely, if the entire aircraft were controlled by AI, any problem with the air conditioning settings would immediately trigger a broadcast to remind the captain to manually adjust the air conditioning button."
"Even if this disaster were to happen, at the final moment, the intelligent AI on board could automatically take full control of the aircraft by recognizing the aircraft's abnormal flight path and attitude, and then maneuver the aircraft to a safe landing."
Yang Yunhe spoke highly of his company's electronic control system.
"What if the AI malfunctions? AI are not human. What if they malfunction and have control of the entire aircraft? Wouldn't that be extremely dangerous for the passengers on board?" Mr. Huang asked.
"Boss, in fact, we have always had a misconception that human piloting is the safest, and machine piloting may have many problems because their intelligence cannot handle complex situations."
"But scientific research shows that the opposite is true. It is most dangerous to hand over control of critical equipment to humans when facing emergencies. This is because most humans panic in the face of life-and-death crises and completely forget the correct way to handle them."
"We have investigated a lot of data and found that projects controlled by machines or computers often have safety and stability that are 3 to 10 times higher than those controlled by humans. This means that an intelligent AI controlling a train is actually much safer than an ordinary person driving it."
"Humans, out of fear of intelligent AI, instinctively magnify various negative impacts of AI. If a person causes a car accident while driving, the news won't report it. But if a car controlled by AI causes an accident, it becomes a global hot topic, even though AI's accident rate is far lower than that of human drivers!"
"Humans are being surpassed by machines in all aspects physically, and the only thing humans can pride themselves on is their intelligence, which seems impossible to replace with intelligent AI."
"But machines and electronic devices evolve every year, while humans have not undergone evolution for thousands of years. Competing with such opponents is destined for us to be at a disadvantage."
"Therefore, we believe that excellent control systems and intelligent AI are the development direction for all future aircraft."
"That's quite interesting!" Mr. Huang nodded and then asked, "What about the second point? What's our second advantage?"
"This advantage is fuel consumption!" Yang Yunhe said with a proud expression, "Our aircraft consumes about 70% of the fuel per kilometer compared to a Boeing 747. However, a Boeing 747 can carry at most about 500 people, while our large aircraft can carry slightly more, up to 520 passengers."