angered by the failure of their various engine projects to deliver something even equivalent to the RD33 or AL31 as a product, cheen has apparently allocated $16b war chest to develop/steal/clone/vandalize anything needed to make the final push to the summit and get themselves engines at par with the world standards. it is being taken up from highest levels probably with a single reporting chain to the "alpha dog" in the hall of people itself.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/ ... 7B20121029
much of engine perf apparently cannot be cloned by geometric copying but is inherent to the materials and the procedure used to fashion the parts...much like the power of a virginia class sub lies latent and hidden behind its plain black hull.
one thing is apparent from Cheen failure on engine front -
just throwing money at same problem using various teams is no guarantee of success. we must not repeat the same mistake
what seems to me
- need global ecosystem plugin to get the low volume but specialized parts needed cheaply without spending yrs reinventing every wheel.
- need the highest caliber of senior people in the field (this we unfortunately do not have as such people few as they were, left for videsh decades ago)
- need access to the specialized machines needed to build the highest tolerance and costly parts - this again is under some form of hidden sanctions
I offer no solution because the 3 problems above do not seem solvable to me in our current economic condition.
if we had a economy 3X our size, with a thriving domestic airline industry we could via the big plane makers develop links with their ecosystem via projects like RTA etc. we goofed up there. we are not even collaborating with brazil on its mil airlifter , instead choosing the carcass called the MTA so that HAL can get easy and guaranteed assembly work. embraer is the one 'outsider' and 'brown skinned' who has broken into the 'system' and been given a seat at high table...rest there is not even one non-gora/honorary gora(japan mitsubishi) co in this field
Cheen has made a good bet on the C919 and GE and honeywell are fawning all over it.
as for people , unless a unlimited budget is doled out to hire the best and brightest young or old tall of short, there is no getting past that.