A car engine can be built. It should be referring to the aircraft engine.
China is capable of manufacturing automobile engines, although its performance lags behind other powerful countries. So let me briefly talk about why China cannot build aerospace engines: The development of China's aerospace power industry is really entangled with too much bitterness and regret. At first, our country's aviation industry received strong support from the big brother of the Soviet Union. At that time, the Soviet Union All-round industrial support has brought my country's aviation industry to its first spring. With the help of Big Brother, our country has quickly established an aviation industry system that can compete with the world's first-class levels. Basically, once the Soviet Union's new aircraft models and new power systems are confirmed for introduction, they can be copied and finalized within a few years. However, our country has not formulated a long-term development plan from imitation to research and development for the aviation industry and aviation power industry. Instead, it limits the tasks of the aviation industry itself to imitation, production and repair.
The research and development funds are less than a fraction of those given to North Korea. Since my country has been in the state of copying aviation engines for a long time, it has a serious lack of grasp of the objective laws of aviation engine development. It is not aware of the long-term, arduous and large-scale development of aviation engines. There is no clear understanding of engagement. This results in the investment intensity in my country's aero-engine development being far lower than the actual needs of development. For example, in the early 1960s, my country began to develop turbofan 6 high-thrust turbofan engines. According to statistics from the 606 Institute, the total development funding for 20 years was only 150 million yuan, with an average of 7.5 million yuan per year. When the research and development entered a critical stage and required high investment intensity, only 2 million yuan was given each year for two years. It is simply unbelievable to develop an advanced large-scale aviation power system with such a total investment and investment intensity, but this is the historical fact.
Before the 1990s, our entire investment in the aviation industry was less than 1/10 of our aid to Vietnam, less than a fraction of our aid to North Korea, and even less than our aid to Albania! And the same During the period, my country imported the SPEI MK202 engine for imitation, but it cost 1.3 billion yuan.
According to foreign experience, the typical engine development cycle is about 8 to 14 years, and the service life of the entire engine is about 30 years. R&D funding has increased over the years, ranging from US$500 million to US$2 billion depending on engine size, model, and development conditions. If the investment intensity cannot be guaranteed, the engine will not be developed on schedule and with high quality, and the consequences can only be development failure and model discontinuation.
The fundamental reason for the long-term poor development of my country’s aviation power industry is mostly improper decision-making. Of course, it was absolutely inappropriate for our country to make the development of aerospace and missile nuclear weapons the focus of a specific period at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The international situation at that time was that the shadow of nuclear weapons and the hegemony of the United States and the Soviet Union had long shrouded New China. If our country wanted to break through the threat of nuclear hegemony, it would be Significant investment must be made in the strategic rocket and missile industry.