I want to be emperor

Chapter 1113 Inspecting the Aircraft

On the outskirts of Jinling City, the capital of the Chu Empire, at the flight test site of the Royal Institute of Technology, there were many people in the test site that used to be empty.

This flight test ground was originally set up specifically for the research and development of hot-air balloons, and it also played an important role in the early development and subsequent improvement of balloons for the Chu Empire.

After the invention and large-scale use of hot air balloons in wars, many scientists in the Chu Empire tried their best to make the balloons move...

Because the hot air balloon itself has no power, in order to avoid losing control, it can only be tethered. In military applications, it is mainly used for reconnaissance and cannon shooting.

At present, many artillery units and navy warships in the Chu Empire are widely equipped with hot air balloons for reconnaissance and artillery shooting, and the results are quite good.

Later, when scientists conducted research, they discovered that the densities of different gases in the air are different. Hydrogen is significantly lighter than air. Balloons loaded with this gas can be lifted into the air without the need to rely on them as before. The fire source produces hot air to maintain lift.

This led to a long period of research on airships... However, during this long period of research, it was always difficult to put airships into practical use.

The first is the problem of power. In the early days, even small and lightweight steam engines were not mature. Therefore, airships could only use human-driven propellers similar to bicycles. However, this has basically no practical value. It can only be said to prove the installation of power on airships. device, the feasibility of driving a propeller.

Later, Chu scientists installed a small and lightweight steam engine, but it was still difficult to put it into practical use... The steam engine was still too big and heavy, and the coal that needed to be carried was also heavy.

However, this also proves that the airship can fly in a fixed direction relying on pure mechanical power.

Later, the Chu people tried to use electric motors to drive them in the 1930s. Yes, before the large-scale application of electrification in the Chu Empire, they had already begun to try to use electric power to drive airships.

Use an early primitive battery and then equip it with a DC generator to directly drive the airship to fly!

Airships that use electricity are relatively successful to a certain extent, but they are still extremely difficult to be put into practical use on a large scale... After all, the contemporary electrification level is still too low, and the energy density of the battery is too small, and the capacity and endurance provided are too low. Time is very limited.

It was not until the 1940s that after gasoline engine technology gradually matured and was applied, scientists moved gasoline engines onto airships, making airships truly practical.

In the 43rd year of Chengshun, scientists from the State of Chu had already sent a hydrogen airship equipped with a gasoline engine into the sky...but even so, there were still many problems.

For example, safety issues in the take-off and landing process, and safety issues caused by the very important hydrogen used in airships... This hydrogen is a flammable and explosive gas. If you add a little spark to it, people can perform it for you. A big explosion.

Over the years, there have been many accidents in airship experiments.

But even so, it did not stop the Chu Empire from continuing to research and even try to apply airships.

However, the current application of airships is mainly concentrated in the military field. As for the civilian field...it is not that they have not been tried, but the results are not very good...the accident rate is too high.

A means of transportation that has a high accident rate and is prone to problems once problems arise are destined to be impossible to become public transportation in the true sense.

After four out of ten passenger airships manufactured and tested in the Airship Laboratory of the Royal Institute of Technology burned down during frequent simulated passenger test flights, the Imperial Ministry of Transport directly issued a document requiring any commercial operations All airships must meet very strict safety standards, otherwise they will not be used for commercial operations, including but not limited to passenger transportation, sightseeing and other businesses.

Passenger airships have lower standards, but they are also very demanding...

Therefore, although airships have been developed in the Chu Empire for 20 to 30 years, their civilian use has always been at zero...

But although there are no civilian ones, military ones have appeared one after another!

On the one hand, the military can afford higher construction costs, build and use airships with higher technical specifications and are relatively safer... After all, the military's airships are not intended to be used for bombing or troop transport, but as a A kind of reconnaissance and monitoring equipment.

The load requirements are relatively small, and the performance requirements for the airship are relatively low...and this low performance can also give the airship more design margin, making it safer.

Of course, the most important thing is military equipment... What matters is the effect, not safety. Some safety risks are completely acceptable in the eyes of the military.

In terms of safety, many weapons and equipment have nothing to do with safety... For example, it is common for artillery to explode its chamber, or its ammunition to explode. Even the most advanced battleship in Chu State had one last year. A second-class battleship suffered an ammunition explosion during live-fire training, resulting in hundreds of casualties and serious damage to the battleship.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the Chu army widely used matchlock mortars in the civil war... The safety of that damn thing was much worse than that of an airship. It often exploded, or the shells just flew out and landed at home. An explosion occurred above the artillery position...

So much so that in that era, mortar gunners were hailed as the most dangerous arms... more dangerous than the combat infantry who acted as vanguards and charged at the forefront of the battlefield.

Not to mention the modern era with backward technology, even in the modern era of the original time and space...the fighter jets equipped in many countries are still in service and being dropped...

Some extreme fighter jets in some extreme countries often have very few left by the end of their service lives. The reason why there are not many left is not that they were shot down by the enemy, but that they lost all of them themselves.

For example, India has purchased more than 21 MIGs in total and dropped them while using them. About MIGs were dropped before and after... I am asking you if you are afraid!

Therefore, military equipment has nothing to do with safety. If it really wants to be safe, then it is not a qualified military equipment... because military equipment always needs to squeeze out better performance as much as possible with limited technology. .

And this kind of extreme design often leads to worrying safety...

Of course, too dangerous ones are not acceptable... So when the Chu people came up with wooden fuse grenades in the early years, they eliminated the matchlock fuse grenades as soon as possible without leaving any trace.

Today's airships are in a similar situation...the safety is naturally a bit worse, but their maneuverable flight characteristics are very much desired by the military.

Especially in indigenous areas, the indigenous people don't have any weapons that can threaten airships... The Chu people themselves have heavy machine guns and small-caliber artillery that can be used to attack hot air balloons and even airships... such as 40mm rapid-fire cannons. Even heavy machine guns...especially heavy machine guns, if you simply modify the gun mount, you can raise the elevation angle of the machine gun and then you can attack airships or hot air balloons.

But the natives don’t have it…

Rifled artillery and heavy machine guns are weapons and equipment strictly controlled by the empire, and have not yet been opened for export.

Therefore, the indigenous people lack the corresponding weapons to deal with hot air balloons and airships.

This makes it very appropriate for the Chu army to use flying for mobile aerial reconnaissance...

Of course, this is only theoretical. In fact, the Chu army currently uses very few airships for reconnaissance. Most of them are used for strategic reconnaissance, while tactical reconnaissance is almost used... It's not that airships are not good, but they are used most of the time. Can't catch...

When the Chu army fights, they can just push it all the way through. There is no need to engage in messy tactical reconnaissance and the like. With this reconnaissance time, the Chu army has already wiped out the enemy...

Therefore, there are actually not many airships equipped by the military today. At least a few experimental airship units are mainly used for strategic reconnaissance... If you say it is useless, it must be useful, but if you want to say how useful it is, in fact That's it...

This is the current situation of the airship in the Chu army!

In addition, the military also plans to develop a bombing-type airship, using the large load capacity of the airship to carry a bunch of bombs and throw them on the enemy's heads... This kind of thing is very exciting just imagining it.

But the contemporary airship technology is actually not that good... Although they are also rigid airships, the technology is still relatively limited, so the airships that have been developed so far are not large and have a small bomb load.

Of course, the most important thing is that the artillery force of the Chu army is too powerful now... By the time your airship flies slowly over to carry out bombing, the artillery force of the Chu army will have already launched a large-scale bombardment and wiped out the enemy...

Generally speaking, the development of airships in the Dachu Empire is in a rather embarrassing state... Civilian use is particularly difficult because of safety, and military use is also developing at a slightly slower pace.

However, the military still has not stopped researching airships!

However, the reason why there is a large group of people at the Jinling Flight Testing Ground today, including even the Emperor Luo Zhixue, is not to see airships... After all, airships have been around for more than 20 years, and the military has been experimenting with them. Sexual equipment has been used for nearly ten years, so it is not a new thing. It is impossible to attract Luo Zhixue to attend in person.

The reason why Luo Zhixue is here today is to watch the flight test of an epoch-making aircraft...an airplane!

The Royal Institute of Technology Flying Laboratory has spent many years solving countless basic theoretical studies and successfully built a brand new aircraft using many studies.

This kind of aircraft does not rely on air density to lift off, but uses the principle of lift generated by the pressure difference between the upper and lower wings of the aircraft. This is the plane Luo Zhixue sees now...

The aircraft in front of him seemed to Luo Zhixue to be in a very primitive state... Of course, this primitive did not mean that it was as primitive as the aircraft built by the Wright brothers.

In fact, before Luo Zhixue came to inspect, the aircraft research team of the Flying Laboratory had already manufactured a total of four models with various minor modifications, totaling more than 20 prototypes of various types for testing.

The first successful launch test was last year... but the first successful launch flight test lasted for a very short time, only a few tens of seconds... But just like that, it successfully proved that the lift principle can be applied in practice.

Subsequently, the aircraft research team manufactured more than ten aircraft in succession to solve many exposed problems, such as aircraft balance problems, control problems, etc.

Before Luo Zhixue came for the official inspection, in a flight test last month, the No. 21 aircraft they developed successfully flew for half an hour, with a range of more than 30 kilometers.

This means that breakthrough progress has been made on key issues such as the balance and controllability of the aircraft.

Based on these tests and subsequent improvements, the aircraft research team improved the aircraft that Luo Zhixue sees today: Aircraft No. 23...

There was a No. 22 aircraft before, but that aircraft was mainly used for various ground tests and was not used for actual flights.

The No. 23 aircraft in front of me looks very similar to the early biplane propeller aircraft in Luo Zhixue's memory. It is a biplane with the propeller installed at the nose and uses a specially manufactured An aircraft engine with more than 30 horsepower...

For this engine, the horsepower is actually not the key, the key is the weight... This thing is very light and quite small.

Only such a lightweight and powerful engine can be used as the power for an aircraft.

In the middle of the fuselage of the aircraft, there is a cockpit, but it is an open cockpit. There are joysticks and various switches in the cockpit.

According to the design requirements, the maximum speed of the aircraft can reach 65 kilometers per hour... But unlike the previous aircraft, which were all single-seat aircraft, this aircraft is a two-seat aircraft in tandem!

Because this aircraft was developed by the Flying Laboratory to meet the military's reconnaissance requirements... so compared to the previous single-seater aircraft, one additional seat was added for personnel to control cameras, telescopes and other equipment for aerial reconnaissance.

Luo Zhixue also climbed into the cockpit of the plane with great interest to experience it... but it was too simple to be considered an experience.

What he did was more to show the importance he attached to aircraft... Compared to airships, Luo Zhixue paid more attention to the research and development of aircraft.

After all, the original time and space has proven that airplanes are the best option to conquer the sky... Although airships have had their glory days, it was only before airplanes matured. After airplanes matured, they quickly killed the airships.

Not even...not when airplanes are particularly mature!

Aircraft were only invented at the beginning of the 1908th century, and the first military aircraft appeared in 1914. A few years later, in the Italian-Turkish War, aircraft would be used in war and achieved corresponding results. Wait until ... Aircraft He completely became the protagonist of the sky, and at the same time became an indispensable part of the war.

It was also during this process that the military role of motorized airships declined rapidly, and then was completely eliminated in World War I. Only tethered airships continued to be used as missiles, blocking enemy aircraft and other applications.

Although airships continued to be used for civilian and commercial flights until the 1930s, their fate was bumpy... Frequent air crashes proved that airships were a complete disaster when used for commercial flights... especially hydrogen airships.

As for the helium airship, this thing is much safer... But at that time, helium was an extremely expensive rare gas, and it was too expensive for commercial use.

Looking at the history of the development of airships and airplanes, it is not difficult to conclude that airplanes are the future of the sky.

Of course, this does not mean that airships are useless, especially for a country like the Chu Empire that has no rivals. Airships are actually somewhat useful... After all, the failure of airships in military use is mainly due to the threat of aircraft... ...Facing an attack from an aircraft, an airship is a huge living target.

But the natives didn't have airplanes... they didn't even have anti-aircraft guns or anti-aircraft machine guns... they didn't even have repeating rifles... They were exhausted for a long time and could only use single-shot rifles to attack Chu's airships... But this was almost Useless.

Therefore, the airships in the Chu army still have a certain value, such as long-range monitoring, bombing, etc.

By the way, in the absence of threats, the current use of airships for bombing is much more accurate than aircraft bombing, and they can carry more bombs. They can carry several tons of bombs at any time... At the same time, airships are slow, and even necessary If so, you can hover directly over the enemy's head, and then throw a bomb at the enemy's head... the hit rate is quite impressive.

As for aircraft, even if there is no enemy fire threat, it is not easy to accurately drop bombs because of their own speed... As for dive bombers with a higher hit rate, that will be a long time coming.

Whether it is airships or airplanes, there is a demand for the contemporary Chu Empire, so Luo Zhixue maintains a supportive attitude towards the development of both.

Of course, although they all attach great importance to it, there are differences in priority... There is no doubt that aircraft receive more attention from Luo Zhixue.

After climbing on the plane and experiencing it, Luo Zhixue got off the plane and listened to the explanation of the aircraft design and research team next to the plane. During this period, the royal photographer also took many photos.

One or more of these photos will be selected and published in the Da Chu Chao Bao in a few days, conveying to the world His Majesty's importance and concern for the aircraft.

When the design team was explaining the aircraft, Luo Zhixue actually didn't pay much attention to it... because the current performance is so poor, with a speed of only 65 kilometers per hour and a range of only one or two hundred kilometers, which is far from what he thinks. A true airplane is still far away.

But he is not worried, because he also knows that contemporary technology is in the era of big explosion, and both airframe design and aerospace engines are still advancing by leaps and bounds.

If we continue to work at this technical state, it is estimated that we will be able to build an aircraft with a range of more than 500 or even 1,000 kilometers within a few years.

In the original time and space, Britain used the BE1913 aircraft to fly a thousand kilometers continuously in a single flight in 2. At this time, it was only four years after the birth of the first military aircraft, the military reconnaissance version of the Melite A... In 1903, the Wright brothers made their first successful flight, only ten years later!

In just ten years, airplanes went from being extremely primitive toys to practical weapons of war, and they dominated the sky.

In the Da Chu Empire, the same situation also exists... Before this aircraft was built, it was forgotten, but after it was built, it quickly matured and improved its performance... Last year, the empire successfully flew for the first time until now, and the flight experiment The aircraft research and development team in the laboratory has carried out four large-scale upgrades, and its technological progress has exceeded people's imagination!

The fundamental reason why the technology that supports aircraft can develop so quickly... is naturally because of the complete and strong industrial foundation of the Great Chu Empire!

Without the empire's strong industrial base, the research and development of aircraft would not have been possible at such a rapid pace...especially the aeroengine, which is the most important thing for aircraft.

This thing has very demanding technical requirements... But luckily, gasoline engine technology has been greatly promoted in the Chu Empire due to the rapid development of the automobile industry.

Even though the two are not completely unified, many technical features are similar.

And taking advantage of the powerful gasoline engine industry chain developed by the automobile industry, it has become easier for the Dachu Empire to develop and design specialized aero engines... After all, the technologies used are all ready-made.

To be honest, the empire's current R&D investment in the engine field is mainly led by the automobile industry... The military has to gasp when the four major car manufacturers invest in R&D in the field of gasoline engines every year...

The four major manufacturers combined spend hundreds of millions of dollars on it every year... and the direction of the money is actually separated from the engine itself, and more is concentrated on basic scientific research fields such as material research and development, manufacturing process technology research... …

After all, without the support of corresponding raw materials and processing technology, no matter how good the engine design is, it cannot be produced!

In the front, the four major automobile manufacturers are spending money on basic research and development. In the back, the gasoline aero engines needed for the development of the aviation industry only cost a small price, and then they can directly use various ready-made materials and manufacturing processes... even If aircraft are mass-produced in the future, they will not even need to build their own aero-engine factories. They will directly cooperate with the four major automobile manufacturers, and then give them the design drawings and entrust processing.

When it comes to gasoline internal combustion engines, the four major automobile manufacturers are the ones who specialize... As for the automobile business, that is all incidental, because the automobile industry these days, in a sense, is actually buying the engine and giving the car casing...

A few years ago, the four major automakers made more money from selling engines than they did from buying cars directly... Of course, this also led to the creation of a lot of competitors, especially the emergence of North American Automobile Company. Freak...Nima actually relied on purchasing various core parts and became a car manufacturer with an annual production and sales of tens of thousands of vehicles, which made the four major car companies unhappy.

But if you are unhappy, you still have to continue to sell engines to them... because the four major car manufacturers are not monolithic. If you don't sell, there will be three others... especially Li's Power, which is not doing well in the automobile business. The company is counting on the other three companies to give up engine orders from North American Motors and then transfer the orders to them... Orders for tens of thousands of engines a year are enough to keep their engine factories operating at high speed, provide profits, and manufacture It will become the follow-up engine research and development funds.