I want to be emperor

Chapter 1128 Black Swallow Plane

In the autumn and September of Chengshun 1952, the Tangshan Aircraft Company flight test ground in the suburbs of Tianjin, an aircraft company wholly owned by Tangshan Machinery Group Company, was conducting a new round of aircraft flight tests.

However, unlike previous flight tests that were only watched by internal personnel, this time the flight test will not only be watched by people from the military, but also military personnel will even participate.

These military personnel are the Army Air Force of the Dachu Empire Army... Well, this is not a newly established force, but a force that has existed for more than ten years.

The Army first equipped its artillery units with hot-air balloons. Well, now the artillery units are also equipped with hot-air balloons in large numbers. Basically every artillery company is equipped with a hot-air balloon team to guide the artillery unit's firing.

Even now, hot air balloons are an indispensable sight for the Chu army's long-distance and high-precision bombardment. The fire calibration equipment... is not only equipped in the large-caliber long-range artillery unit, but also in the division-level artillery unit; in addition, the navy's warships are also equipped. Basically every ship of several hundred tons or more will be equipped with a hot air balloon for calibrating naval guns.

Of course, the performance of contemporary hot air balloons has been greatly improved compared to early hot air balloons. For example, in terms of communication, in the early days, only semaphores could be used for communication or simply shouting and adding microphones to contact observers on the ground and on the balloon. But now it is possible to use the phone directly.

After tethered balloons, the Chu Army began to equip motorized airships, from early soft airships to current rigid airships. Based on the uniqueness of the airship force, the Army specially established the Army Air Force for this purpose. Manage motorized airships.

Its nature is roughly equivalent to the Director of Cavalry, Director of Artillery, Director of Engineers and other agencies... Of course, the level is actually lower. After all, the scale of motorized airships is still relatively small. So far, there are only about a hundred airships equipped. These airships are deployed dispersedly, and a large number of them are deployed in overseas territories. They are mainly used for long-range aerial reconnaissance, and occasionally they also drop bombs part-time.

But to be honest, it is not very useful in practice... Mainly because the speed is too slow and the maneuverability is too poor. In addition, it is greatly affected by the weather. It is difficult to take off and land when the wind is slightly stronger, and the wind force is also affected during the voyage. Too sensitive...

Then there is the commonplace risk of flammability and explosion.

Of course, it is useless to just rely on the Royal Institute of Technology to develop aircraft and solve various basic theoretical problems... The Royal Institute of Technology Flying Laboratory is just a research institution, and like many research laboratories at the Royal Institute of Technology, they are more Prefer various theoretical studies.

But...it's not that easy to be shot down after all.

After all, the rigid airships currently equipped in the Chu Army use hydrogen... There is no need to elaborate on how dangerous this thing is. To put it simply, if the airship encounters a spark and ignites the leaked hydrogen, the airship will instantly Turn into a big fireball.

But in the civilian market... it is not so easy for other car companies to successfully use these patents.

It is precisely this rule that allows North American Automobile Companies to steadily develop its own gasoline engines despite failing to obtain patent authorization for internal combustion engines in the past many years, and on this basis, it has developed a lot of its own technologies...

The researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology's Flying Laboratory lived up to the military's high expectations and finally successfully developed the aircraft.

Because of patent restrictions, even if other companies have the technical capabilities to create it, they cannot do it, let alone use it for commercial purposes... Otherwise, the huge legal teams of the four major car companies can bankrupt you...

After a few more years... well, some of the core basic principles of aircraft, such as lift theory, have already been worked out. The military is even less interested in airships, and would rather save funds to wait for the successful development of aircraft.

This is why after the successful development of the aircraft, only the five major automobile companies went to seek patent authorization and then established the aircraft company... Because only the four major automobile companies can produce aero engines. As for the North American automobile companies, they are a bit special. Their various gasoline products The technical preparations for the engine are almost complete. Just waiting for a few of the core patents to pass, Chengshun will be able to mass-produce gasoline engines on its own and use them for commercial applications in about 55 years.

The technology research and development capabilities of North American automobile companies are still quite strong. In the past few years, they have produced a lot of products that the four major automobile companies are jealous of, and even blocked some of the patents of the four major automobile companies, especially in the pickup and off-road fields. Some of the technologies here have relatively big advantages.

As for how to mass-produce and turn the original aircraft into a practical aircraft with military value, it depends on the domestic industry.

Currently, even military trucks and armored vehicles need to make extensive use of some of their North American Automobile Company's exclusive patents... Of course, it is relatively simple for these military vehicles to use these patents. Most companies generally do not set restrictions, as long as they give enough Just pay the patent licensing fee and limit the output and use.

Chu Jun himself has tested it... He doesn't use any powerful weapons. He can directly use rifles and ray bullets to shoot into the sky, and he can knock down airships hundreds of meters above the ground... Yes, that's right. Such an exaggeration.

To be precise, it depends on the domestic automobile industry... There is no way. The core component of the aircraft, that is, the aeroengine, can only be manufactured by the five major... no, only the four major automobile companies.

This also means that if all goes well, North American Automobile Company also hopes to put aerospace engines into commercial use within the year... As for various early research and development work, it has been completed long ago. North American Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of North American Automobile Company, has already We have manufactured a large number of aero engines for various flight tests of our own aircraft, but they are limited by patents and cannot be used for commercial applications.

Without patent authorization, it is okay to use it for scientific research, but it cannot be used for commercial purposes.

These five car companies are currently engaged in a relatively large-scale patent cross-licensing negotiation. If successful, North American car companies may be able to mass-produce gasoline engines on their own two to three years in advance, and the four major car companies will also receive some Authorize the patented technology that you urgently need.

This is why after so many years, the size of the Army's airship force has only remained at more than a hundred airships... It is indeed somewhat useful, but it has many shortcomings, which has caused the Army itself to be very entangled.

Although this is a very extreme example, after all, when an airship goes to a war zone to perform a mission, it is impossible to perform the mission at such a low altitude. Instead, it generally performs reconnaissance or reconnaissance at an altitude of more than a thousand meters, and sometimes even two or three thousand meters. Bombing mission.

And this time point is very likely to be accelerated... because American Automobile Company is conducting patent negotiations with the four major automobile companies to conduct a certain degree of patent exchange, and then exchange for the authorization of several core patents two to three years in advance... Of course In exchange, they also have to provide a variety of new patents in exchange.

However, it can only be limited to research.

If you want to mass-produce and use it for commercial applications, this patent licensing issue must be solved...otherwise, you will have to wait another two or three years.

This is actually the North American Automobile Company. Although they were unable to solve several core patent issues, they were able to gradually solve other technical problems and find ways to bypass other companies' patents and establish their own patents.

For other third-party car manufacturers, or other companies that are interested in entering the gasoline engine industry... it is not that simple. The patent restrictions they are subject to are not one or two, but dozens and hundreds... Even if In two or three years, many core patents will expire one after another. There is a high probability that they will not be able to build a usable gasoline engine because there are a lot of other patents blocking them.

This is the difference between North American Automobile Company and other third-party automobile manufacturers and other companies entering the automobile or engine industry... Today's North American Automobile Company is not just a pure third-party automobile manufacturer, but a company with many core technologies. An automobile company that has initially built a patent pool for the automobile industry.

For such North American automobile companies, their rise has become inevitable. Even if they are forced to delay them for two or three years, it will not have much effect... It can even be said that even if they stop production now, it will not hurt them to keep workers and machinery and equipment in vain for two or three years. … They have sufficient cash flow to sustain themselves, and they can continue to invest heavily in research and development.

Wait until two or three years later to carry out large-scale mass production and directly return to the market.

It's just that it hurts others and hurts yourself.

You can choke North American Automobile Company, and North American Automobile Company can choke you... For example, the new generation of "One-Five Truck" owned by Tangshan Automobile Company is ready to be launched on the market, and the light-duty truck is improved from the Tangshan sedan site. Trucks and pickup models are all prepared to use the patents of various North American automobile companies... Once the patent exchange negotiations are unsuccessful, these new vehicles will not be successfully introduced to the market and will have to continue with old and backward designs.

Similar situations actually exist in the five major automobile companies... Large industrial products such as automobiles involve too many technologies. No one of the five major automobile companies can control all patents. Each of them has its own patents. They have their own advantages, and each also has some patented weapons that can choke others' necks.

If you don’t give it to me, I won’t give it to you, and then we all have to suffer together. This is simply unacceptable for the automobile market, which is developing rapidly and growing at least dozens of percentage points every year.

Avoid large-scale patent competition that undermines each other, cultivate together under limited competition, and expand the market... This is the current consensus of the five major automobile companies.

When the market is growing at a rapid pace, everyone has enough cake to eat... What you are afraid of now is not your competitors, but your own insufficient production and inability to control costs...

If you don't produce enough, all your competitors will die, and you won't be able to sell many vehicles.

If costs cannot be controlled, all competitors will die, and high-priced vehicles cannot be sold.

Expand production, reduce costs, then reduce car prices, expand market capacity, and finally form the so-called 'auto society' that all car companies dream of.

Therefore, although the competition among the five major automobile companies is fierce, it is still within a controllable range. At least they will not give up their own growth rate in order to defeat their competitors.

That's why the five major automobile companies can sit together and negotiate on patent swaps. This negotiation started at the beginning of the year and has lasted for half a year. However, it remains to be seen when and what the results will be.

After all, this is not a negotiation between two companies, but a negotiation between five companies. Each company has its own demands. It is not easy to balance the interests and demands of the five major automobile companies.

For this reason, even the military and political officials from the three agencies, the New Industries Department of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the Internal Combustion Engine Department of the Ministry of Industry, and the Mechanization Development Bureau under the Military Academy, which are promoting the development of this matter, feel a headache. But there is no other way but to continue to work as a middleman to persuade the five major automobile companies to gradually give up some conditions and reach an agreement as much as possible.

The top officials of the Dachu Empire promoted the patent exchange negotiations of the five major automobile companies in order to promote the overall development of the automobile industry... However, they were unable to directly intervene in it, even though three of the five major automobile companies were directly affiliated with the Ministry of Industry. enterprise.

But not the other two...

One is Lee Power Company, a subsidiary of Lee Steel, which is currently the largest listed company in the stock market. Even though Lee Power Company is no longer a wholly-owned company of Lee Steel, it has been split up, attracted strategic investment and then listed independently. , but it is still considered a subsidiary of Lee Steel.

Lee's Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. doesn't want any official pressure from you... Don't think that you are the only official. A large number of shareholders of Lee's Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. are not official. For a large-scale enterprise like Lee's Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., a large number of votes The shareholders are basically official financial investment institutions. Today's largest shareholder, which holds 8% of the shares, is the 'Jinling Strategic Investment Fund' directly under the Ministry of Industry. In addition, there are many provincial pension investment funds, and a bunch of provincial The shares held by the Industrial Department Financial Investment Fund and various official institutions directly exceed 50%...

Then there are a lot of holdings by various financial institutions...

So regardless of the current management rights of Li Steel, which is still in the hands of the Li family, in fact half of the stocks are in the hands of the government, and a lot of them are in the hands of various financial institutions, and some are in the stock market. Free flow... But even for the stocks circulating in the stock market, a considerable part is held by major financial investment institutions, and the total number of shares held by ordinary individual investors is not large.

As for the background, Lee's Iron Manufacturing is not bad!

This is talking about Li's Steel, and the specifics are similar to Li's Automobile Company... Its second largest shareholder is the Guangdong Pension Fund, and the third largest shareholder is the Guangzhou Government Finance.

To put it bluntly, the local government used Li's Iron and Steel to incubate a large-scale comprehensive automobile company. It is a leading enterprise used to drive local economic development, employment, and tax revenue. Your so-called official wants to torment Li's Power Company. The governor of Guangdong is I have to jump out and slap you directly!

Who the hell are you, how dare you touch my official achievements...

The North American automobile companies are similar. Behind them are the governments of the three North American provinces... No, now the South American governments have also joined in, and they have also accepted support from the governments of some East Asian provinces.

Behind each of the five major automobile companies is actually the government power of multiple provinces, and they are not simply private enterprises.

Under such circumstances, it would be very difficult for the higher-ups, such as the Department of Emerging Industries and the Bureau of Mechanization Development and other military and political agencies, to promote their patent exchanges, because they cannot forcefully suppress the situation and can only try their best to bridge the gap and balance interests.

But even if it is difficult, based on the current market situation and the patent stranglehold between the five major automobile companies, there is a high probability that the five major automobile companies will be able to negotiate it in the end... After all, patent swaps are very urgent for the five major automobile companies.

Under such circumstances, it is highly likely that North American Automobile Company will succeed in obtaining the last few core patents for internal combustion engines. Once successful, they will be able to mass-produce their own aero engines.

By then, the American Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of North American Motors Corporation, will also be able to put the aircraft it is developing into the market to compete for orders from the military.

Of course, this will take time... At present, only aircraft companies affiliated with the four major automobile companies are participating in the military's various aircraft orders.

Among them, the progress of Tangshan Aircraft Company is relatively smooth. Tangshan Aircraft Company focuses on the development of single-engine, two-seat reconnaissance aircraft. The company's internal code name is 'Heiyan'.

The Heiyan aircraft has actually been successfully tested a long time ago, but it has been undergoing continuous improvement due to various technical problems.

The latest improved model has initially solved many problems such as control and flight balance, and its performance has also been greatly improved compared to the early prototypes.

This is a single-engine, two-seat aircraft with a maximum take-off weight of 750 kilograms, a maximum speed of 100 hours per kilometer, a maximum range of 300 kilometers, and a special aerial camera on the back seat for shooting.

In terms of speed and range, we can only say that it is quite satisfactory. The single-engine, single-seat aircraft developed by Songjiang Aircraft Company can even reach a maximum speed of 120 kilometers and a maximum range of 500 kilometers.

But the Heiyan aircraft has a feature that interests the military very much, that is, its flight stability is very strong, and its flight process is very stable...

What good is this if the flight is smooth?

There are many benefits. First of all, it is easy to fly, which means it is safer to fly and it is easier to train pilots. If the flight is smooth, it will be easier to observe with a telescope or take pictures with a camera during aerial reconnaissance!

After all, no one wants to conduct reconnaissance on a rickety plane!

Because of its excellent flight stability, the military decided to directly send its own pilots to follow the manufacturer's test pilots to conduct lift-off flight tests and actually test the aircraft for reconnaissance in the air.

After all, things are for the aviation team's own use. You have to let your own people on the plane experience it and get the most realistic experience before making the next decision.

If all the testing work is done by the manufacturer's pilots, what kind of crappy aircraft will they end up giving to the Army Air Force...

As the Heiyan reconnaissance plane slowly took off, a group of people also used binoculars to observe. While observing the process of the plane taking off, several officers of the aviation team couldn't help but nodded. The flying attitude was indeed very stable.

They had been to several other aircraft companies and watched flight tests, but no other aircraft could be as smooth as the one in front of them, even in the most difficult take-off stage.

In the subsequent aerial flights, whether it was turning or smooth flight observation, the performance was relatively excellent.

After the pilots of the aviation team came down, they reported to the leading general of the aviation team. The report spoke very highly of the aircraft and said that the flight of the aircraft was very smooth, even in the most difficult take-off and landing stages.

After training him on this kind of aircraft for a period of time, he was confident that he could fly the aircraft himself.

The report of the Air Force test pilot, coupled with the on-site observation, also caused several officers of the Air Force to go aside to discuss.

It didn't take long before I saw the colonel of an aviation team who was leading the team and said, "Can your Heiyan aircraft further optimize its smooth flight performance and control performance? Make a trainer aircraft specifically for teaching?"

This made the people at Tangshan Aircraft Company somewhat unexpected... To be honest, they had never thought of making a trainer aircraft at first. They were aiming for the largest market, the military is most interested in it at this stage, and it is also the reconnaissance aircraft with the best practical use. Went by plane...

But now, after seeing the Heiyan aircraft, people from these aviation teams actually feel that this thing is more suitable as a training aircraft.

But this is not a big deal. For Tangshan Aircraft Company, as long as there are orders, it will be fine.

The company's technical director immediately stated that there was nothing wrong with these performance improvements, and it would not take long for the corresponding modified trainer models to be produced for actual testing.

Sure enough, they did have the technical capabilities. Just one month later, the trainer model of their Black Swallow aircraft successfully made its maiden flight and completed testing of many subjects on the same day.

On the same day, the aviation team also brought several rookie pilots over for practical experience... During the experience, these rookie pilots said that this kind of aircraft was easier to use than the several aircraft they had learned to fly before.

A few days later, the Army Air Force officially placed an order for the first batch of fifty Black Yan training aircraft with Tangshan Aircraft Company through the Ordnance Department...

This order is not a small order, because the aircraft market in China is very small. The civil aircraft market only has orders from a few administrative agencies and commercial companies, and the only real big customers are the military.

After all, the uses of contemporary aircraft are relatively narrow. Their main uses are mainly military and have very little civilian use.

In addition, it is also because contemporary aircraft are still quite expensive. Don’t look at just a wooden frame, add some steel frames, and then add rope curtains and the like. It looks very simple and worthless, but the price of a Black Yan training aircraft is up to There are more than six thousand Chu Yuan.

Don't wonder why it's so expensive, because just commissioning a high-power aero engine from the Brother Engine Factory next door costs more than 1,500 yuan in commissioning processing and material costs.

Coupled with the cost of the airframe produced by Tangshan Aircraft Company, and finally the huge R&D cost invested in the premise, all of these costs are taken into account, and then the profit is added, and in the end it can reach more than 6,000 yuan. Tangshan Aircraft Company is very conscientious.

How can something new be cheap?