I want to be emperor

Chapter 1130 The Road to Commercialization of Aircraft

Songhe Aircraft Company wants to develop a four-engine heavy-duty aircraft, and it is not just a matter of enthusiasm. The main reason is not simply to avoid the advantageous projects of several other aircraft companies, but to also be optimistic about the potential market for four-engine heavy-duty aircraft.

What potential market?

That's the commercial market for four-engine heavy-lift aircraft.

That is, the passenger and freight markets for commercial purposes!

That's right, Songhe Aircraft Company's development of this four-engine heavy-duty aircraft is not for military projects... because the demand for contemporary military aircraft seems to be quite large... but in fact it is just that.

For example, the military wants to increase the number of combat aircraft to more than a thousand within a few years... This may seem like a lot, but you have to know that even though aircraft today are very expensive, in fact single-engine aircraft are only Five to six thousand, the planes on both sides are more expensive, but only about 10,000 yuan. The most important thing is that the military now uses a large number of single-engine, two-seater aircraft.

Even if calculated based on 10,000 Chu Yuan each, these thousand aircraft are actually only 10 million Chu Yuan... And this is not the number of annual purchases, but the military's total aircraft size in the next five years or so... The specific number of purchases per year may only be two to three hundred.

Only two to three hundred aircraft were purchased this year, and the annual purchase amount is only two to three million... This is still on the high side.

This production value... to be honest, it's just a fraction of that of the leader in the automotive industry.

To put it more seriously, the parent companies of the five major aircraft companies, that is, the five major automobile companies, do not like it...

And just this output value has to be divided among five aircraft companies... You can imagine how small the market for contemporary military aircraft is. When automobile companies develop military aircraft, they are all trying to improve the industrial chain and lay the groundwork for the future. A large number of commercial aircraft are prepared.

Research and development is expensive!

Therefore, in the eyes of Songhe Aircraft Company’s management, although the aircraft market in the short term does only have military and administrative users... in the long run, the orders from the military and administrative users cannot meet the huge investment needs of the aircraft industry!

With only a few million purchases a year, they are allocated to the five major aircraft companies... It would not be a big deal if the five major aircraft companies went bankrupt, but they don't expect much money to be invested in new aircraft, especially the research and development of new aero engines.

This is also the embarrassing part of the defense industry after entering the 1950s... Although various new weapons and equipment seem to be very high-end, and the unit price is also quite high, the total amount is actually not much!

For example, motor vehicles, armored vehicles are better. This involves weapons and equipment other than vehicles, so even a light armored vehicle basically costs tens of thousands of yuan... But it is not because the armored vehicle is expensive, but because The weapon systems mounted on armored vehicles are expensive... For an armored vehicle that costs tens of thousands of dollars, a vehicle-mounted machine gun inside costs three to four thousand dollars.

But even the seemingly large sum of money from the military cannot actually support the truck business subsidiary of Tangshan Automobile Company... If they really have to rely on military orders to survive, the five major automobile companies will go bankrupt in minutes.

This is why the technologies used in the various military equipment of the Dachu Empire...except for a very small number of special equipment, the technical sources of most other military equipment rely on corresponding private industries.

The four major automobile companies have engines, and the competition is fierce, so the involution is severe, the profit margin is not that high, and there is no problem of monopolizing high prices.

A very embarrassing fact is that these days, a gasoline engine that represents the Chu Empire's top mass production industrial capabilities is less expensive than a heavy machine gun... Why? That's not because of the high technical content and high manufacturing cost of heavy machine guns, but because of monopoly.

And this is also distributed to many special mobile manufacturers.

However, the good days of these two weapons companies selling heavy machine guns at high prices will not last long, because the patent of the heavy machine gun will expire in a few years... But just because the patent period is limited, other weapons companies sell them so expensively. It takes a little time to get something.

But even if an expensive heavy machine gun is attached, resulting in an overall expensive armored vehicle, the total annual purchase amount is not much... In the fifty-two years of Chengshun, the total purchase amount for the armored vehicle project is expected to be only 1.3 million Chu Yuan……

This is the embarrassing situation of contemporary military procurement... On the surface, it looks very high-end, and the unit price of military equipment is also quite expensive, but when it comes to the total quantity, it is very small.

If nothing else happens, the price of heavy machine guns will plummet in two to three years... because the other three weapons companies have already developed prototype guns and are just waiting for your patent to expire.

But heavy machine guns, especially the eight-millimeter air-cooled heavy machine guns for vehicles, and the 11-millimeter air-cooled heavy machine guns, only Huguang Weapons Company has... Exclusive supply, it is so expensive, do you want it if the military likes it... You say It’s expensive, and they will give you a lot of so-called R&D costs.

Even if it looks like it is purchasing transport vehicles with larger equipment, there are actually not many... The military was full of praise and decided to purchase one or five trucks on a large scale. The total order of all military services combined is currently only that. Thousands of vehicles, and in the near future, the total amount of 1.5-ton standard military truck equipment in at least five years, the Military Academy estimated that the number of all services combined is only 15,000 vehicles... which is less than the Tangshan Automobile Company. Annual output!

Because... Tangshan Automobile Company sells more than 20,000 units of the same truck, with lower standards and cheaper prices, for civilian use every year...

In addition to warships, the 15 trucks have been the military’s largest order in recent years...

Besides, even a four-engine heavy-duty aircraft developed for the commercial market can be used for military purposes after slight modifications.

Although it is not yet possible to predict how big the future commercial transportation market will be, Songhe Aircraft Company is very optimistic about it... so it has made arrangements early.

For example, it serves as a military transport aircraft for emergency transportation of personnel or supplies.

But in fact, for heavy machine guns, the profits of arsenals are not tens of percentage points, but several times. In the early years, that is, in the 1940s, the early Shaanxi-Gan Weapons Company relied on water-cooled heavy machine guns. I live a living and support a lot of R&D projects.

Therefore, in the medium to long term, if the aircraft industry wants to usher in real development, it can only rely on the private market, to be precise, the commercial transportation market.

Armored vehicles, transport vehicles and even military aircraft all rely heavily on the development of the automobile industry... because in the field of gasoline engines, only the automobile industry can afford the huge investment in research in this engine field.

In addition, four-engine heavy-duty aircraft naturally have huge load advantages. By distributing the load, they can obtain huge range or bomb load, or achieve a certain balance between the two... This means that this four-engine heavy-duty aircraft can Used as a bomber to replace the current airship force.

These advantages cannot be obtained by twin-engine aircraft... let alone single-engine aircraft.

Finally... these four-engine heavy-duty aircraft are more expensive... A single-engine aircraft costs several thousand, but a four-engine aircraft costs at least tens of thousands. The price difference here is estimated to be seven to eight times or even ten times.

This means that even if it is sold to the military, the total order amount will be higher.

In short... for the sake of a broader market and a higher order amount, Songhe Aircraft Company finally decided to focus its main manpower and material resources on four-engine heavy-duty aircraft.

The development difficulty of four-engine heavy-duty aircraft is actually not substantially improved compared to single-engine and twin-engine aircraft... or even lower to some extent, because with four engines, the requirements for the engines are actually It is not as demanding as a single-engine aircraft, has a relatively large design fault tolerance, and is relatively friendly to Songhe Automobile Company, whose engine technology is slightly behind.

If one or two engines of a four-engine aircraft break down in the air, it can still fly... But if one or two engines of a single-engine or twin-engine aircraft break down, it will be over in a matter of minutes.

For a four-engine aircraft at the same time, it doesn't matter even if the power of a single engine is smaller, because the four engines together are enough.

To a certain extent, lagging behind in the field of gasoline engines has resulted in the inability to produce better aero engines... This is also the reason why Songhe Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of Songhe Automobile Company, develops four-engine aircraft.

They worry that their single-engine or twin-engine aircraft will not be reliable... If the engine has to meet many requirements such as reliability, the thrust-to-weight ratio will be too small; if the thrust-to-weight ratio is to be met, the reliability will be too poor.

Of course... this is also related to their desire to overtake in corners.

While other aircraft companies were still using relatively conservative but mature and controllable in-line aero engines, they directly used radial aero engines... Well, this thing was invented by the Royal Institute of Technology Flight Laboratory, and all five major aircraft companies Obtained patent authorization for radial aircraft engine.

But the only one that really plans to put this thing into mass production and install it on airplanes now is Songhe Aircraft Company.

There is nothing they can do. The engine technology is inherently poor and cannot compare with the engine technology of the other three car companies... There is no competitive advantage at all in continuing to use conservative inline or V-type engines.

If you use a radial engine, you can still struggle for a while. I look forward to the future...

Using in-line or V-type aero engines... I'm afraid they will have to live in the shadow of the other three aircraft companies and can only compete with the latecomer American Aircraft Company!

As for North American Motors, the parent company of American Aircraft Company... they don't even have mass-produced gasoline engines so far. Even if patent restrictions are put aside, their technical level in the field of gasoline engines is still at the bottom of the five major automobile companies. s level.

Comparing the engine level with North American Automobile Company... Songhe Automobile Company can't live up to this shame.

Therefore, in order to gain a competitive advantage, at least in the future, in the field of engine research, Songhe Automobile Company has been concentrating its technical strength on conquering some more advanced technologies in recent years, trying to overtake in corners...such as passenger car engines. In the field, others are working on four-cylinder inline, inline six-cylinder, and V-shaped four-cylinder engines. These are relatively mature and reliable engines that have proven their market potential!

But they are working on V-shaped six-cylinder or even V-shaped eight-cylinder engines... Not to mention, when they launched the first flagship luxury sedan equipped with V-shaped six-cylinder engine, it also attracted a lot of attention, making the flagship luxury sedan Cars guarantee a certain sales volume.

The same is true in the field of aerospace engines. Others develop in-line engines and V-type engines, while they develop radial engines... Of course, although they seem to be ahead of the curve... the technical problems are greater and the research and development risks are also greater. .

And sometimes, being advanced is not necessarily a good thing... As the saying goes, being half a step ahead is a genius, and being one step ahead is a lunatic... It is similar in market competition. It is possible to gain a large market with half-generation advanced technology, but with advanced one-generation technology , that might go bankrupt...

It's just that Songhe Automobile Company can't do anything... Songhe Aircraft Company, a subsidiary company, can't do anything either.

Who makes its own technology inferior to others? It cannot compare with others in in-line four-cylinder and V-shaped four-cylinder engines, which are currently the most used in the field of passenger cars and are also the most economical and reliable...

This is not the slightest bit behind, but it is inferior to others in many details, including raw materials, processing technology, and design details.

Although this backwardness is actually not too big... there is no so-called generation difference, but some performance is somewhat backward, such as more faults, or failure under extreme working conditions, and higher costs.

Each point is actually not a big problem, but when many small problems are combined, the gap between Tangshan Automobile Company and Liaodong Automobile Company is huge.

This is also the reason why many users on the market generally report that the power of Songhe Automobile Company's cars is not very good... because in order to ensure the service life of the engine and reduce the failure rate, they have to actively reduce the power... Therefore, compared with the same engine of several other companies, The engine is smaller in terms of power.

This situation has also been fed back to the aircraft engine!

Therefore, Songhe Aircraft Company abandoned the mature and reliable inline and V-type engines and used radial engines from the beginning.

It is planned to use four radial engines to propel this huge large aircraft... Although it is said to be a large aircraft, in fact, the maximum designed take-off weight is only six or seven tons.

This maximum take-off weight was only the take-off weight of small and medium-sized aircraft during World War II, let alone the 21st century.

The maximum takeoff weight of the P51 fighter jet is more than five tons.

However, in the contemporary Da Chu Empire, or before the First World War in the original time and space, this maximum takeoff weight of six to seven tons was considered a veritable large aircraft.

After all, the size of the aircraft depends on the era... At least in the contemporary Dachu Empire, this kind of aircraft with a maximum take-off weight of six or seven tons is already considered a serious large aircraft.

In order to power this kind of aircraft, they had to specially develop a large-power radial aeroengine. Each engine has a thrust of one hundred horsepower, but the size and weight are limited to a very small level.

This is actually very rare for contemporary engine technology. It can even be said that only radial aircraft engine technology can achieve this level.

Using conventional in-line and V-type engine technology, it would be difficult to reach the level of 100 horsepower under this volume and weight limit.

When the aero engine was manufactured and there were no major problems in the preliminary tests, the airframe design was quickly completed. The assembled four-engine heavy-duty aircraft was named the 'Song 1 Transport Aircraft' by Songhe Aircraft Company, and passed the ground After many tests, Songhe Aircraft Company could not wait to conduct the first flight test of this aircraft...

The first flight test was considered a success. It took off very smoothly, then maintained the flight for more than ten minutes and landed smoothly.

This means that this aircraft, the Song 1 transport aircraft, was a complete success...at least the first flight was a success.

Of course, this is still a long way from practical application or even commercial operation... In addition to technical issues, there is also the issue of market recognition.

After all, few people today dare to travel by plane. The only reliable option is the rapid air transportation of high-value light goods.

Although commercial development of this kind of aircraft is difficult and there is no customer recognition... But the military is different... The various branches of the contemporary Chu Army, regardless of whether it is the Army, Navy or Guards... especially the current Army Air Force , I just like to toss around with all kinds of new aircraft... As for how to use it and whether it is useful, I will tell you after trying it first!

The early aviation and military applications were explored bit by bit. How would you know that these four-engine heavy-duty aircraft are useless without trying them yourself?

So it didn’t take long for the Army Air Force to find Songhe Aircraft Company and place an order. It wasn’t much, only four orders in total... But the total order for the four aircraft reached 160,000 yuan, and the unit price reached more than 40,000 yuan. Chu Yuan.

What I can see is that several other aircraft companies are very envious... The aircraft industry is only so big now. Although there are only 160,000 orders, it is already a lot. Tangshan Aircraft Company has to sell almost 30 Heiyan coaches. Only by chance can we sell such a large order total.

Since then, several other aircraft companies have also begun to pay attention to the research and development of large aircraft... However, each company still has its own aircraft focus, and it is impossible for Songhe Aircraft Company to devote all its manpower and material resources to four-engine large aircraft. in the field.

For example, Tangshan Aircraft Company's advantage project is single-engine aircraft. The aircraft control performance technology is top-notch, and the single-engine technology is also first-class.

Another example is Liaohe Aircraft Company. They do a very good job in controlling fuel consumption, and they also have a very unique power layout technology for twin-engine aircraft. Therefore, the twin-engine long-range aircraft they make is very good and can extend the range very far...

While the range of other aircraft companies is still limited to two to three hundred kilometers, the twin-engine long-range reconnaissance aircraft of their Liaodong Aircraft Company has a range of six to seven hundred kilometers, and the research and development goals of new aircraft are aimed at a range of thousands of kilometers. went.

As for Lee Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of Lee Power Company... they are now in a fierce fight with the Navy. They even got a research and development project contract from the Navy to develop seaplanes. Their technology is relatively mature and they have successively delivered the first to the Navy. A modern naval seaplane.

As for American Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of North American Automobile Company, it still does not have its own aero-engine due to patent restrictions. However, it has cooperated with Lee Power Company and purchased Lee Power Company’s aero-engine... But what is interesting is that they developed The target of the aircraft is not a military aircraft, nor a large commercial aircraft, but an aircraft developed for use in the agricultural field... They are planning to develop an aircraft specifically for spraying pesticides, and by the way, develop a small aircraft for private flights.

Because they discovered that farmers in large areas such as the Americas and Eastern Europe urgently need a tool that can spray pesticides on a large area at low cost. Some of the more extreme large farmers even use small airships to spray pesticides!

They saw the potential of the market, so they specialized in this thing... Although the products of North American Automobile Company are not well-known in East Asia, they are famous in the Americas and Eastern Europe, where there are many people but little land, and there are a large number of farms... …Their pickup trucks are very popular in these areas and have won the trust of these farmers.

So when they heard that the aircraft company under the North American Automobile Company was going to build a small plane that could spray pesticides, some farmers even placed orders for it before they even saw the plane...

This crappy plane doesn't look great, and its performance is far from advanced. However, it has not yet entered the mass production stage after its first flight, and the number of scheduled orders has reached more than a hundred... and there are even more farms. The owner is waiting and waiting to place an order...

What, you said that an airplane costs several thousand yuan, even a crappy thing like a pesticide airplane costs three to four thousand, and it’s not cheap... The farmer said that the price is completely acceptable and not expensive.

I think back then, these farmers could still buy and use steam tractors worth thousands of dollars, but now they can easily buy tractors worth thousands of dollars, light trucks worth more than a thousand dollars, and pickup trucks worth hundreds of dollars. Just bought it.

Nowadays, a mere three to four thousand pesticide planes are nothing at all...

For individual users, three to four thousand yuan may be very expensive, but for large commercial farms, three to four thousand yuan is nothing. By spending these three to four thousand yuan, they can save more pesticide spraying The cost... Not only can you use it yourself, but you can also help other small and medium-sized farms spray pesticides for a fee...

Many professional accountants from large farms have done the math and found this deal to be a very good deal.

Otherwise, you would think that other farmers are fools and place orders before they even see the plane because it is profitable.

In terms of sales, I am afraid that the aircraft of the other four aircraft companies combined are probably not as good as the pesticide sprayers of American Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of North American Motors...

And the so-called commercial application of aircraft that Songhe Aircraft Company is pursuing... has to be outdone by the pesticide aircraft of American Aircraft Company... For now, pesticide spraying machines are the ones with real commercial value in the current Da Chu Empire. type of aircraft.

As for commercial applications such as aircraft passenger transportation and freight transportation... I can only say that the prospects are bright, but the current situation is cruel... it is not that easy.

In the short term, the passenger transport business status of airplanes is not even as good as that of airships... Although airships are also quite dangerous, the new rigid airships are much safer than current airplanes.

There are even commercial companies currently preparing for the first regular air flight route in human history!

(End of this chapter)