Just when Emperor Zhu Da was facing the newly released tanks and talking about the aircraft with anticipation, what he didn't know was that the test flight of the aircraft failed again.
"The engine is too heavy!"
Once again, in a well-secured open space dozens of kilometers away from Nanhua, the plane once again slid for several hundred meters like a car, driven by propellers, but could not fly.
hour.
Li Lin said a little annoyed.
"If the engine were lighter, it would definitely be able to fly into the sky!"
In fact, in the past few years, Li Lin and his colleagues have conducted hundreds of flight tests at this test site called the "Power Test Laboratory" - glider flight tests.
As early as three years ago, they used a car to tow a glider to fly. The human-controlled glider successfully flew away from the towing device again and again, flying about 500 meters away from the ground for the first time. Then they continued to improve it.
The glider has flown in the air more than 2,000 times, and one of its longest flights was 1,350 meters.
This achievement may seem ordinary, but it is absolutely amazing in this era. After all, at the same time, other aviation pioneers in the world were flying gliders, but they only flew a few hundred meters.
"The engine is a problem, and our design may also have problems."
Like Li Lin, through thousands of test flights, Feng Kai conducted scientific research and experiments on the glider's flight principles, air lift and wing angle, fuselage shape, rudder, elevator, landing gear, etc.
It is through their efforts that flight has been elevated from an adventurous attempt to a scientific exploration. They even analyze the structure of the aircraft from a scientific perspective.
"A glider is an aircraft that uses its wings to generate lift in the airflow. The lift of a single wing is not as good as that of double wings. What if we add another layer of wings?"
Feng Kai's suggestion made Li Lin shake his head and said.
"This is unrealistic. Adding wings will still increase weight. As the weight of the aircraft increases, it will definitely be more difficult to fly it. The most important thing now is to reduce the weight of the engine and increase the power. According to the current situation,
It weighs as much as a piece of thallium iron, and it will definitely not reach the sky..."
Not only can it not reach the sky! It must be like an iron block. Even if it flies a few meters, it will fall directly.
Li Lin stared at the biplane and couldn't help but feel a little melancholy. After all, they still haven't built a plane that can fly.
Could it be that the plane really can’t fly?
Could it be said that only airships that take off using hydrogen can fly into the sky?
If it weren't for the success of gliders, he really didn't believe that airplanes could fly, but gliders can indeed fly!
"The engine must be too heavy!"
Once again, in the hangar, Li Lin frowned as he stared at the engine that was improved on the basis of the car engine.
"How can I make it lighter?"
While talking to himself, Li Lin thought of a material.
"What if the engine is made of aluminum?"
"Use aluminum? You are crazy! Aluminum is more expensive than silver!"
Feng Kai immediately said with excitement. He thought of the aluminum necklace his wife had just bought. It was a metal more expensive than silver and was used to make engines.
It's just a bit - wishful thinking!
"Building an engine with aluminum is equivalent to building an engine with silver! Is it possible?"
"I know it's unrealistic, but is there any metal that is lighter than aluminum? Apart from aluminum, I really don't know what else can reduce the weight of the engine."
Of course, what they didn't know was that in another world, the Laite brothers also faced such a problem at the beginning. However, at that time, the price of aluminum was already very cheap. After hundreds of days and nights of hard work, they finally
An aluminum cast cylinder engine with light weight and good stability was developed to provide reliable power for the first flight.
With reliable engines, flight is possible.
But now, aluminum is really expensive!
Even if dozens of tons of aluminum are produced every year in the secret factories of the Ming Dynasty, they are still used for export in exchange for funds. In the past few years, aluminum can be said to have been a contributor to the rise of the Ming Dynasty industry!
All kinds of aluminum jewelry and aluminum dinner plates were exchanged for funds, which turned into tens of thousands of machines and hundreds of thousands of tons of ships.
Aluminum is so expensive now that it is definitely unrealistic to use it to build engines.
Of course, Emperor Zhu Da didn't know about all this. After leaving the "Red Room Fort", he took the royal train back to Yingtian. On the way back, he naturally had to visit Nanhua, Nanyuan and other places, and also inspected by the way.
Compared with torpedo boats, submarines are the real trump card of the Ming Dynasty. After all, the naval power of the Ming Dynasty is far less than that of the United Kingdom!
Even if they were to prepare for war and build a dozen or twenty warships, the gap with Britain would still be huge.
Besides, ten years of army, one hundred years of navy, this sentence, how could Emperor Zhu Da not know that Ming's army is now an elite at the forefront of the times, and it is still the leader, but the navy... is really not good!
It has been more than ten years. Compared with the British, it is not an exaggeration to say that the Ming Dynasty's navy is a baby waiting to be fed. Let such a baby fight with a tall and strong man, it is not courting death!
Therefore, Ming Dynasty needs its own trump card.
This trump card is the submarine!
A few years ago, Ming Dynasty's submarines made a secret sortie at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata and successfully sank the Argentine Navy's ironclad "May 25", but this was not the biggest gain.
, what is the biggest gain?
Of course it was the gold and silver coins from the Argentine treasury on the ship, which amounted to a full 50 million!
Even until now, the navy's expansion funds are still used by the windfall. According to the plan formulated at that time, the navy received 40% of the naval construction fund for the development of the navy. The "Nanhua" ironclad ship was used for naval construction.
fund.
"How about it, Liu Qing, now that the Type 002 submarine is in service, what else do you have in mind?"
Standing in the secret base of the submarine force, Emperor Zhu Da asked with a smile.
"Your Majesty, if you have any ideas, I'm afraid it's still a matter of tonnage. Although the 002 boat has a displacement of 200 tons, which is twice as large as the 001 type, it is still too small to carry out ocean-going operations. If you want to carry out
For ocean warfare, we must build large submarines, otherwise the submarine force will only be able to act as assassins in the offshore, but not in the ocean as undersea assassins!"
Assassin, this is how Liu Tiansheng describes the use of submarines. Why "undersea assassin"?
no way.
The achievement of sinking the ironclad "May 25th" was truly brilliant. With tens of millions of silver dollars earned, how could it not be brilliant?
Moreover, after this battle, Liu Tiansheng, the chief officer of the submarine force, knew very well that when the outside world did not know about torpedoes and submarines, the greatest role of submarines was to act as "undersea assassins", taking advantage of the enemy's ignorance of their existence.
, taking advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness to launch sneak attacks against them again and again.
As long as one attack is successful, it will naturally be able to make up for the strength gap between the Ming Dynasty and the British Navy!
Looking at His Majesty who was thoughtful, Liu Tiansheng said.
"Your Majesty, would you like to enter the boat and take a look?"