Chapter 212 Equipping the Aircraft
But Arthur was not satisfied with the current performance of these three aircraft, so the Aeronautical Laboratory set its goal on the development of the Pioneer-3, and after successfully developing the Pioneer-3, Based on the Pioneer-3, the second generation of three military aircraft were successfully manufactured, namely the reconnaissance aircraft Eagle-2, the fighter Yehu-2, and the bomber Phantom-2.
Arthur is certain that Australasia has successfully led the world in terms of military aircraft, and can even be said to be the most powerful aircraft manufacturing country at present.
Of course, such a conclusion is not unfounded, but a conclusion reached by Arthur after observing the combat performance of three types of military aircraft.
The first is the Eagle-2 reconnaissance aircraft. This reconnaissance aircraft adopts two front and rear seats, with the driving position in the front and the observation position in the rear.
The Eagle-2 reconnaissance aircraft will also be slightly larger because it is equipped with a larger fuel tank, which also allows the maximum range of this reconnaissance aircraft to reach about 600 kilometers. If equipped with two auxiliary fuel tanks, the maximum range can even reach above Thousands of kilometers.
Of course, due to the increase in size and weight, the speed of this reconnaissance aircraft has also been reduced.
The average flight speed of the Eagle-2 reconnaissance aircraft can reach 190 kilometers per hour, and the maximum speed can only reach 210 kilometers per hour.
Although it cannot be compared with higher-speed fighter jets, this speed is actually enough if used for intelligence reconnaissance.
Speaking of fighter jets, the weapons carried by current fighter jets are still very crude. Even the Yehu-2 fighter jet, except for the two MA-107 Maxim machine guns developed by the Australasian Military Factory, most of the remaining weapons are pilots. Bring it yourself.
What does this mean? If the two machine guns inside the Wild Tiger fighter jet run out of bullets, in addition to returning to the airport to reload bullets, the only way for the fighter jet to enter combat is for the pilot to carry the weapon himself.
There is no way around this. Various weapons are not well adapted to current fighter jets. Even the two machine guns carried were manufactured after a long period of research by military factories.
Because of the use of roulette magazines, the ammunition capacity of these two machine guns reached a total of 1,500 rounds.
This is where the Wild Tiger fighter is currently disappointing, but I believe that its combat weapons will also become diverse with the joint development of military factories and aviation laboratories, and will eventually grow into a real fighter.
Although there are still many shortcomings in terms of weapons, the maximum flight speed of the Yehu-2 fighter jet can reach 235 kilometers per hour, and the maximum range is 500 kilometers.
As of now, among the three aircraft, the Wild Tiger fighter has the worst actual combat performance and is not very practical.
Of course, this is also the reason why countries around the world have not really realized the importance of aircraft.
Even the famous Wright brothers in history, although they had successively manufactured Flyer 2 and 3 at this time, did not receive the attention of the news media and the US military.
Their aircraft even sat in a stable for more than two years before the U.S. military finally realized the aircraft's potential.
In other words, Australasia is the only country currently using national power to research aircraft.
This is also why Arthur is sure that Australasia is currently the world's number one aircraft power, because there will be no rivals in a short period of time.
Of course, this also greatly reduces the practicality of the fighter jet. Because there are no opponents, Australasia's various aircraft are still very safe in the sky.
In addition to reconnaissance aircraft, the most practical ones are bombers.
The current military's only means of bombing long-distance targets is artillery, but the parabola of artillery is basically fixed, and even powerful ship-based artillery cannot avoid it.
This is also the reason why the most powerful warships, battleships, only take care of some important facilities in terms of armor protection.
One of the reasons for the elimination of large warships such as battleships is the rise of aircraft.
The thick armor on the sides and other areas of the battleship was useless against aircraft carrying bombs.
Various bombers can easily find the weak points of the battleships and then bomb them.
Coupled with the increasingly expensive cost of battleships, this is also the reason why battleships gradually declined after World War II.
The firepower coverage of battleships is often only tens of kilometers, but the attack range of aircraft carriers equipped with various types of aircraft can even reach hundreds or hundreds of kilometers.
This means that before the battleship has discovered the enemy aircraft carrier, various enemy reconnaissance and bombers have already arrived overhead.
Moreover, the design of the aircraft carrier is also very simple. The initial aircraft carrier design was even very crude, and all that was required was the performance and practicality of the aircraft.
For now, Australasia already has the ability to design aircraft carriers, and is not even far away from the birth of the world's first aircraft carrier.
The bomber currently owned by Australasia is the Phantom-2, an advanced bomber modified from the Pioneer-3.
In order to give this bomber the ability to bomb enemies at high altitudes, the military factory specially modified the current artillery shells and designed artillery shells that can be used by aircraft. At the same time, in order to adapt to more combat targets, there are currently two types of artillery shells, namely 35mm artillery shells and 75mm artillery shells.
If it is equipped with 35mm artillery shells, the bomb load of the Phantom bomber is 32. If it is equipped with 75mm artillery shells, the bomber's bomb load will be reduced to about 18.
These shells will be fixed on the gun mount in rows. When the pilot presses the launch button, the shells in the first row will pour down, and then automatically replaced with the shells in the second row.
The amount of ammunition carried by bombers now is still too small compared to the future, but it can basically meet the current mission requirements.
Imagine that when the enemy has no defense, a large number of artillery shells falling from the sky are enough to cause a large number of casualties to the enemy.
More importantly, today's various warships are also one of the targets of bombers. Today's warships basically do not have any air defense capabilities because aircraft have not yet become a target of attention by various countries.
If we were to talk about prevention and control capabilities, it might be the navy soldiers on the warships who used rifles to shoot.
But warships are not as stable as on land. Navy soldiers pay more attention to the control of warships rather than the marksmanship of soldiers.
Under such circumstances, the chance of relying on naval soldiers to shoot down the bombers is really slim.
This also means that current fighter jets can cause huge casualties to current warships, and the research of aircraft carriers has also become a possible task.
After watching the Aeronautical Research Institute's demonstrations of all aircraft types, Arthur nodded with great satisfaction, and immediately announced a reward of 10,000 Australian dollars to each staff member of the Aeronautical Laboratory.
"Director Theodor, what is the current production of these three types of aircraft? If these three types of aircraft are installed in Australasia, will their prices support large-scale installation?" Arthur asked.
After the birth of the aircraft, the next question is about the production and installation of the aircraft.
No matter how luxurious the aircraft's paper data is, it must be actually equipped to the army and its performance will be tested through training and real war.
Although Australasia is not currently troubled by war, Arthur has plans to install aircraft on a large scale.
Not only can it improve the combat capabilities of the Australasian army, but it can also train more pilots in advance for the future Australasian Air Force.
You know, pilots are not like soldiers in the army and navy. After one or two years of training, they can become formal soldiers.
To become a qualified pilot, the training cycle requires at least two years, and it also needs to be accompanied by a large number of flight tests and real wars in order to grow and transform into an excellent pilot.
This is also the real reason why major countries would rather have their planes destroyed than their pilots killed in action.
For an industrial power, building an airplane is not a troublesome matter. But training a pilot requires a lot of money and time, and the importance of a pilot is far higher than that of an airplane.
Of course, the research on aircraft is not yet complete, and the training system for pilots has not yet been established.
The current way Australasia trains pilots is to rely on experts from aviation laboratories. As people who study aircraft, they are also the most familiar with the operation of aircraft facilities.
But despite this, the training and training of pilots is still very troublesome.
It has been more than two years since the birth of Pioneer-1, but the aviation laboratory has trained less than 100 pilots so far.
Although the aviation laboratory has gained a lot of experience in training pilots in the past two years, the speed of training pilots will be much faster in the future.
But it cannot be denied that even for today's Australasia, pilots are also very valuable assets.
"Your Majesty, due to different aircraft models, their costs also vary a lot. If mass-produced, our Pioneer-3 costs about AU$18,600, the Eagle-2 reconnaissance aircraft costs about AU$20,100, and the Wild Tiger The cost of the -2 fighter jet is about 22,000 Australian dollars, and the cost of the Phantom -2 bomber may exceed 23,500 Australian dollars." The aviation laboratory has already estimated the cost of these four aircraft, so Teodor answered quickly.
Arthur nodded.
Now because there is no war, the currencies of all countries in the world are relatively strong.
The cost of various aircraft in Australasia is basically around 10,000 pounds, and the most expensive ones will not exceed 12,000 pounds.
This is a good thing for Arthur. At least equipping aircraft on a large scale is not a burden on the current Australasian government's finances, and the Australasian government can still afford it.
The first update of 3,000 words, please support!
(End of chapter)