Rolls-Royce is a well-known British aero engine company, and its various engines are widely used in civil and military aircraft around the world. Pen ~ fun ~ Ge www.biquge.info If Boeing and Airbus are the duopoly in the field of mainline airliners, then General Electric (GE) and Rolls-Royce are a pair of predators in the mainline airliner engine market.

However, Chinese are generally more familiar with another translation of its name, Rolls-Royce (Rolls-Royce in English) than Rolls-Royce. Indeed, this company was also in the early days of designing, producing, and selling automobiles.

In 1971, with the intervention of the British government, Rolls-Royce restructured the company and split the company in two. Chinese are accustomed to calling car companies Rolls-Royce and aero engine companies Rolls-Royce.

The Greyback Falcon engine was the last masterpiece of Sir Royce, the founder of Rolls-Royce and who died in 1933. Royce was a great inventor and engineer, and although he had only attended formal school for a year and had a living selling newspapers in his youth, he had an astonishing talent in the field of engine design.

In 1931, Royce was requested by the British Royal Air Force to design an engine for a fighter jet of the Super Marlin Company, which was later known as the Greyback Falcon (the Greyback Falcon is called Merlin in English, and a famous magician under King Arthur is also called this name, so some people also call this engine the Merlin engine). ）

Royce had a habit of naming his engines after birds of prey such as eagles, falcons, and vultures, such as red eagles, vultures, and grayback falcons. The Greyback Falcon is the smallest of its kind, flying extremely fast and aggressive. Royce named the Greyback Falcon after this engine to indicate that fighters equipped with this engine are so fast that the enemy cannot fight back.

Originally, the Greyback Falcon engine was designed for the Spitfire fighter of the Super Marlin company. But the performance of this engine is so superior that more than 40 aircraft in history have been equipped with the Greyback Falcon. Including single-engine, twin-engine, four-engine aircraft, and even some seaplanes, speedboats, racing cars, and Bentley cars can also use it. One of the most successful examples of this is the combination of the Greyback Falcon and the P-51 Mustang fighter.

Prior to the advent of the Mustang fighter equipped with the Greyback Falcon, the RAF's main fighter was the Spitfire. The aircraft played a legendary role in the early days of World War II, attracting a large following with its graceful shape and thin, conical wings.

This even included some of the top German pilots. When Goering asked Garand, the German ace pilot who had shot down 104 enemy planes, what else he needed, Garand replied: a squadron of Spitfires.

However, as the tide of the war changed, when the Allies began to carry out large-scale strategic bombing of Germany, the Spitfire fighters could no longer keep up with the needs of the war. The Spitfire is a short-legged fighter that can play a huge role in the Battle of Britain and the Battle of Malta. But its 450-liter fuel tank gives it a combat radius of only 760 kilometers.

The Allies were in dire need of a high-speed fighter with a combat radius of more than 1,000 kilometers capable of escorting four large bombers throughout the entire process. At the time, it was a challenge to the laws of physics.

First of all, this had to be a single-engine fighter. In this way, they can be faster and more maneuverable than the German planes that came to intercept them.

Second, because large strategic bombers generally fly very high, they must also be able to make tactical maneuvers between 1,500 and 12,000 meters.

Finally, it had to be able to carry enough fuel to follow the bomber formation from the airfield in the east of England to Berlin and back after a fierce battle.

But how can a fighter with space for a lot of fuel fly from the UK over central Europe with enough maneuverability to shoot down an FW-190 taking off from a German airfield?

The conundrum plagued the Allies for a long time, until they equipped the Grayback Falcon on an American fighter jet that had not been taken seriously.

The P-51 Mustang fighter did not initially perform very well. This single-engine fighter is one of the new aircraft models commissioned by the United States, Britain, and France in 1938 to deal with the obvious technical superiority of the Luftwaffe.

The aircraft was designed to be a low-altitude interceptor aircraft. But the engines they used from Allison did not perform well and were not taken by the US Army Aviation. They are more interested in the "Lightning" and "Thunderbolt" fighters that can compete with the Japanese "Zero" and the German Bf-109.

In fact, when the RAF Fighter Command in 1942 received the first batch of P-51s with American assistance, they did not even know what to do with it, and they also considered whether to "return it".

At this time, a small person who changed the course of history appeared. A British Air Force test pilot named Ronnie Haack found the aircraft's dashboard layout and chassis to be very similar to that of the Spitfire. The guy, with the help of engineers, carefully took out the Allison engine and replaced it with a "Grayback Falcon 61" engine, and a miracle happened.

The test results showed that although the P-51 was significantly heavier than the Spitfire, its excellent aerodynamic shape made it more fuel-efficient. The aircraft turns definitely, without any sense of lag, and has an astonishingly low air resistance, reaching a speed of 55 kilometers per hour higher than the Spitfire for the same power.

Crucially, it is very fuel-efficient, consuming only 290 litres per hour at the same altitude and speed (655 litres for the P-38 and 640 litres for the P-47). And its main fuel tank has 832 liters, which is twice as long as the Spitfire. If you add a 390-liter rear fuel tank and two 490-liter drop fuel tanks, the P-51 Mustang has a combat radius of an astonishing 1,200 kilometers, enough to fly to Prague and back.

By 1944, when the Allies began to equip large numbers of P-51s, the entire tide of air warfare was completely turned around. In just two months, the Germans lost nearly 30 ace pilots, two of whom were also air captains, and the two men shot down 102 and 161 times, respectively.

In proportional terms, in the first half of 1944, the "Mustang" shot down three or four times more German aircraft than the "Thunderbolt". By May, the Luftwaffe's experienced air commanders were exhausted. Even if Germany later rushed to produce new planes, it was useless, because their airfields, fuel and crews were destroyed.

By the time of the Normandy landings, the Allies had completely mastered air supremacy in Western Europe. Before landing, Eisenhower made it clear to the troops, "If you see an airplane overhead, it must be ours." ”

Historically, during World War II alone, the Allies produced 15,875 P-51 Mustang fighters, ranking second in total U.S. fighter production in World War II, after the P-47. Moreover, after the war, Australia, New Zealand and other countries also purchased and equipped P-51s in large quantities.

Even at the average price of $54,000 a plane, it is almost $1 billion in big business. If John didn't know by now that he had caught the hen that laid the golden eggs in his hands, he would have really had his head in water.

Long before coming to Europe, John had been on the idea of a wild horse. The manufacturer, North American Airlines, had a good deal to deal with, and the owner of that company, Clement, had a close relationship with the Vanderbilt family.

Clement was originally an editor at the Wall Street Journal, and was close friends with John's lobby brother, the banker Cornelius III. When he bought most of Curtis' shares in 1920, he borrowed money from Lobby Brother.

John was confident that he would convince Clement to co-develop the aircraft. Anyway, they haven't started research and development yet, so it's a big deal to let Hughes Aircraft Company share some research and development costs.

It's not like John hasn't thought about eating alone, but it's better to think about it. Hughes Aircraft Company is still a small character in the aircraft industry, and it does not have such a large production capacity, so it can't eat this big cake.

Unlike North American Airlines, over the years, through their cooperation with General Motors, they have included a large number of aviation manufacturing companies such as Curtis Aircraft, Wright Aviation Industry, and General Aviation Manufacturing, which is a real giant.

Best of all, since the introduction of the Air Post Act in the United States in 1934, it has been illegal for aircraft manufacturers to control shipping companies. North American Airlines had been stripped of its controlling stakes in Eastern and Globe Shipping, and after a series of chaotic mergers and splits, they were now as short of money as Boeing, and there was no reason to reject John's joint development proposal.

Therefore, as long as John succeeds in obtaining the production license of the Grayback Falcon engine this time, it will really be a fortune.