The military test flight of the "Peregrine Falcon" went smoothly, and within two days, more than 20 "Peregrine Falcons" were delivered to the Navy for test flights. The performance of the test flight made the navy quite satisfied, and even the army got the news that it was ready to purchase this "extreme" fighter from Hafei.

Judging from the performance of the fighters equipped by countries around the world at that time, the "Peregrine Falcon" was indeed quite outstanding, and its speed, agility, firepower, and even armor protection capabilities were the best or better fighters of various countries at that time. In terms of speed, during the test flight, there were even test pilots who flew a limit speed of 435 knots at an altitude of 5,500 meters, of course, at this time the aircraft had only one-third of the fuel, and there was no extra equipment. But this is also quite a remarkable achievement, even the fastest level flight speed record set by a piston aircraft at that time!

Another characteristic of the Peregrine Falcon is its agility. Although the net weight of the aircraft still reached 3780 kg, and the take-off weight when performing air combat missions reached 6248 kg, which is a fairly heavy single-engine fighter, its agility is quite good. In several later agility tests, the "Peregrine Falcon" also defeated the best fighters of the Army Aviation on many occasions, so that the Army Aviation had to look at this new fighter with admiration and started the idea of the "Peregrine Falcon."

The third feature of the Peregrine Falcon is the new cockpit system. The pilot's position was raised by about 15 centimeters, and only then was the frameless bubble glass cover used. This greatly improved the pilot's visibility, and the bulletproof glass cover was used to withstand 50-caliber machine gun bullets fired from 500 meters away (the main weapon of American fighters at the time was a 50-inch heavy machine gun). In addition, in order to strengthen the protection of the pilot, a one-time forged monolithic armored cockpit was adopted, and the pilot was sitting in a bathtub, surrounded by high-strength alloy steel plates capable of blocking 20-mm anti-aircraft gun shells. It was only later that the manufacturing of the whole forging was difficult and the cost was high. It was changed to a structure welded with multiple pieces of armor steel.

The fourth characteristic of the Peregrine Falcon is that it was designed with bombing missions in mind, and it was also the first fighter of the Imperial Navy to explicitly have bombing capabilities in the design. The main pylons under the belly of the aircraft can hold a 500-kilogram aerial bomb or an oversized auxiliary fuel tank. In addition, one 100-kilogram bomb can be hung on each of the inner pylons under the wings on both sides, and two 250-kilogram ground bombs or rockets can be hung on the four outer pylons. If all the bombs were mounted, the weight of the external bombs reached 1,800 kg, which was even twice the bomb load of the tactical bombers equipped by the Navy at that time. It's just that. At that time, the power of the catapult on the ground of the aircraft carrier was insufficient, and if it took off from the aircraft carrier, it would be impossible for the "Peregrine Falcon" to hang so much ammunition, or reduce the fuel in the aircraft and shorten the combat radius when it was fully plugged in.

The fifth feature of the "Peregrine Falcon" is its combat radius, the maximum fuel load of the fuel tanks inside its fuselage reaches 1450 kg, and the fuel consumption rate of its engines is quite amazing. In the execution of remote escort. As well as the fleet's air defense patrol mission, the "Peregrine Falcon" is generally mounted with a large or super-large auxiliary fuel tank, and the fuel tanks in the aircraft are all full, and 8 rockets are hung. Carrying all the shells, its combat radius exceeds 650 nautical miles, that is, about 1200 kilometers. If two more auxiliary fuel tanks are hung on the inner pylon of the wing, and no rockets are hung, its combat radius can be increased a lot. And when carrying out bombing missions, the "Peregrine Falcon" generally carries 1 500 kg and 8 rockets, and its combat radius reaches 100 nautical miles. If you choose to hang a large auxiliary fuel tank, 2 250 kg bombs, and no rockets. Its combat radius reached 500 nautical miles. This was farther than the combat radius of all carrier-based bombers of the Imperial Naval Aviation at that time, but the problem was that if you flew so far, communication with the fleet was a serious problem.

After having these five characteristics, the "Peregrine Falcon" is a well-deserved number one propeller fighter in World War II, and a large number of improved models have been put into service in the later period. Its performance continues to improve. Comparatively speaking, the P-51 series of the US Army Air Force, as well as the ultimate model of the F4U, are much worse than the "Peregrine Falcon", even if the gap in some performance is not very large, but in terms of overall performance, the US fighter jets cannot be compared with the "Peregrine Falcon".

Some problems were also exposed during the test flight, such as the difficulty of increasing its flight speed. The test pilots initially thought that the engine power was not enough, and they wanted to increase the flight speed by diving, but it turned out that they were able to increase the flight speed. The plane flew in a dive and reached a speed of 450 knots later. The fuselage began to vibrate violently, and at the same time, the engine output dropped sharply, and if it was changed a little later, or if the operation was a little improper, the aircraft would quickly enter a spiral state, or even disintegrate in the air! During the test flight, two test pilots died as a result!

This was certainly not a problem of insufficient engine output, in fact, according to the aerodynamic calculation formula at the time, the engine output of the "Peregrine Falcon" was enough to allow it to reach speeds of more than 450 knots. It was also from this time that aerodynamic engineers, aircraft designers found a new obstacle, which was the "sound barrier". What causes the speed of the aircraft to not increase, and even disintegrates in the air, is the shock wave generated when the speed of the aircraft is close to the speed of sound. For all the engineers and designers of the time, the "sound barrier" was a strange field, and it was this invisible obstacle that held back the speed of the aircraft, and no aircraft could overcome this obstacle until a new power system and a new approach to aerodynamic design appeared!

The initial test flight work will continue until the beginning of February, and then Hafei will make small changes to the design of the "Peregrine Falcon" according to the feedback from the troops and the problems found in the test flight. This is also the last round of design changes before the fighter is finalized, probably by the end of February, the last round of test flights will begin, which is mainly to focus on testing whether the "Peregrine Falcon" can fully meet the design indicators, and in the test flight to determine the flight envelope of the aircraft, that is, the ultimate performance of the aircraft. Around the end of March, or the beginning of April, the "Peregrine Falcon" will be officially mass-produced. Mass production. Except for a few of the previous aircraft used for test flights, which will be left for the Imperial Aviation Museum and the War Museum, all the others will be returned to the factory for improvement, and then delivered to the training units for adaptive training, and the official supply to the combat units will definitely be the newly produced "peregrine falcons".

"In other words, by the end of April at the latest, we will be able to get the first batch of mass-produced 'peregrine falcons'." Gan Yongxing is quite satisfied with the "peregrine falcon". He had never shown such a strong interest in any kind of fighter. "In a few days, we will officially place a production order with Hafei, and the first batch of 504 aircraft will be ordered, all of which will be provided to the fleet. The second batch was ordered for 300 carrier-based types, as well as 642 shore-based types. Except for the 72 planes promised to be provided to Luo Jinming, the rest will be handed over to the front-line troops of HNA. ”

"The fleet is going to be reequipped at the end of April?"

"It depends, now we have set the time for the operation in March. Even at the end of February, the fleet did not have time to change its armament, and could only change its equipment during the period of recuperation, which could not delay the combat operations of the fleet. Gan Yongxing put down the documents in his hand, "A few days ago. The army also contacted us, hoping to give them a part of the production capacity, or we will come forward and let Hafei authorize Chengfei to fly and Xifei to manufacture the army's model of 'peregrine falcon'. In addition, during the last few test flights, Hafei also invited military attachés from Germany, Persia and other countries to observe, and now, the Persian Empire has officially come forward to negotiate. I hope to be able to buy a 'peregrine falcon' from us, but the attitude of Germany is not so eager, I heard that the Germans have made a fighter that does not need a propeller, and the performance is very good. ”

"Jet fighters, I've heard about that, too. At present, several aircraft factories of the army are developing relevant engines, but the navy cannot use them for the time being, mainly because they cannot get on aircraft carriers. ”

Gan Yongxing nodded slightly. "Regardless of that number at all, our six aircraft carriers have already begun to enter service one after another. In addition, the 'Dianchi' will replace the 'Chaohu' aircraft carrier, which has not yet been repaired by the Fourth Task Force. By early February, we had at least 19 fleet carriers, and the Principal had made it clear that we would form two new carrier task forces. ”

"All in the Pacific?"

"That's not the point. The point is that we are now short of two fleet commanders. ”

Tan Renhao smiled reluctantly. He thinks that the problem of the commander is not serious, and now the chiefs of staff of several task forces are capable of becoming commanders, Wei Dongbei's performance has been good, Yan Yulong's ability has been proven, and he is greatly appreciated by Liao Hanxiang, although Zheng Guanhua still has some shortcomings, but he basically has the ability to become the commander of the fleet. In addition, a group of quite outstanding senior staff officers have also emerged, and with the precedent of Huang Xiaotian, it is not impossible for senior staff officers to directly serve as fleet commanders, even if they are temporary acting commanders. Therefore, Tan Renhao only cares about whether there will be a task force assigned to other battlefields, and if so, it will definitely have an impact on this side of the Pacific.

"Who do you think is most capable of becoming the new fleet commander right now?"

"Yan Yulong and Wei Dongbei, of course, there are some other candidates." Tan Renhao said without thinking, "And the future combat operations should not be very difficult, we ......"

"Wrong, the six aircraft carriers of the US military have already been commissioned, and they will probably enter the Pacific Ocean in the next few days, and they will definitely all be concentrated in the Central Pacific theater. In addition, the three aircraft carriers that were not blown up before will definitely be repaired in early February. In other words, the U.S. military still has three aircraft carrier task forces, and even if we concentrate five aircraft carrier task forces in the Central Pacific, it will not be nine out of ten, at least, Spruance is still in the Fifth Fleet, and I heard that Nimitz is still preparing to let Mitchell command the aircraft carrier task force. With Turner, the U.S. military has three fleet commanders who are proficient in aviation tactics, and each task force is a formidable threat. ”

"But the quality of the US pilots and the quality of the officers and men of the fleet is certainly not much better."

"Spruance already has a group of backbone pilots in his hands, and he will organize these pilots into various units as team leaders, even if the other pilots are of poor quality, as long as they are familiar with the battlefield environment, it will be a threat to us. The ground attack of the 4th Task Force, the Theater Fleet, and even the 2nd Task Force is enough to illustrate the problem. The U.S. military is also strengthening the level of training of pilots, and we have only one advantage, that is, our pilots have combat experience, but this is not an absolute advantage! Gan Yongxing is not as optimistic as Renhao, "Moreover, the US military will definitely equip F4U in large quantities, and the performance of the 'Golden Eagle' is worse than that of F4U, we have to admit that if Spruance seizes the opportunity, he is fully capable of taking out one of our task forces, or even more task forces." ”

Tan Renhao did not argue with Gan Yongxing, and he also knew very well that even if Spruance only had one aircraft carrier in his hands, it would be a huge threat. The last time they fought Spruance, the quality of the American pilots was not much better, and as a result, Task Force 1 almost capsized in the gutter. In addition, the next battle is the attack of the Imperial Navy, and Spruance can rely on the support and cover of shore-based aviation, so the Imperial Navy has to deal with not only the Fifth Fleet, but also thousands of shore-based bombers deployed by the United States on the Hawaiian Islands.

"The Headmaster will definitely ask for your opinion, but I don't think the most important thing right now is who will be the new fleet commander, or how many task forces will be assigned to the South Atlantic. The point is, we have to change the existing chain of command. Gan Yongxing lit a cigarette, "In the past, there were only a few aircraft carriers fighting, and the task force was the absolute main force, but now with the expansion of the imperial navy's strength, more fleets will definitely be born." If two new task forces were formed, there would now be seven task forces, and a maximum of six task forces would operate in the Pacific, and if the task forces were still based on them, the command would be extremely complicated, and I am afraid that no one would be able to coordinate the simultaneous operation of so many fleets. ”

"Build a higher-tier fleet?"

Gan Yongxing nodded, this was exactly what he was going to say. Tan Renhao had heard the news a long time ago, and it was Liao Hanxiang who told him, it seems that there is hope for promotion to general.