Ever since the start of the plane race, the port of Rotterdam has been enveloped in the hum of engines. From sunrise until nightfall, these sounds are sometimes gentle, sometimes cratered, interspersed with cheers and whistles. Planes of different shapes could be seen flying over the harbor at any time, and some pilots even let their planes perform a few fancy maneuvers in the air for fun, which immediately attracted bursts of warm applause.

For the residents of the Port of Rotterdam, bustle means business, and the Dutchman, who are known for their business, have been preparing for the Schneider Cup race for more than a month before the start of the race. In anticipation of a large number of contestants and spectators, Rotterdam's recent number of newly opened hotels has increased almost exponentially, and many locals have renovated their houses and registered with the government to pay the relevant taxes, and then hang up the sign of such and such a hotel in front of their homes, and the next thing to do is to wait for customers to come to the door.

The Blue Tulip Hotel, located near the pier of the Port of Rotterdam, is a new family-run hotel with three floors, not a new building, but with a great location – the second or third floor of the hotel overlooks the seaplane racing arena near the port, which makes the owners of the hotel dream of making money with the plane races. But before the business could flourish, his hotel was bought by a group of wealthy Germans. Of course, as long as the price is reasonable, the savvy Dutch will not refuse such a business.

On August 5th, the last day of the first round of the plane racing competition, from noon, a light rain began to arrive in Rotterdam. The light rain does not restrict the flight of the aircraft, but it has a certain impact on the speed, so the organizers decided to postpone the race until the end of the light rain, which was not expected to be two days at a time. Since the first round of the competition was based on the rules of the top 20 finalists, no one can be sure that they will be selected until all the aircraft have completed the competition. However, those who have already finished before and after the first position can almost certainly be sure that they will not be able to compete in the second round. Some of them began to pack their bags and prepare to go home, but most decided to stay and watch the game. As a result, those who still had the opportunity to participate in the next round of the competition used these two days to maintain and repair their aircraft, and those who wanted to recruit excellent designers from among the contestants also began to make initial contact with the outstanding participants in the previous few days.

"The best time in the seaplane race is 189.23 km/h in the race that has been completed, created by Second Lieutenant Josef Grande of our German national team, who flew a modified Exocet DV! Second place went to Sergeant Garnello of the Italian national team, who flew an Italian designed and built Savoy. The result is 173.71 km/h! Third place was an individual contestant from Germany who flew a home-made biplane with a score of 171.16 km/h! ”

In a harbor-facing room on the second floor of the Blue Tulip Hotel, a young man in a black suit holds a piece of stuff and introduces it to the others in the room. There were seven people sitting on the sofas and chairs, all dressed in black or gray suits, one of whom appeared to be in their fifties or sixties, and the others in their forties.

At this moment, the man sitting on the sofa with a thick beard on his upper lip interjected:

"What's the name of the contestant who finished third?"

The young man standing then replied: "Back to Your Majesty, his name is Heinz Meyer!" ”

"Ahem, don't call me Your Majesty here!" The man with the mane reminded a little dissatisfied. "And. Let the Ministry of Intelligence look up the origin of this man and find out if he made his own plane or if he had another designer! ”

The young man looked a little embarrassed, and then he changed his words: "Yes. Mr. William! ”

"I really didn't expect the Italians to be able to build a decent plane!" The mustachioed man sitting across from the bearded man had a mixture of surprise and contempt in his words.

"Mr. Robert, don't underestimate the Italians or those who are unknown, maybe one of them is a genius in the aviation world, and that's the main reason why we have this race!" The man known as Mr. William said in a calm tone.

"Mr. Robert" laughed and replied, "I'm just here to join in the fun!" ”

"Don't you think it's a good idea to have a similar tournament in England and Scotland? As far as I know, there should be some excellent aircraft designers in Britain as well! ”

"Mr. William" looked at each other with his expectant gaze.

The "Mr. Robert" looked careless, "If Your Majesty contributes it, then I can consider it!" ”

"Hey, people are really afraid of being famous, pigs are afraid of being strong!" "Mr. Wilhelm" made up this strange phrase in German.

"What? People are afraid to be famous...... Are pigs afraid of being strong? Haha, interesting analogy! "Mr. Robert" gave his assessment with a smile.

"Mr. William" apparently didn't think that was funny. He goes on to explain: "That's just an Oriental proverb! ”

With that, he turned to the man who was standing, "Mr. Jonalet, please continue!" ”

"Yes!" Jonalet returned his gaze to the piece of paper, "Although the land-based aircraft racing has only started this year, the competition is extremely fierce! The first place was won by Dutchman Jeff Resapong, who flew a Fokker F monoplane from the Fokker aircraft factory in the Netherlands, with a time of 201.61 km/h, second by Second Lieutenant Kevin Altmann of our German national team, who flew a modified Hummingbird monoplane with a time of 187.43 km/h, and in third place was German Patrick Badger, who competed in his own name. Flying a modified F17 monoplane with a score of 179.17 km/h! Both the Hummingbird monoplane and the F17 monoplane are manufactured by our Gigi Aviation Group and are designed by Dr. Gertich and Dr. Owerwright. ”

"...... Fokker and "Mr. Wilhelm", that is, our great Kaiser Wilhelm III, seemed very interested in this name.

Jonah Lette then read out the accompanying passage:

"Sir, as far as we know, this Fokker aircraft factory was founded in 1912 and its founder and chief designer was the 29-year-old Anthony Fokker Brown. Born in the Dutch East Indies and raised in the Netherlands, he studied at a flight school in Germany before building his current aircraft factory with the support of his father. Mainly civilian aircraft, reconnaissance aircraft were also manufactured, and during the war became the only supplier of the Luftwaffe abroad! This Fokker F monoplane was designed for reconnaissance, but after the war our Air Force did not continue to order their planes! ”

Chen Tian held his chin in his right hand and did not speak, even if he was a descendant, it was impossible for him to list all the outstanding people one by one and collect them in Germany. With his involvement, history has changed a lot, and the Red Baron von Richthorn did not fly the three-winged Fokker fighter to become a super ace. Dönitz was not captured by the British in naval battles, Rommel did not go to fight in Italy, the Wright brothers developed their careers in Germany, and when the path of growth changed, no one could guarantee that a genius in history would become a genius, and no one could be sure that a figure who was not a genius in history would suddenly emerge.

However, from the current point of view, Fokker is still the Fokker who should not be underestimated, a highly talented aircraft designer, and the historical Fokker switched to the development of civil aircraft after the First World War, but here. He has every opportunity to continue his development in the field of military aircraft.

Chen Tian is thinking about the complex relationship between time and history. The man sitting on the other couch spoke, his hair was all white, and he looked like the oldest person in the room.

"Your Majesty. This Anthony Fork was indeed a genius, and before the war we tried to pull him to work in our institute, but unfortunately he refused! After he started his own aircraft factory, we once again extended an olive branch to him, hoping to buy his factory at a high price and let him serve us, but in the end it failed! ”

"Oh?" Chen Tian turned his head to look at the old man, don't look at his ordinary appearance and no noble temperament, but his name is well-known in the German aviation community, he is the designer of the Vulture IV all-metal attack aircraft, the chief aircraft designer of the Gigi Aviation Group Junckers Fan - for Chen Tian, this designer's name is also associated with another kind of aircraft. That's the Ju-87 Stuka. In fact, the 57-year-old designer is already working on a single-wing dive bomber at the request of Chentian, but it seems that it will be a long time before that.

"Unfortunately, he is Dutch, his father was very influential in the Netherlands, and for technical security reasons, we wanted him to be able to join us as a German citizen, rather than simply working with us, but he insisted on working with us as a neutral. So......" Junkers shook his head regretfully, for if a genius designer like Fokker had helped, he would have been able to design the aircraft.

At this point, Chen Tian also felt the same way, and the coercion seemed to be unworkable, but fortunately, Fokker was still willing to cooperate with the German aviation community, so an alternative plan was forming in his mind.

"Besides these people...... Zeket, who had been recording things in his little notebook, looked up, "Are there any other people worth paying attention to?" ”

At this time, Chentian also set his eyes on Jona Lite.

Jonalet flipped through his share of things, "Except for Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, the other participating national teams are of average level, most of their aircraft are only based on our German aircraft, and the level of self-designed aircraft is also very average. However, the individual participants gave us a lot of surprises, and we will take a more in-depth look at the results above 150 km/h! Furthermore...... Somewhat surprising is the Russian national team, all three of their own aircraft, but two of them failed to complete the race range, and the only one to complete the full range was only 135 km/h, the lowest among the 17 national teams! ”

"The Russian aviation industry is already bad, isn't it?" Mr. Robert, King Robert I of Britain, who had come from across the Channel to join in the fun, was as contemptuous as ever of foreign people and things.

"The current overall level of the Russian aviation industry is poor, but this does not mean that they do not have good designers!"

Chentian remembered the Russian aircraft of World War II and post-World War II, the famous Jacques, MiG and Sukhoi series and their main designers, Jacques Forev, Mikoyan and Sukhoi, who were still in their childhood or youth, but as long as there were conditions and opportunities, gold would always shine.

Jonalet, who was holding the information in his hand, flipped through it and quickly found the basis that supported Chentian's view:

"Mr. Wilhelm is very reasonable, although the Russian national team is very poor, but there are a few Russians who participate in the competition under their own name! For example, this Taras Niklov, whose homemade plane finished 6th in the land-based aircraft race, and he also had a seaplane in the race, which was sent to the 7th place in the seaplane race! ”

"Taras Niklov? Never heard of it! The young man sitting in a chair behind Junkers whispered, "I only know that there is an Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky in Russia, who designed Russia's largest aircraft, 'Ilya Muromets', and this large bomber flew to our Germany during the war to bomb!" ”

Although the young man's voice was small, it was enough for Chen Tian and the others, who were sitting not far from him, to hear these words clearly. Although it was a bit abrupt to interject in front of the two big people, everyone did not mean to blame it at all, after all, this was an informal gathering where they could speak freely, and none of the people present were pure little people. Don't look at this young man is not yet 30 years old, he is one of the best fighter designers of Gigi Aviation, and one of the senior advisers brought by Chentian this time, Ernst Heinrich Henkel.

Chen Tian turned his head and glanced at the young designer with a kind gaze. Historically, he and Junkers were known for their own planes and aircraft companies, but that was after Germany's defeat in the First World War, when they were still working on the design of aircraft, and they were enjoying themselves in the Gigi Aviation Group, which had the financial and technical prowess and the favourable treatment they received.

"Let's include this Russian in the focus of investigation!" Chen Tian thought for a while, "That Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky didn't design the aircraft to participate in this competition?" What a shame that is! ”