Zhukovsky, the father of Soviet aviation, was very old, in his seventies, with a white beard like Santa Claus. Hirschman met him on the third day of his arrival in Moscow, where he was sitting with Hersman in a cramped car.

The two of them, Junkers, Fokker, Studenter, and Tupolev, as well as Skryansky, who was temporarily also the head of the Main Directorate of the Air Force of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (who was also the deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council and the deputy people's commissar of the army and navy), left the city of Moscow in several cars and went around an airport on the outskirts of the city, which was filled with the strong smell of inferior Russian gasoline. The sun shone out in the low sky, through the gaps in the white clouds, and in the dim sunlight, more than a dozen biplanes, large and small, were parked on the runway. In terms of appearance, there are the British DH series and the Avro series, as well as the German Fokker D series. The shells of these planes are painted with the Red Star logo, and some of them are very worn out and the paint is peeling.

The place is exactly like a German front-line airfield: repair sheds, hangars, barracks, and a calm and inhospitable land, near the rushing Moskva River.

According to Zhukovsky's introduction, this is a temporary test site for the Red Air Force -- a new special test site is under construction and will be completed this summer. Before that, the Petrograd and Dukes factories that produce complete aircraft, as well as the new models that produce imitations of the Mars factory, will conduct test flights here.

"Are these all planes of Russia's own production?" Fokker glanced at the Fokker D series aircraft on the runway. "It's so good, it almost fooled me."

Zhukovsky, who looked like a flattering Santa Claus, smiled happily and gently, showing his sparse teeth. "We don't have drawings, so we do them by reverse engineering, and we have the best workers, who are not paid, who work hard and are very serious when they have brown bread to eat. However, the Fokker D series we built is still not as good as the original German one. ”

Skryansky, the deputy People's Commissar of the Army and Navy, who is very young and looks a bit like an elementary school teacher, added: "The main thing is that the engines of the Martian factory are not good, they are not as good as the German ones, they lack horsepower, and they always go out. ”

"It's a workshop." Junkers said to Hersmann, "I went to see the Petersburg aircraft factory and the Mars engine factory, and the conditions were very poor. The latter, in particular, is a small workshop, and it is a miracle that engines can be produced there. However, their Central Institute of Aerohydrodynamics is very good, well-equipped and has very good teaching conditions, which are better than the aerodynamics departments of any of our universities in Germany. ”

The Russians were solid in basic research, Hirschmann thought, but Germany was not weak in this regard.

The group began to tour the plane, and Junkers, Fokker and Studdent were all insiders, who looked very closely, and even climbed the triangular ladder to see the interior of the cockpit and the engines.

Hersmann was also not an outsider to aviation in the era of the two world wars. Later knowledge told him that the piston aircraft engines of the World War II era could be divided into two types: in-line liquid-cooled engine and star-type air-cooled engine according to the cylinder arrangement and cooling method. Both have their advantages and disadvantages:

Air-cooled engine: relatively simple and compact structure, easy to maintain; However, the cross-section is large, the drag coefficient is large, and the duration of high-power operation is not as good as that of water cooling.

Water-cooled engine: small drag coefficient and high continuous power; However, the structure is more complex and the maintenance is relatively difficult.

Among them, most of the carrier-based aircraft and long-range bombers equipped with air-cooled engines pursue high power, long range, long-term reliable operation, and easy maintenance. Liquid-cooled engines are mostly used in air superiority fighters that pursue combat performance and bombers used at close range.

And in terms of engine performance. In World War II, Britain was the king of liquid-cooled engines, and Germany lagged slightly behind Britain because of poor turbocharging technology, but the overall gap was not large. Fighters with liquid-cooled engines were the mainstream of Luftwaffe fighters in World War II.

The strongest in the field of air-cooled engines is the United States, although BMW in Germany has also developed several very good air-cooled engines. But when it comes to the use of air-cooled engines, Germany is relatively bad. In addition to the famous Fw-190, the only well-known ones are the two-wing Hs123 and Ju290 bombers, which are the Junkers 52 and Fw-200, two civilian transport aircraft.

Although the Germans had superior air-cooled engines - at least much better than the Japanese - they did not develop any fighter and tactical bombers with a large range and bomb load, and the German air force seemed to be missing a large chunk of its technology tree.

In Hersmann's view, the reason why Germany's piston engine technology lost its lead in World War II was the lack of its air force technology tree. The reason for this is the period from 1919 to 1933 when the development of the Air Force was prohibited.

Although the Germans secretly did a lot of things that violated the "Versailles Treaty," they could not do it by sneaking in on armaments -- without large-scale production and use, many problems would not be discovered, and there would be no way to amortize the cost of development.

So, Hersman is now eyeing the big market of the Soviet Union! He wanted to use the Soviet market to fill in Germany's missing tech tree.

"We now have a preliminary understanding of the level of the Russian aviation industry." In a conference room in a two-story building next to the runway, Hersmann, Skryansky and others began to discuss the specifics of cooperation – all of which were of principle, of course.

"Although there is a certain foundation, it is still relatively backward," Hersman said. Moreover, Russia as a whole is relatively backward. In the words of Comrade Lenin, the socialist revolution was the first to triumph in a backward country. However, this does not affect Russia's development of its aviation industry, but we must develop its aviation industry in accordance with Russia's actual conditions, and we do not have to copy Germany's experience. ”

He turned his head and said to Junkers and Fokker: "Russia is a very large market, and in the future the scale of cooperative production will reach thousands of aircraft per year!" But our products must be in line with the characteristics of the Russian market.

Therefore, we want to develop for the Russian market, and we also need to invite Russian experts to participate in the development. We must not only design aircraft that can be fully assembled in Russia, but also allow such aircraft to use Russian raw materials - not necessarily all-metal, but wood as much as possible. It is also necessary to make it easier for engines to be produced in Russia, which requires the design of engines that are easy to produce and maintain.

In addition, the aircraft needs to be easy to maintain and have a large range...... After all, Russia is a very large country, and an aircraft with a range of only three or four hundred kilometers is not suitable for Russia. ”

Junkers and Falk glanced at each other, both frowning slightly, this Lieutenant Colonel Hersman is too realistic, right? Where is there such an honest business? Isn't this honesty asking for trouble?

Skryansky was also looking at his two experts, Zhukovsky and Tupolev, and both Russian aviation experts were very excited. The conditions put forward by the other party are really thinking about Russia! This Hessman turned out to be a militarist with a conscience!

――――

The third is more presented, asking for recommended votes, asking for collections