Time passed quickly, and after the new tank development coordination meeting, the Dragon Soul Ordnance Industry Consortium set up a special coordination group for tank research and development, which was specifically responsible for the development and coordination of the new tank, so that the design and development of the new tank began to proceed step by step.

Let's talk about one of the most important projects of Dragon Soul Ordnance, the Wind and Thunder series engine project. After nearly three months of test flights, the wind and thunder jet engine on the M30 flight test platform, a total of 300 hours of test flight, although some minor problems were also exposed, but through simple modifications quickly solved.

At the end of May 1933, the development of the Fenglei series engine entered the most critical time. The Thunder Jet Engine has successfully completed the verification test flight of the flight platform and will soon be loaded into the M29 competitive aircraft for test flight. This is the last test flight of the Wind Thunder jet engine, also known as the finalized test flight! It was also a test flight of the M29 Competitive Aircraft, which could also be seen as a demonstrator of the new jet fighter, similar to the later American X-Series aircraft.

The Fenglei series engine project is progressing so smoothly that it even greatly exceeded Xiao Weiguo's expectations! Originally, he thought that a lot of problems would definitely be exposed in the test flight, and maybe the wind and thunder jet engine would have to be greatly modified, but judging from the actual flight test situation, the wind and thunder jet engine was quite successful, which was many times smoother than the development of jet power in Britain and Germany in history! The development of the British jet engine took six years from the formal establishment of the project in 1937 to the final manufacture of the first usable jet engine in 1943, while the Wind and Thunder jet engine of the Dragon Soul Ordnance Complex took only one year to do it, and ten years ahead of schedule, allowing the jet engine to appear in the world.

Now the Wind Thunder jet engine. It can be said that not only did it meet the design target, but even exceeded it slightly. Of course, there should not be much of a problem with the final finalized test flight, after all, it has been tested on the flight platform, which proves that its performance at medium and high altitudes is as good as that on the ground, and it is a finalized test flight on the M29 competitive aircraft. It's just an envelope to expand flight tests. Of course, the risk of test flight is also very large, so this preparation must be done very well, and the final finalization and mass production must not be affected because of major problems. For example, a failure like the M20 light transport aircraft almost left it stillborn.

The Wind Thunder turboprop engine has been tested on the ground and is about to enter the test flight! It was also modified with an M30 transport aircraft, but the engine mounting position was changed from the tail to the nose. Because this is a turboprop engine, and it is not small in size. It is not possible to install it on the wing on either side, on the one hand, the structural strength of the wing is not up to it, and on the other hand, after replacing a piston engine, the safety of the flight test platform is not enough. For small and medium-sized twin-engine aircraft such as the M30 transport aircraft, it is indeed somewhat difficult to convert it into a flight test platform, if the M40 transport aircraft can come out earlier, it is completely possible, but the M40 transport aircraft is also waiting for the wind and thunder turboprop engine, which is its power.

The same. The modification of the test bench of the wind and thunder turboprop engine also took a lot of power. After all, a turboprop engine weighing more than 700 kg was to be installed in the nose of the M30 transport aircraft. In this way, the center of gravity of the entire aircraft has changed greatly, and it is also necessary to increase the weight at the rear of the fuselage. In this way, the weight of the entire aircraft has increased by nearly 1.5 tons, and with the addition of test equipment, it has increased by nearly 2 tons.

The refitting took two months and was finally completed at the end of May 1933. Now the flight test of the Wind Thunder turboprop engine is scheduled for June 1. This is a very important node. At the same time, the turboprop engine is also an engine with very broad application prospects, and even it is no worse than the application prospect of the wind and thunder jet engine. Because compared to jet engines, although it is a propeller, the aircraft that uses it is slower in speed, but it is fuel-efficient and powerful. It is also very good to use as a medium and large transport aircraft and bomber, with good range and economy. The biggest disadvantage of jet engines is the high fuel consumption, if the aircraft has less fuel load, then the combat range and radius are much shorter than those of piston and turboprop aircraft.

The Wind Thunder turboprop engine consists of a propeller and a turbine engine, and the propeller is driven by a turbine. Due to the larger diameter of the propeller, the speed is much lower than that of the turbine, the rotor speed of the turbine is close to 10000 rpm, and the propeller can only be below 1000 rpm, in order to make the turbine and the propeller work within the normal range, a reducer is installed between them, the load of the reducer is heavy, the structure is complex, in fact, the turbine engine itself will not be too much of a problem, because it is basically the same as the wind and thunder jet engine. The most important thing is to test whether there is a problem with this reducer, the propeller is a mature five-blade torque conversion propeller, and in the future, the wind and thunder turboprop engine on the M40 transport aircraft will also use a more advanced six-blade torque conversion propeller.

Of course, this five-blade torque conversion propeller is much larger than the original two five-blade torque conversion propellers on the M30 transport aircraft, because the power of the wind and thunder turboprop engine has reached about 2500 horsepower, which is more than 4 times that of the original BMW piston engine on the M30 transport aircraft, so it also has a pair of super-large propellers. As a result, the landing gear of the test aircraft was also lengthened a lot, and the entire aircraft was raised by almost a meter. And because the engine is in the nose, it also greatly affects the pilot's line of sight, which is also a huge test for the take-off and landing of the aircraft.

The weather was still very good in June, and the first flight test of the Thunder turboprop engine was relocated from the Messerschmitt plant in Germany to the Dragon Soul Aircraft Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in Sweden. Since the future M40 large transport aircraft will be mainly produced at Dragon Soul Aircraft Manufacturing Co., Ltd., the Messerschmidt plant will be mainly responsible for jet aircraft production in the future.

Dr. Messerschmitt also rushed to the Dragon Soul Aircraft Manufacturing Co., Ltd., he was shocked by the changes that had taken place here, it turned out that it was still a barren land, and now a modern aircraft manufacturing plant is displayed in front of the world, especially its overall planning, which is much better than the old Messerschmidt factory! The final assembly plant is built entirely on a state-of-the-art pulsating assembly line, and the production of M30 business transport aircraft is so fast that workers spend a lot of time on vacation, because there are not enough orders to run the line at full capacity. (To be continued.) )