In January 1907, the Nanyuan Aviation Industry Company completed various wind tunnel tests of the Jian-3 aircraft, and carried out test flights in the same month, and the results of various test flights made the officers of the Imperial Chinese Air Force very happy.

During this period, Nanyuan flight designer Seguin improved his rotary cylinder air-cooled star gasoline engine, this kind of engine with fixed crankshaft and rotating cylinder was eventually limited by the increase in power, and the upgraded BT12 model was an air-cooled star engine with fixed cylinders, which solved the cooling problem and finally greatly improved the power of the engine.

The J-3 aircraft is still a single propeller, with a wingspan of 12.19 meters, a length of 7.65 meters, a wing area of 35.67 square meters, an empty weight of 522 kg, a maximum take-off weight of 905 kg, a maximum speed of 125 kilometers per hour, a climb capacity of 10 minutes and 30 seconds to fly to a height of 1000 meters, the maximum ceiling has not been broken, it is still 1200 meters, but the endurance has increased to 4 hours, and it can cruise 250 kilometers with auxiliary fuel tanks attached.

After the Jian-3 aircraft completed its test flight, the Air Force, Naval Aviation, and Army Aviation issued orders for a total of 100 J-3A fighters, 20 J-3B trainers, and 40 C and D reconnaissance planes.

Among them, the fighter model carried one crew and carried a Browning air-cooled heavy machine gun, caliber 7.92, with a bomb load of 300 rounds. The trainer model carries two people and carries a Browning air-cooled heavy machine gun with a caliber of 7.92 and a bomb load of 300 rounds. The reconnaissance aircraft model has no weapons and carries two people.

Since the Chinese Empire became the world's leading aviation country, the Imperial Royal Academy and the Aviation Club have gathered the world's best pilots and aircraft designers, and their emergence has naturally become the competitive target of the major airlines of the Chinese Empire.

From 1903 to the summer of 1907, 122 aviation companies appeared in the Chinese Empire all over the world, of which 113 were in the Chinese Empire, and the number of powerful airlines reached double digits. This is all due to the foundation of the Chinese Empire's aviation industry and the cultivation of aviation talents, all of which lead the world, which has contributed to the situation that the Chinese Empire has become the world's aviation center.

More than 100 airlines naturally have to compete on a large scale, and the competition is extremely fierce. Smaller airlines built planes solely to meet the demands of folk entertainment, while large airlines had as their primary goal to compete for orders for Air Force aircraft from the Chinese Empire.

The big airlines basically have a military background, and this is because only the military has the real aviation technology at their disposal. This is reflected in the fact that each of the nine military regions of the Chinese Empire has one or more airlines.

Among them, the more powerful ones are Nanyuan Airlines and Imperial Airlines of the Yanjing Military Region, Shenfei Airlines of the Shenyang Military Region, Gansu Airlines and Xi'an Airlines of the Lanzhou Military Region, Chengdu Airlines of the Chengdu Military Region, Shandong Airlines of the Jinan Military Region, and China Southern Airlines of the Guangzhou Military Region.

After Nanyuan Airlines completed the test flight of the J-3 fighter, Shenyang Airlines (hereinafter referred to as Shenfei), which is located under the jurisdiction of the Shenyang Military Region, also completed a new aircraft, designed by Feng Ru and finalized as the J-4.

At the beginning of 1906, Feng Ru was directly hired by Shen Fei as an aircraft design engineer from the Royal Air Force Academy of the Chinese Empire. This is mainly due to Feng Ru's excellent grades during his studies at school, and he began to develop his own aircraft in his sophomore year, and he was very unusual, not taking the traditional biplane way, but studying monoplanes.

In the graduation project, Feng Ru won the first place with the world's first practical monoplane, and was subsequently hired by Shenfei High-tech as the chief designer of the aircraft.

With the strong support of Shenfei Aviation, Feng Ru quickly developed the monoplane of his dream and passed the wind tunnel test.

In February 1907, less than a month after Nanyuan Airlines completed the test flight of the J-3 aircraft, Shen Fei immediately arranged a test flight of the J-4 fighter in order to participate in the military order, and achieved very good test flight results, which greatly excited the air force supervisors.

The J-4 aircraft adopts a more excellent hydrodynamic layout, the climb buoyancy of the wing is very ideal, and the air resistance of the monoplane is significantly smaller than that of the biplane, and the speed is much faster.

The upper and lower wings of the J-4 are strengthened by thin steel wire traction, also known as "stretch line". The long rectangular section fuselage is welded into a skeleton with steel pipes and covered with cloth. A 7.92 mm Browning machine gun mounted directly on the nose of an Adel air-cooled star-piston engine (cylinders arranged in a radiant pattern) capable of firing 800 rounds per minute, with a compass mounted on the upper surface of the wing (right) and a small number of instruments in the open single-seat cockpit. The Shooting Coordinator has been further optimized to make it more compact and practical.

The dimensions of the J-4 aircraft are 7.3 meters long, 9.52 meters wingspan, 2.39 meters height, and 16 square meters wing area. Empty weight: 398 kg, maximum take-off weight: 608 kg.

Although the maximum take-off weight of the J-4 fighter is not as good as that of the J-3, its flight surname can indeed spit out the meaning of "combat". Its maximum speed reached 134 km/h, surpassing the J-3, but its endurance was insufficient, only 2 hours; The engine is an air-cooled, radial piston engine designed by Adel with an output of 100 hp.

In addition to the combat surname, the J-4 fighter compared with the J-3 fighter has a huge breakthrough in the maximum ceiling, because of the good aerodynamic layout, the J-4 has a maximum ceiling of 3700 meters; The rate of climb is 3000 meters per 30 minutes.

The Air Force is very satisfied with the combat surname of the Jian-4 fighter, because it can easily occupy the commanding heights in the air, and the enemy aircraft below will be in an absolute advantage by diving from the air to attack, plus the advantage of speed, once an air battle breaks out, the Jian-4 will easily seize air supremacy.

Due to the outstanding combat ability of the J-4 fighter, the Imperial Air Force awarded the J-4 fighter the title of "Cat Demon", and the J-4 Cat Demon fighter became the main procurement model of the Chinese Imperial Air Force in 1907, with a total order of 200 aircraft.

Regarding the issue of the title of fighter of the Imperial Chinese Air Force, only particularly outstanding fighter models were given the title. Obviously, the J-4 fighter won the title of cat demon type, which is enough to prove its strong combat effectiveness.

Of course, it is no accident that the J-4 aircraft was awarded the honorary title by the Air Force, largely because of the attention of the Chinese Emperor Wang Chenhao to Feng Ru as a designer, as well as the high opinion of the monoplane.

Wang Chenhao's exact words to the Air Force officials were: "Feng Ru is a talented person, and we must focus on training, and monoplane aircraft are the general trend of future air warfare, and we should give them key support." ”

It is precisely because of Wang Chenhao's words that the Air Force officials naturally look at Feng Ru differently, and they have always implemented Wang Chenhao's words to the letter, Wang Chenhao's words are both holy decrees and beliefs for them, so it is not surprising that Feng Ru and his J-4 fighter won the first title of the Imperial Air Force.

When it comes to the issue of titles, within the [***] side of the Chinese Emperor, the titles of each unit of the three armies are not allowed to be added casually, and the Emperor Wang Chenhao, the commander of the three armies of the Chinese Empire, must personally award the special military flag with the number and show the five-clawed golden dragon. For example, the 233rd Regiment of the 77th Division of the Army was awarded the title of Tiger Regiment, but there was only one Tiger Regiment among all regiment-level units of the Imperial Army. It is precisely because of this that all units of the Empire's navy, army, and air force are desperately competing for military flags with special titles.

Of course, the military flag with special titles is also very strict, even harsh, or cruel. In addition to the officers and soldiers who fought hard for it, the military flag with special titles was embroidered by the royal ladies, that is, the queen, the princess or the princesses themselves, and finally the emperor signed it and used the jade seal to hand the relevant commanders. In this way, the flag must not be lost, and when it comes to the dignity of the empire and the majesty of the royal family, if the flag is captured by the enemy or the unit that was awarded is lost, then all officers from the highest rank down will be punished for it. Therefore, the military flag with special titles has an extremely high status within the Chinese Emperor [***] side.

However, although the soldiers of the three armies of the empire are aware of the consequences of losing the special military flag, they still desperately strive for this flag, for the emperor [***] people, this military flag represents the supreme honor, they will not be afraid of death, full of confidence in victory, and this is a manifestation of incomparable loyalty to the empire.

After Shen Fei's J-4 fighter won the glorious title of "Cat Demon", other airlines were suddenly jealous.

In April 1907, Wang Zhu, the chief designer of Xi'an Aircraft Factory (hereinafter referred to as Xifei), was unwilling to be surpassed by his classmate and friend Feng Ru, and launched the world's first triplane, and obtained the naming right of the Jian-5 fighter of the Ministry of the Air Force with the advantage of high quality and low price.

In the early days of aircraft development, the engines were low in power and heavy, and the materials used to build the fuselage were mostly wood and cloth. To solve the problem of lift-off, a large area of the wing is needed in order to generate sufficient lift in low-speed conditions. Biplanes have two wing surfaces with a large total wing area. However, in order to gain more lift, it is impossible to blindly lengthen the wing, so adding a layer of wing is an improvement.

The triplane designed by Wang Zhu took into account the cost issue, and did not use the expensive aero engines used by the J-3 and J-4, but used the ordinary aero engines of the private sector, and the cost was reduced by one-third. Moreover, the use of triplanes can obtain greater buoyancy, stay in the air for a long time, and the surname is excellent, which will have an advantage in aerial combat.

At this time, the aircraft had not yet solved the flight stabilizer problem, so once the pilot released the steering wheel, the aircraft would spin on its own and lose its balance, so the pilot had to hold the steering wheel tightly all the time during the flight, which caused the pilot to be extremely fatigued. The shortened wingspan and increased buoyancy of the triplane make it easy for pilots, who can stay in the air for a long time or take off repeatedly without fatigue (relatively speaking).

The upper wingspan of the J-5 fighter is 7.19 meters, the middle wingspan is 6.22 meters, the lower wingspan is 5.63 meters, the upper wing chord is 1.16 meters, the lower wing chord is 0.97 meters, the wing spacing is 0.89 meters, and the entire wing area reaches 18.66 square meters. The length of the aircraft is 5.77 meters, the height of the aircraft is 2.95 meters, the empty weight is 405 kilograms, the maximum take-off weight reaches 684 kilograms, and it is equipped with a 7.92 mm Browning heavy machine gun, and various instruments such as the compass are located in the middle of the cockpit on the left. It adopts Adel ordinary aviation gasoline engine, with a maximum speed of 103 kilometers per hour, a cruising time of 2.5 hours, a climb altitude of 3,600 meters, and a climb time of only 25 minutes.

The cost of a J-5 fighter is only 140,000 dragon coins, while the cost of the J-3 fighter is 170,000 dragon coins, and the cost of the J-4 cat demon fighter is as high as 220,000 dragon coins.

In terms of fighter jets, the Chinese Imperial Air Force finally purchased only three fighters from Nanyuan Aviation, Shenfei and Xifei, and other fighters designed and manufactured by Shandong Airlines and China Southern Airlines failed to be shortlisted, and they received a small number of orders for training aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft.

Because the threshold of the Chinese Imperial Air Force was too high, these airlines lowered their standards for export to foreign countries in accordance with the requirements of the Air Force Command. Due to the leading position of the Chinese Empire's aviation industry, foreign aviation troops and aviation enthusiasts have chosen the products of the Chinese Empire's airlines, so as to obtain overseas orders for these private airlines, survive, and continue to expand overseas markets and develop and grow.

At the same time, the only nine remaining airlines in Europe and the United States are also facing competition from more than 100 aviation companies from the Chinese Empire, and their survival situation is worrying, many of them are in a state of loss, if it were not for the support of the European and American powers, I am afraid they would all have to go out of business. But European and American countries still do not pay so much attention to the development of air power, so that the development of aviation in Europe is far less than the development speed of the Chinese Empire, and it was not until the day of the war that they realized how important the air force was, but at that time the gap between the backwardness of their aviation industry was even greater.

Accompanied by Wang Shizhen, Wang Chenhao visited the Nanyuan Air Base and was very satisfied with the various advanced fighters parked in the base's airfield.

Entering the wind tunnel test site, through the windshield, Wang Chenhao found that a large aircraft was undergoing a wind tunnel test.

"What is this?" Wang Chenhao asked, pointing to the big plane inside.

Adel next to him replied: "Your Majesty the Emperor, this is the latest H1N1 bomber developed by our Chengfei Aviation. ”

“h1n1？” Wang Chenhao suddenly coughed a few times when he heard this, how can this be the same name as avian flu, Wang Chenhao couldn't help but sweat profusely.

"Yes!" Adel explained: "H1 is the abbreviation of H-1, N1 is the abbreviation of No. 1, this is the first model of the bomber, so I named it H1N1, what does Your Majesty think of this name?" ”

Wang Chenhao nodded, and couldn't help but smile: "This name is indeed very surname!" ”

Then, Adel introduced the surname of the H1N1 bomber to Wang Chenhao and Wang Shizhen and others.

The H1N1 bomber, using a traditional wooden structure with cloth skin, has a main wing with upper reverse angles that can be folded back, a rectangular fuselage cross-section, each group of main landing gear includes two wheels, and the tail is equipped with a skid-type landing gear. The aircraft uses the Adel 07 combined high-power engine, which is housed in an engine nacelle with armor protection. The crew members were located in a closed cockpit, protected by armor plates on the bottom and sides of the cabin.

The second prototype is being tested. The first prototype's wind tunnel tests and test flights were only satisfactory. The second prototype was built on the experience of the former, such as switching to an open cockpit (the pilot and navigator/mechanic sit side by side, and the shooter/bombardier is in the nose), the aircraft also added a new radiator to the water-cooled engine, and most of the armor plates were removed (because the best protection for bombers is dark night, and the armor plates are not able to resist the attack of the Catdemon fighters, so it is more cost-effective to remove the bombs).

At the same time, 4 heavy machine guns and 1 20mm cannon were also dismantled, because Adel found that the bulky bomber could not resist the Cat Demon fighter at speeds of up to 134 kilometers per hour, so he dismantled them together, and after eliminating the machine gunner, he could load more bombs.

Prototype 2 was tested in the wind tunnel for more than a week, and as expected, it showed a marked improvement in terms of its ability to do so. At the beginning of May 07, the aircraft flew to an altitude of more than 2,133 meters (7,000 feet) with 20 test pilots.

The wingspan of the H1N1 bomber is 30.4 meters, the length is 19.2 meters, the wing area reaches 583.3 square meters, the empty weight is 4 tons, and the maximum take-off weight reaches 7 tons. The bomb load is 1 ton (5 200 kg bombs, or 2 500 kg bombs), 12 members, the maximum ceiling is 3000 meters, and the climb time is 45 minutes.

Listening to Adel's explanation, Wang Chenhao couldn't stop nodding his head, expressing his satisfaction.

Wang Chenhao said with a smile: "It's right to leave this job to you foreigners, you like to tinker with big things." ”

"Your Majesty, I have to correct you!" Adelton said dissatisfiedly: "I have been in China for eleven years, I have Chinese nationality, you can't call me a foreigner." ”

Wang Chenhao was stunned for a moment, and then smiled: "It's me who lost my words!" I apologize to you! ”

Seeing Wang Chenhao apologizing to him, Adel immediately smiled and said, "It's my honor to be able to get His Majesty's apology!" ”

As he spoke, the two burst into laughter. Only Wang Shizhen and a group of officials next to him had black lines on their faces, in their eyes, this Adel was too much, and it was really unreasonable for them to ask their most respected emperor, His Majesty, to apologize to him.

After laughing, Wang Chenhao turned to Wang Shizhen and said: "This kind of bomber has basically met the strategic requirements of our air force, what is lacking is range and combat radius, and we should make persistent efforts to develop more powerful bombers." ”

Wang Shizhen said: "This kind of bomber is big enough, can it be bigger?" ”

Wang Chenhao nodded and said, "Isn't it enough to use four engines with two engines?" In short, as long as we can't think of it, there is nothing that can't be done! ”

Wang Shizhen hurriedly said: "Your Majesty Shengming! ”

(To be continued)