Chapter Ninety-Seven: Top Gun (2)

In addition to this FR1897-B civil light multi-purpose aircraft, another medium-sized aircraft product of Feng Ru Company also attracted Chen Zeyu's attention.

FY1897-D civilian medium monoplane transport aircraft, as the first civilian aircraft made of metal skin, what attracted Chen Zeyu the most was not the fuselage material, but the shape design that was completely different from similar products. Compared with the twin-engine RK1897-E transport aircraft of the same size as the avalanche, Feng Ru's FY1897-D monoplane is actually innovative in the case of the original two-wing propeller engine, and a gasoline engine propeller is added to the nose again, so that the overall surname of the aircraft can be completely close to the high-thrust diesel engine aircraft.

Only Chen Zeyu knew that the two RK series aircraft developed by Avalanche were actually designed for bombers at the earliest, and the purpose of not installing engines in the nose was to improve the pilot's bomb field of view during aircraft operations. Compared with Feng Ru's FY1897-D monoplane transport aircraft, the RK series of Avalanche not only maintains excellent combat capabilities, but also provides considerable cargo transportation capacity for the huge payload of the aircraft itself.

But even this still can't erase the potential value of Feng Ru's FY1897-D monoplane transport aircraft, compared with the more complex Avalanche Aviation, Feng Ru's design on this aircraft, which aimed at the civil aviation market from the beginning, can be called a classic. For the first time, a gasoline engine propeller was installed in the nose, which changed from the original twin engines to a three-engine powered transport aircraft with one wing in the nose and one on each wing.

What surprised Chen Zeyu even more was that the Feng Ru FR1897-B three-engine medium-sized transport aircraft, which is close to the avalanche rk1897-E transport/bomber in terms of capacity, is only 34,000 Chinese yuan in price, less than half of the former.

The survival ability of Chen Ran's gasoline-powered aircraft in the war is far lower than that of similar products of Avalanche Aviation, but its use value and huge market prospects in the field of civil aviation and low-risk battlefields cannot be underestimated.

No matter how good Avalanche Power Group's diesel engines are, there is one thing that the company's technicians cannot avoid at this stage, and that is the manufacturing cost of the new diesel engine! Because of the complexity and precision of its own structure and process, from the early 96XB to the later 97XB series, although the shortcomings of the new diesel engine have been greatly improved, compared with the gasoline engine engine that is still expensive, it has to be said that the gap in unit manufacturing cost is still a major defect.

Chen Zeyu is not unaware of this, but as far as his idea is concerned, it is more prepared to develop the domestic aviation industry into a part of the military industry, so as to fully serve all possible foreign wars in the future. Because of this reason, coupled with the timely appearance of the excellent 96XB series diesel engine, Chen Zeyu artificially tilted the development route of the internal combustion engine of the Republic to a new type of diesel-powered engine that is safer and less susceptible to deflagration in battle.

This approach cannot be wrong, but Chen Zeyu's plan to serve the military industry at the same time, the development of the domestic civil aviation industry will inevitably be affected, according to Chen Zeyu's original idea, the real rise of the civil aviation industry in history will have to wait until after the First World War, this little development lag does not need to be too concerned.

But at this time, Feng Ru's appearance suddenly made the young head of the republic's eyes shine.

Just because you won't go all out doesn't mean you have to suppress it! Since there is such a talented talent in the aviation field to make up for this shortcoming in the domestic aviation industry, Chen Zeyu will naturally be happy to see it.

……

On March 7, the south bank of the Jishui River in Shandong Province.

The sky is beautiful, above the clear blue sky, a strange-looking monoplane propeller plane is soaring freely in the air, just when everyone on the ground is still watching in curiosity, this plane suddenly rushed down to the river at a large depression angle!

Just when everyone was worried that the plane would fall into the water, the dive angle of the strange plane also became smoother.

While the speed of the plane gradually slowed down, everyone watching on the ground finally saw this strange plane, there was no landing gear facility at the bottom, and instead there were two huge pontoons!

"Puff puff! ――”

With a few soft sounds, the plane in front of him actually glided across the water surface of the river bank in full view of everyone, and slowly docked on the Jishui River on the shore while splashing many white waves on the body.

"Führer, this is the seaplane BQ1897-2H ...... produced by the company"

Listening to the introduction of the middle-aged aircraft factory director next to him, Chen Zeyu nodded.

"The aircraft company has done a good job, and it seems that you have worked a lot hard this year."

After visiting Feng Ru's company, Chen Zeyu inspected another well-known seaplane aviation equipment company in the industrial zone with great interest.

The middle-aged man in front of him, Chen Zeyu is actually not a stranger, at least he has heard his name in the history books, among the famous naval generals in modern China, Fang Boqian, who was executed by the Qing court in the First Sino-Japanese War, must be the most controversial senior admiral in history, but compared to another time and space, Chen Zeyu heard a completely different image in this history.

Fang Boqian (1852-), the word Yitang, Fujian Houguanren, the first student of the Fuzhou Shipbuilding School, in 1877, studied at the British Greenwich Naval Academy, after graduation and returned to China, he served as the deputy general of the left battalion of the Chinese army in the Beiyang Fleet of the Qing Dynasty, and successively served as the commander of the three battleships of the Beiyang Fleet, the "Zhenbei" gunboat, the "Fulong" mine-strike ship, and the "Jiyuan" cruiser.

In the original history, the commander of the "Jiyuan" ship of the former Qing Dynasty was severely punished by the government and the opposition later because he led his ship to retreat in the battle with the Yuben fleet in the Yellow Sea. But now Chen Zeyu's own judgment is concerned, these histories are still obviously covered in a layer of fog, at least he won't believe it! The captain of the Beiyang ship, who led the bloody battle of "Jiyuan" and sank the ship "Yoshino", will be a person who is greedy for life and afraid of death.

In this time and space, after the collective uprising of the Beiyang Naval Division in Weihaiwei at the end of March 1895, a large number of senior Beiyang officers of the former Qing Dynasty, including Fang Boqian and Lin Taizeng, remained in the naval forces of the nascent Republic for a period of time afterward. Among them, six former Qing naval officers, including Fang Boqian, Wu Jingrong, Qiu Baoren, Lan Jianshu, Lin Zengtai, and Liu Buyun, have been serving in the naval training fleet in Nanyang for a long time, and have trained a large number of trainee naval officers for the Republic's Sizhejiang Naval Academy.

By the end of 1896, at the age of 45, Fang Boqian had been discharged early from the navy due to injuries. While receiving a generous military pension, this former admiral, who is no more than half a hundred years old, obviously does not want to spend the rest of his life in such an emptiness.

Thanks to some previous contacts in the Navy of the Republic, this Fang Boqian became deeply interested in airplanes when he first saw the aircraft of the naval aviation, a new thing destined to profoundly change the course of naval operations in the future.

In the following period of time, with full of enthusiasm and full of interest, this former naval officer who dragged the wounded and sick relied on pulling people, relying on connections, and finding experts to finally get the Beiyang seaplane manufacturing company in front of him, which is famous for specializing in the manufacture of seaplanes.

Its most outstanding products, such as the BQ1897-2H light monoplane on the water, have won large orders from domestic aviation clubs and aircraft enthusiasts. Several of the aircraft's designs were even adopted by Avalanche's design team, resulting in the Osprey FT1897-F seaplane that made Avalanche Aviation famous both nationally and internationally.

It is for this reason that Fang Boqian's Beiyang Aircraft Company finally entered Chen Zeyu's field of vision.

"At the beginning, when I was serving in the army, I saw a few land planes patrolling over the base, and later after retiring, my cousin brought back an AG1896-V3 from Nanyang business, my eldest son Fang Yong took this plane to the suburbs to play all day long, and I happened to be idle at home at that time, and I accompanied him to fly twice in the sky when I was fine, which scared the mother-in-law at home to pray to God and worship Buddha all day long, hahahaha. At that time, I thought it would be great if I could make this plane take off and land at sea......"

Listening to Fang Boqian's introduction to his early R&D experience, Chen Zeyu asked with interest, "Why do you want to take off and land at sea?" ”

"Hey! After all, I spent time on a battleship, so I don't have feelings! I thought, if you can let the plane soar in this vast blue sky and sea, then it is a beautiful thing! Hey, our Boqian has retired from the sea, but he still has to start again at sea! ”

"Good! Be ambitious! Flying is actually not simpler than sailing, in this emerging industrial field, our country needs a pioneer like you Fang Boqian! Lao Fang, run your aircraft company well, I am waiting to visit your better products! Chen Zeyu praised.

"Yes, Führer!" Fang Boqian replied with a military salute, "Just take a look!" ”

Chen Zeyu nodded, and the group walked towards the berth where the seaplane was located.

Looking at the BQ1897-2H seaplane on the water in front of him, with the assistance of the shore staff, skillfully approached the dock and pulled the noose, Chen Zeyu took everyone forward with great interest to visit it specifically.

Thanks to the unique hull pontoon design, the whole seaplane can stay on the water while being able to do high-speed and stable taxiing along the water surface of rivers, lakes and seas, so that the resistance of the aircraft to take off on the water surface is greatly reduced.

In order to generate enough surface buoyancy for the aircraft to hover, the bottom pontoon of the whole aircraft is designed to be extremely large, so many domestic aircraft enthusiasts like to call this kind of seaplane a water spaceship or an airplane speedboat.

Whenever the propeller engine at the nose generates enough thrust, the entire watercraft can gain enough lift at high speed to turn the kun into a peng, becoming a "bird" soaring in the sky. And when it completes its mission, its unique design allows it to be safely moored on the water, becoming a ship that can sail freely on the river. And unlike the runway requirements of land aircraft, seaplanes can be parked on any water surface as far as the line of sight because of their unique characteristics, which greatly reduces the pilot's driving constraints. Because of this eye-catching feature, the entire seaplane series has won the favor of domestic naval vessels and a large number of civilian flight enthusiasts since it first appeared.