Under the illumination of the light, a huge, silver-glowing ring towers over the workshop, and around the ring more than ten meters high, several workers standing on scaffolding are riveting with small rivet guns. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info The small pulley crane keeps sending the silver glittering trusses to the scaffolding.

"Da!"

As the workers pressed down the rivet gun, the pure aluminum rivets were instantly nailed to the stringers, standing there, and the "lines" of the large rings that were nearly finished were extremely beautiful, especially the silver luster that shone under the light.

Aluminium!

Less than a decade ago, the metal was a rare and precious metal, almost equal to gold at its most expensive, and for decades, this light metal, which weighs less than a third of steel, was the darling of jewelry designers, such as gold and platinum, and was used in jewelry as a bragging rights by many wealthy people - limited production makes it not available to everyone.

"Napoleon III, Emperor of France, was an extravagant man and at the same time a man who liked to show off. He often feasted on the world's guests. At every banquet, he always showed the dignity of the emperor. The utensils on the table were almost entirely made of silver, except for the bowl he used himself, which was made of aluminum......"

In front of this huge aluminum "deep ring", Tang Haoran said in a playful tone, if he could travel more than ten years earlier, maybe he could still catch the "little tail" of aluminum to make a windfall. But now the value of aluminum has long been suppressed by Alcoa and has become a relatively cheap metal, at least no longer as profitable as it once was.

I think about when I was in Incheon. I almost didn't worry about gray hair for the silver. If you can be more than ten years early. Building an electrolytic aluminum plant will solve all the problems? Of course, this is just a moment of cranky thinking.

"Aluminum bowl?"

Dashuai's words made Xie Jintai stunned, although he knew that aluminum was the lightest metal, but he didn't know the allusion to aluminum, let alone that aluminum was once as expensive as gold.

"Because at that time, the technology of smelting aluminium from bauxite had just been invented, and the cost of smelting aluminium was very expensive, despite the fact that aluminium was extremely widespread in the earth's crust. However, technology and cost make aluminum very expensive...... Until the American Charles? Martin? After Hall invented electrolytic aluminum, it was immediately beaten back to its original shape and became a cheap metal......"

Picking up an aluminum stringer, Tang Haoran looked at the metal in his hand, no need to go to the laboratory, just rely on common sense to know that this should be pure aluminum, and its strength is limited. The invention of the first generation of aviation aluminum, Dula aluminum, was thirteen years later, before that, the so-called aluminum. It's just ordinary pure aluminum, or pure aluminum with some impurities. Because of this, its use is greatly limited.

"All this aluminum is imported from the United States?"

Perhaps in the future the production of aluminum alloys can be considered, after all, in addition to aviation, there are other aspects in which aluminum alloys can be applied.

"Yes, Dashuai, they are all imported from the United States through foreign companies, although aluminum is not as expensive as gold in the past, it is not cheap, a kilogram costs almost one or two silver, and the most expensive thing for an airship is aluminum ......"

When mentioning the price of aluminum, Xie Jintai still couldn't help but feel a pain in his flesh, if it weren't for the fact that the price of aluminum was too expensive, how could he build an experimental airship first, in order to win the support of the army and the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry, and show them the role of the airship.

"Now aluminum is still a little more expensive, because the cost of electricity is high......"

Nodding Tang Haoran said disappreciatively, because of the relationship between studying metallurgy, he knows very well the reason for the high price of aluminum, and the most fundamental reason is the price of electricity.

The high price of electricity is the fundamental reason for the restriction of electricity in the industrial application in this era, and the high cost of power generation has a lot to do with its power, the current power generation equipment in various countries is powered by piston steam engines, which is used to generate electricity is a typical low efficiency and high consumption, the cost of power generation is high, and the cost of aluminum is naturally high.

In contrast, the biggest advantage of the Northeast is precisely the relatively low cost of electricity - unlike other countries, the Northeast uses high-speed steam turbines to generate electricity, which is lower than the reciprocating steam engine. It is precisely because of this that in the industrial construction of Northeast China, electricity will be fully promoted, and a central power plant will be established to reduce the cost of plant construction.

"When the cost of electricity comes down, the price of aluminum will naturally come down, and in the future, it can be used to refine aluminum from cheaper hydropower."

Although it is only an idea, but the Northeast Electric Power Company has been instructed by Tang Haoran to carry out hydropower research, and at the same time planned the construction of hydropower stations, in addition to a few small hydropower stations, Tang Haoran is more inclined to another time and space, Fengman, Yalu River two major hydropower stations, according to the power supply area, Fengman hydropower station power generation can meet the power needs of the Changchun-Harbin industrial belt. The Yalu River, on the other hand, can meet the power needs of industrial areas in southern Liaoning and northern Korea.

Sufficient and cheap electricity will be able to ensure the production of electricity in the two industrial areas. Of course, this is just a long-term vision. There are other things that need to be sorted out at the moment, such as this thin aluminum truss in hand.

"It's pure aluminum, it's a little soft."

In Tang Haoran's view, if dura aluminum can be used, or even super-hard aluminum alloy such as 7075 aluminum alloy, the amount of aluminum used in the airship will inevitably be greatly reduced, and the load capacity can be increased while reducing costs, and the load capacity is equal to its future development prospects for the airship.

"I think we can consider developing an aluminum alloy, well, just like alloy steel, adding metals such as copper and zinc, which should enhance the strength of aluminum, so that the truss can be made thinner, and the weight will naturally come down, and the important thing can be used to hold more ......."

"Bomb!"

Xie Zhangtai hurriedly took over the words of the commander, and just a few days ago, the "SY-1 airship," which is the soft test airship, conducted a test -- a bomb test.

In order to verify that the bombs could be dropped in the air, at the request of the military command, the airship carried 10 bombs based on 120-mm mortar shells, a new type of shell weighing 15 kilograms, which even the troops had not yet equipped. It is still being tested.

The results of the airdrop test were quite encouraging. Although its accuracy in mid-air bombing is mediocre - only one out of ten bombs hits a 50-meter target. But most of the other bombs were near the target, although this proved that air-dropped bombs were a matter of luck if they did not have sighting devices.

But the military is still very satisfied with this result, which at least shows that aerial bombardment is not wishful thinking, and that there is potential for further improvement in the accuracy of bombing, such as by designing sights. That's why they're willing to give money to support the airship company in developing a bigger airship -- a bigger airship. This means that it can carry more bombs.

Even after the end of the test, the Military Command Department had already ordered the arsenals of the three eastern provinces to try to produce 100 kg to 200 kg heavy bombs, and if they could be dropped by airships, then their lethality would undoubtedly be devastating, and even their power could completely make up for the lack of accuracy -- of course, this was under the condition that the sights were unfavorable, and for the military, they preferred the bombs dropped by airships to be as accurate as naval heavy artillery.

It is thanks to the support of the military that the airship plan, which was originally on paper, has become a reality, just like the huge deep ring in front of you, which is the keel of a large airship. Without funding from the military, it would not exist.

"Nope. It should be said that it is cargo! ”

Surprisingly, Tang Haoran dismissed Xie Zhangtai's view. Compared with the application of airships in warfare, Tang Haoran saw the role of airships in transportation in the future.

"I think for a long time in the future, the biggest use of airships is to transport dozens of tons, or even hundreds of tons of goods, to the hinterland of China, such as Shaanxi and Sichuan, to transport goods from the Northeast there, so that the people in the deep hinterland can enjoy the convenience of modern industrial civilization!"

Almost that day, when he saw the airship and fantasized about the huge "Kirov airship group" using bombs to raze the enemy's positions and cities to the ground, Tang Haoran even thought of using a large airship to load goods and then transport them to all parts of the country. After all, in this day and age, no one can levy centigold in the air.

And in this era of backward transportation conditions, even in the northeast, there is only one railway, most provinces in China have no railways at all, especially in the southwest and northwest, in those hilly and mountainous areas with inconvenient transportation, in the future for a long time, the railway may not be repaired to that time, and this is the time for the airship to show its talents, as long as you are willing to use the airship to transport the industrial products produced in the northeast to any province in the country, any corner.

At that time, as long as people see airships, they will think of the Northeast and the strength of the Northeast. A large, or even a giant airship, like the Zeppelin in another time and space, will become a symbol of the Northeast, and the best symbol. Because of this, after Tang Haoran saw the airship on paper and learned that its load was only about one ton, he hoped that Xie Zhangtai could design a larger airship on its basis.

Although for the army, it may be relatively flexible, and the use of airships with bomb-carrying tons or so is more flexible, but in terms of its development, giant airships with a load of more than ten tons or even dozens of tons are the "right way" of airships, after all, airships will replace airships in the future, but in the early stage of the development of aircraft technology, airships with large-tonnage transportation capacity are not replaced by airplanes. It is precisely because of its potential in transportation that Tang Haoran is more willing to use the power of the "civilian" to maintain an airship transport team that can be called up at any time than to "feed" the airship unit with military spending, and the backward transportation of this era is the basis for achieving this goal.

"Now the transportation in the southwest, northwest and other places, in fact, there is not much difference from a thousand years ago, like Guizhou, Yunnan and other places of local products, but can only be transported out by people picking horses, modern industrial products are difficult to transport into these areas, because the freight is too high, so the local hundreds of millions of people, still can not enjoy the gospel of modern industrial civilization. If our airship can carry dozens of tons of goods, then our commodities will have the transportation advantage that foreign goods do not have, and we can continuously import our commodities to the southwest and northwest, and obtain the raw materials we need for production from the two places. ”

Perhaps compared to the higher cost of waterborne airship transportation, but compared with the primitive and backward human-horse-mounted transportation mode, the airship has its own advantages, and may even have cost advantages, of course, this is just an idea, and it still needs to be tested to prove all this, and no matter how bad it is, it can also use subsidies to support the business development of the airship company.

"Dashuai, this, this ......"

Xie Jintai was completely stunned by the future described by the marshal, before he never thought that he could use the airship to transport goods, turn the airship into a train in the air, even if he had this idea, it was just fleeting, compared to transportation, there is no doubt that the military is more secure, but now the description of the marshal has completely subverted his understanding of the airship.

Just when Xie Zhangtai was dumbfounded, imagining the scene of giant airships transporting tens of thousands of tons of goods to all parts of the country, Tang Haoran still looked at the drawings with great interest, and put forward some of his own views and opinions, more precisely, drawing on the pictures of airships he had seen, and put forward some of his own ideas on the appearance and structure of the airships, and those ideas, such as the rotatable engine compartment, although with a certain degree of technical difficulty, can also make it to some extent get rid of the dependence on the tethered tower, The monolithic cabin can maintain the stability of the cabin.

Dozens of minutes later, after instructing the company to research aluminum alloy and aluminum profile processing equipment to meet the needs of airship production, Tang Haoran was still a little excited when he left the airship company.

"Airships, star engines, bombing ......"

When the carriage drove through the increasingly prosperous streets of Dalian, looking at the city of Dalian outside the car, Tang Haoran's lips couldn't help but raise slightly, and he thought to himself in the bottom of his heart.

China, how much can I really change for you?

How many changes this butterfly's wings have brought to this land, even as the creator of all this, it is difficult for Tang Haoran to imagine what kind of changes will occur in the future, but today's airship clearly tells everyone a fact - the once familiar history has undergone fundamental changes! (To be continued.) )