The next morning, Li Yunxiang came over to wake Bai Zhizhan up, and then took Bai Zhizhan to the airport.

When he saw the huge heavy bombers, Bai Zhizhan had not yet reacted. It was not until he came to the bomber and truly felt its size that he suddenly realized that this was the largest aircraft he had seen so far, at least with the largest size of wingspan and length.

Although there are only four engines, they are obviously bigger than the past four-engine bombers.

"Is this a 'Divine Condor'?"

After Bai Zhizhan raised questions, Li Yunxiang just nodded and did not explain much.

That's right, this is the "Hongbo-5" bomber nicknamed "Shen Diao", and it is also the third type of 4-round heavy bomber obtained by the Imperial Army Air Force during the war.

Bai Zhizhan knew a lot about this kind of bomber.

The development of "Shen Diao" began before the outbreak of the war, and He Pengfei's company invested on its own, taking on all the development risks.

At that time, among the people who encouraged He Pengfei to pay for the development of the "Shenhuang Condor", there was a war in vain!

In order to gain favor from the army and obtain mass production orders, it is also to attract attention. The performance indicators of the "Shen Diao" when it is launched are extremely outrageous. For example, the bomb load must reach at least 9 tons, the combat radius must be at least 3,000 kilometers, the maximum flight altitude must exceed 10,000 meters, the flight speed exceeds 500 kilometers per hour, and several 20mm machine guns must be equipped, and armor must be laid in key parts such as the cockpit.

Such an advanced bomber may not be built even now, not to mention that it was such an advanced bomber.

First of all, we have to solve the engine problem.

In fact, in the early stage of development, or concept design, the number one problem is the lack of a suitable engine.

In the previous versions of the design, all of them use 6 engines!

The reason is that even if you use a 2,000-horsepower air-cooled engine that is still in the development stage and you don’t know when it will be mass-produced, 6 units are needed to make the "Shen Diao" meet the main design indicators. If you only use 4 engines, you must lower the load or shorten the range.

Before the war broke out, Land Airlines would definitely not be able to accept bombers using 6 engines.

In fact, even after the war broke out, Land Airlines was not very catching a cold on the six-engine bomber.

Although in theory, six engines can provide greater safety redundancy, it also means more complexity and the bomber's completeness rate is lower.

In addition, the procurement price and equipment maintenance cost must be considered.

The cost of a 6-round heavy bomber is at least 40% higher than that of a 4-round bomber, but under normal circumstances, the combat efficiency is similar to that of a 4-round bomber.

The key is that less than 10% of ultra-long-range bombing missions cannot be completed by 4-engine bombers.

In short, the efficiency ratio of the 6-engine bomber is too low.

Even if there is no funding problem during wartime, comprehensive costs must be considered.

Too high manufacturing costs, or too high maintenance and use costs, all means that mass production cannot be produced on a large scale.

It is precisely because after the outbreak of the war, after the "Shen Diao" received military investment, its main design direction was also determined.

When only 4 engines are used, the first thing to do is to ensure a combat radius of 3,000 kilometers, and the second thing to ensure a normal ammunition load of at least 6 tons.

As for other performance indicators, they can be negotiated.

Even at this time, the key is the engine.

When the main energy indicators are determined, the best air-cooled engine that can be obtained is only 2,000 horsepower, and the output is pitifully small, and the navy's carrier-based aircraft must be given priority. The key is that this star-shaped air-cooled engine specially developed for carrier-based aircraft is not strong enough, and it also has the rapid attenuation of the output power with increasing altitude, which cannot meet the fatal defect of bombers' long-term high-altitude flight.

At that time, what we could get was actually an old-fashioned engine with 1,800 horsepower.

Obviously, if you only use a 1,800 horsepower engine, then the "Shenhuang Diao" will never be able to obtain a combat radius of 3,000 kilometers with a load of 6 tons of bullets.

Even if it adopts all-aluminum structure, its comprehensive performance is slightly better than the previous heavy bomber. The Heavy Boom-4, nicknamed "Peak Horse", will not be essentially improved. Because the cost will definitely not be reduced, it will definitely not be able to replace the "Peak Horse", and the chance of mass production is slim.

Don't forget that electrolytic aluminum is not cheap, and bombers using aluminum structures are definitely extremely expensive.

That is why, in more than a year after the outbreak of the war, that is, after receiving military funding and officially becoming a military equipment project, the "Shen Diao" was in the concept development stage, mainly waiting for the engine and finding ways to reduce production costs.

There are several design versions that even replace aluminum with wood!

Judging from the RABBRAN Air Force's several wood-made aircraft, while significantly reducing the cost, the main performance is not too poor.

As for high-quality wood, it is not a problem for a vast empire.

Not to mention anything else, the far north of the empire is almost entirely full of primeval forests.

Of course, to solve the root cause, you still have to work hard on the engine.

Until now, the Empire's large air-cooled engines have not entered the mass production stage.

According to the plan, the 2400-horsepower dual-pressure air-cooled engine specially developed for "Shen Diao" will not be put into mass production in the fourth quarter of 103 of the New Calendar.

Fortunately, the engine problem has been found in the Taman Empire.

The Tauman Empire has an engine with a maximum power of nearly 3,000 horsepower, which is the DB610 series engine used on the He-177 twin-engine bomber.

This combined supercharged liquid-cooled engine has many problems, such as poor reliability.

Due to this limitation, the production of He-177 has never been very high, and the scope of use is strictly limited.

However, Imperial Airlines has no better choice.

When introducing this engine, at the request of the military, the manufacturers responsible for the production tasks made some adjustments, mainly to remove the second-stage supercharge system to improve the stability of the engine. The price paid is that the output power of the engine is directly reduced to 2,200 horsepower, and the high-altitude performance is very poor, which limits the practical ceiling of the heavy bomber of this type of engine.

However, the gap of 200 horsepower and the sharp shrinkage of high-altitude performance are actually not a problem.

At least, this is a high-power engine that can be obtained immediately and is temporarily matched by only the "Shenhuang Diao".

The key is that small manufacturers are responsible for the production.

Because the application scope of large water-cooled engines is very narrow, when deciding to introduce licenses, domestic large engine factories refused the invitation to cooperate on the grounds that production capacity is saturated, and in the end they could only organize several small manufacturers to jointly produce.

To this end, the military also specially dispatched experts to provide technical support to manufacturers.

The advantage is that there is no problem of having to compete with other engines for production lines.

That's why in June, "Shen Diao" obtained approval from China Airlines and officially entered the mass production stage, while the first batch of orders was 500 aircraft.

In order to ensure production speed, the first batch of 500 aircraft did not prepare for future modifications.

If additional orders are needed, then starting from the 501st plane, the engine hanger points of the wings must be adjusted to facilitate the replacement of the 2400 horsepower air-cooled engine in the future.

Now, all 20 aircraft have been delivered are in Sri Lanka.
Chapter completed!