Chapter 221 Carrier-based aircraft

"Yan Jun, you came so early, you are much more active than me, the commander. It's really hard for you." Li Guoqiang was very happy today. He went up and patted Bai Yanjun's shoulder casually and said with a smile.

"There are still many things. I care about the Shenzhou just like my children. Since it started to be built on the first day, I have come over to check it out every now and then. Now I finally saw that the aircraft carrier has been completed and can carry out carrier-based aircraft take-off and landing tests. I was so excited that I didn't sleep for several days. I rushed over before dawn today." Bai Yanjun looked a little haggard and hadn't had a good rest for several days, but he was still very excited.

"How is it? After returning from the last trial voyage, the aircraft carrier power system was normal, right?" Li Guoqiang asked with concern again.

"The first few trials went very smoothly, and no major problems occurred, and some minor problems were eliminated in time." Bai Yanjun responded.

"Our aircraft carrier design is very consistent with the specifications. Generally speaking, no major problems will occur. The power has been solved, and the fundamental problems will be solved. The communication system debugging is also very normal. The long-distance communication test and the communication test between underwater submarines have also been carried out several times, which fully meets the design requirements. Now there is only the big project of carrier-based aircraft testing. I hope it can be passed smoothly."

"Carbon-based aircraft testing is the key, there is no problem with the blocking cable, right?" Li Guoqiang asked again.

"The four sets of interceptor cables fully meet the design requirements and there is no problem. Our personnel have tried to cooperate with the command and simulated test on the ship, waiting for the key actions of the carrier-based aircraft to board the ship." Bai Yanjun responded with a hint of excitement.

Since this time is just a sea trial, it is necessary to ensure the safety of most naval officers and soldiers. In addition to a small number of submarines and destroyers escorting the aircraft carrier, there were only two or three hundred people on the aircraft carrier, which did not reach the full capacity. The full capacity of the Shenzhou was about 800.

The design of the USS Shenzhou aircraft carrier adopts optimized configuration, the allocation of the deck space of the aircraft carrier, the design of the bridge, the position of the command room, the location of the communication room, the position of the chimney, etc., are all carried out in accordance with technical data; the lower layer adopts a large number of isolation cabin designs. When a hull is hit by a torpedo, it will not cause water inflow to the entire ship. Therefore, it is generally difficult to sink an aircraft carrier with only one or two torpedoes. Unless you are lucky and hit the weak part of the aircraft carrier, it may cause it to sink incline due to excessive water inflow.

Both the hangar and the elevator position have been optimized to save aircraft carrier space and improve operational efficiency.

When the first generation of modified aircraft carriers appeared, there was a three-layer deck design. In addition to the upper deck, the lower two layers can also be used as decks. Some aircraft can take off in the lower hangar, but later it was found that this design was not reasonable. The design of the lower protective armor and other isolation cabins, the design of each equipment space will be greatly affected, which will affect the rationality of the overall design.

Therefore, later aircraft carriers took off using the upper deck, and the hangar below was only used for parking aircraft. The aircraft was lifted and lowered to the top of the deck through the elevator. Sometimes the surface of the elevator could also be used as part of the deck for aircraft to take off.

Regarding the number of carrier-based aircraft, a 60,000-ton aircraft carrier could only park fifty or sixty fighter jets, of which more than half of the combat aircraft accounted for more than half, and the rest included early warning aircraft, electronic warfare aircraft, anti-submarine helicopters and anti-submarine patrol aircraft. The propeller aircraft of this era were relatively light, and a 20,000-ton aircraft carrier could park more than sixty aircraft, most of which were torpedo aircraft and dive bombers, and a small number of anti-submarine aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft.

At this time, the aircraft was small in size and light in weight, but the ammunition load was definitely not good. During World War I, carrier-based aircraft could only carry artillery shells and torpedoes. If it was a large-caliber torpedo, it would generally only carry one torpedo, and its combat power was very limited. Later jet carrier-based aircraft could carry more torpedoes and missiles to sail, and the weight of the artillery shells was several times larger. However, compared with the land-air fighter jets, of course, the ammunition load was much smaller and the combat radius was nearly half smaller.

The manufacturing process of carrier-based aircraft is very different from that of the land aviation fighter. First of all, there are more light composite materials used to achieve the purpose of light volume. In addition, carrier-based aircraft are generally designed with folding wings, and the wings of the aircraft can be folded, thereby saving deck space. There is also a tail hook at the tail. When landing, you can put down the hook to quickly reduce the taxiing speed, so that the aircraft stops within about fifty meters of taxiing.

If the blocking cable fails to block the plane, there will be a blocking net to stop the plane so that it will not fall into the sea.

The quality of aircraft carrier-based pilots is also higher than that of land pilots, and their training intensity is several times higher, because the sea surface is complex, and sometimes there will be wind, waves, heavy fog and other weather, and the take-off and landing of the aircraft will be greatly affected.

Especially at night, only about 60% of the pilots who are capable of landing at night are capable of landing at night, because night landing requires high technical level, flight talent, and psychological quality of pilots. Some pilots will never learn to land on the aircraft carrier deck at night in their entire lives, so the night combat effectiveness of the aircraft carrier will be greatly reduced.

The aircraft carriers of this era are not even more likely to take off and land at night because the navigation equipment is more backward. It is difficult to judge the location of various components of the flight deck with the naked eye and rely on the indicator lights on the deck. The feeling of visualization at night is very different from that during the day, and it is easy for pilots to make mistakes and cause accidents.

The same is true for battleships. The ability to aim at night is poor, and artillery cannot effectively aim at the target. At this time, naval battles are usually carried out during the day. Everyone of warships at night is poor, not to mention the ability of aircraft, it is difficult to find the target when flying up, and it is impossible to aim and drop bombs.

While speaking, Li Guoqiang and Bai Yanjun, accompanied by several soldiers and subordinate officers, had already arrived near the aircraft carrier. The huge body more than 200 meters long was approaching. When they looked closer, they were indeed extremely huge. It was no exaggeration to call it a giant.

Although the waves kept beating against the waveproof wall on the shore, making loud bangs, the aircraft carrier did not move at all, as stable as a piece of land.

"This guy is really big. It's not too much to stand in the distance. When I got to the front, I saw that he was as big as a football field." Li Guoqiang walked under the side of the ship excitedly, looked up at the deck of the aircraft carrier and said.

"Go up and take a look. The feeling of standing on an aircraft carrier is no different from that on land. It is much more stable than an ordinary ship." Bai Yanjun responded with a smile.

"Hello General." Seeing Li Guoqiang and Bai Yanjun coming, a soldier guarding the ladder of the aircraft carrier boarding ship immediately stood attentively and saluted.

Several people replied with a greeting, and then began to walk up the iron ladder. When they reached the top of the deck, a sense of emptiness and atmosphere arose.

According to statistics, if a pilot of a carrier-based aircraft aircraft occurs when landing, in 70% of the cases, they will subconsciously turn the aircraft to the left, so the aircraft carrier bridge and superstructure are designed on the right hand side. Only when the first generation of aircraft carriers were born, some countries also design superstructure to the left.

Of course, the superstructure of Shenzhou is also designed on the right hand side. There are some partitions on the deck, with white dividing lines on the runway. The white is more eye-catching on the sea surface and is used as a reminder. Of course, there are also red and yellow on the deck.

The total length of the USS Shenzhou aircraft carrier is 238 meters, with a hull of 30 meters wide, a flight deck of 59 meters wide, with a standard displacement of 23,000 tons and a full load displacement of 28,000 tons. At this time, it is a large aircraft carrier, which is larger than the tonnage of ordinary battleships, but it is also smaller than the tonnage of large-tonnage battleships, and much smaller than the third-generation and fourth-generation aircraft carriers. After World War II, the tonnage of aircraft carriers is generally more than 30,000 tons, and those below the 30,000 tons can only be called small aircraft carriers. The large Nimitz-class aircraft carriers in the United States are all around 100,000 tons.

Although the aircraft carrier was small at this time, due to the small size and light weight of the aircraft carrier, the number of aircraft carriers could carry 50, which was equivalent to the carrying capacity of a 60,000-ton aircraft carrier in later generations.

Based on the historical experience left over from the two world wars, the carrier-based aircraft on the Shenzhou will be mainly equipped with dive bombers, which can perform sea and ground bombing missions, and strike enemy surface ships and land targets.

At this time, the aircraft's aiming ability was very limited. There were no advanced precisely guided bombs and missiles. Most of the time, they had to rely on the pilot's visual inspection and experience accumulation. Therefore, at this time, the aircraft bombing targets needed to dive from the air to the ground at high speed, and bomb bombing at a relatively close distance to the ground to be more accurate. The bombing hit rate at a high altitude was too low, so the dive bomber became the most popular bomber during World War II, and made great contributions. All countries produced tens of thousands of dive bombers.

After World War II, with the emergence of precisely guided weapons and the increase in the hit rate of high-altitude bombs, dive bombers have gradually withdrawn from the stage of history. There is no distinction between so-called horizontal bombers and dive bombers, and only one horizontal bomber is left.

In addition to dive bombers, the rest of the aircraft have fighters escorted for bombers. Fighters mainly fight in air and usually do not perform bombing tasks, but can also carry a small number of bombing targets. Dive bombers generally only perform bombing tasks, with weak air combat capabilities and must be escorted by fighters; the remaining aircraft are reconnaissance aircraft, helicopters, and anti-submarine aircraft.

Reconnaissance aircraft are generally modified from fighter jets, leaving most of the space to load electronic and photography and communication equipment for reconnaissance, and combat capabilities are also very weak, but reconnaissance aircraft with high altitude, high-speed performance and advanced radar usually can detect enemy aircraft in advance and escape smoothly.

The anti-submarine mission on the Shenzhou is performed by an anti-submarine helicopter, which can carry one or two torpedoes or several deep-water bombs to strike the submarine.

There were no large air early warning aircraft during this period, and early warning missions were completed by reconnaissance aircraft.

The Shenzhou aircraft carrier initially carried 30 H-2 dive bombers, fifteen J-2 fighters, two anti-submarine Z-2 helicopters, two z-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, and one Z-2 rescue helicopter.

The model is set to distinguish it from the Army Air Force fighter jets. The first bomber of the Air Force is called the Hong-1 and the first fighter jet is called the J-1. At present, the main models of Zhenguo Army aircraft have appeared in these types: Hong-1, H-2, J-1, J-2, Z-1, Z-1, Z-1, Z-2.

Zhiyi is an armed helicopter of the Army Aviation Corps, and Zhiyi is a naval helicopter. The title is simple to design, for the convenience of memory and leave room for name recognition for future development.

In contrast, at this time, the navies of various countries around the world still play the leading role in battleships. The biggest advantage of battleships is their large tonnage, large armor thickness, and strong protection capabilities. At the same time, they are generally equipped with large caliber naval guns of more than 200 mm, with long range and great power.

When fighter jets have not officially debuted, the navies of various countries have not equipped a large number of ship anti-aircraft guns, so the threat to carrier-based aircraft is relatively small. When the enemy does not have the support of fighter jets, fighter jets can also perform a small number of bombing missions.

The Zhenguo Army had just owned the bomber of the Air Force bomber, which was only two tons, which was much smaller than the bomber load of more than ten tons in later generations. Before the World Air Force developed, choosing the bomber was both cost-effective and practical. Its cost was only 10 million dragon coins, which was very cheap. The J-1 fighter cost was only 5 million dragon coins, and the other two carrier-based aircraft were equivalent.

In the early stages of the development of the Zhenguo Army Air Force and Navy, it was relatively cost-effective to choose these low-cost propeller fighters, and it was also a result of comprehensive consideration of various factors. At this time, there was no need to build more advanced jet aircraft, because the advantages of jet aircraft were nothing more than strong speed and maneuverability, large ammunition capacity, but also expensive and heavy. It occupies a lot of space on the 20,000-ton aircraft carrier and is not practical. It is better to use a lower-level propeller fighter for the time being, because it is already invincible at this time, and there is no need to pursue advancedness anymore.

If it weren't for the limitation of military expenditure, the Zhenguo Army would consider equipping larger and more aircraft carriers. After comprehensive consideration, it felt that the 20,000 tons was more moderate, which met the current financial resources and the need to maintain naval combat advantages.

When Li Guoqiang and Bai Yanjun arrived on the deck, dozens of people were standing around on the deck. Several people came over and said hello a few times. They were all officers and operators at all levels on the aircraft carrier, wearing various colors of clothing, blue, red, yellow, and various colors, and some even wore hats.

Because there are many positions on aircraft carriers, such as the landing guide officer responsible for carrier-based aircraft landing, the takeoff operator responsible for carrier-based aircraft takeoff, and there are dozens of complicated positions such as safety officers, maintenance officers, commissars, elevator operators, etc....
Chapter completed!