Chapter 630: Full-winged Warhawk II
If it is said that the J-5 Sparrowhawk designed by Lilienthal and Daimler can be used as the main force of fighters and light bombers in the future German War I, it will bring some small surprises to the prince. Then the K-4 bomber they brought over made Ruprecht overjoyed!
"Why does this look a bit like the Gotha bomber in history?" The prince came to the giant plane. From the appearance, the fuselage of this plane is 14 meters long and 4.3 meters high. . The width of the wings is 22 meters. In terms of appearance, it is similar to the Gotha aircraft, but if you look at the details, the technology adopted by this aircraft is completely beyond an era.
First of all, from the perspective of the wing, generally early aircraft used a protruding and concave wing. Under current technical conditions, the strength of such a wing will be very low, so a large number of pillars and cables are required to maintain strength. It gives people a rather chaotic feeling. For the first time, the K-4 bomber adopts the straight lower part of the wing and the protruding upper part of the wing shape, which increases the strength of the wing and reduces the weight of the supporting structure. , Which is why this K-4 bomber gives people a simple and lively feeling. At the same time, with some metal structures, the strength of the wing of this aircraft has been greatly improved. In history, this technology was only applied in 1912, and it is not too much to say that it is cross-age.
The most NB thing is that after a little hint from the traverser, Baron Lilintal and others actually came up with slit flaps! This technology can greatly improve the stall elevation angle and the aircraft lift coefficient, which is why the K-4 bomber looks about the same size as the historical Gotha bomber wing, but has a theoretical maximum take-off weight of 4.5 tons. Relatively speaking, the wing area of the K-4 bomber is not too large, but it has a performance that surpasses Gotha. The wing design of excellence is the most critical.
The only thing that made the prince feel a little depressed is that the engine of this aircraft has not yet landed.... Historically, the Gotha bomber used a 260-horsepower engine, and even the bomber's engine did not exceed 200-horsepower on this plane. In other words, although the rack is very good, the engine is still not in place. Of course, if you can get the Eagle-3 375 horsepower engine produced by the British Rollo, then the performance will be even more improved.
But now this aircraft only has a 200-horsepower engine that can make do with it, so with a bomb load of 300KG, the range is only 400 kilometers, and the maximum take-off weight is also limited to about 3800KG. But even so, this is still a bomber beyond the times.
What makes the prince very satisfied is the firepower layout of the new bomber. There is a spherical machine gun tower at the nose of the aircraft. This machine gun tower can be equipped with two 12.7MM machine guns or three 7.92MM machine guns, because the position is at the front. So the shooting range of this machine gun is very good. The bombardier is responsible for controlling the front machine gun and also for dropping bombs.
Behind the bombardier is the pilot who is responsible for flying the plane. At the same time, there are two 7.92MM machine guns on the upper part of the cockpit, which are placed on a circular gun frame to make up for the dead spots of the front and rear machine guns. Behind the wing is a telegrapher and rear-firing machine gun shooter. Two 7.92MM machine guns or one 12.7MM machine gun can be installed on the ring frame. The shooting range of this machine gun is very wide, and it can also perform ground shooting missions when necessary.
The bomb rack of the aircraft is placed slightly behind the fuselage to balance the weight of the nose. In theory, up to 300KG bombs can be mounted in the middle of the belly. The pylons near the body on both sides of the wings can hang a single bomb weighing no more than 150KG. The two outer racks can hang 50KG bombs. In order to improve the accuracy of bombing, this bomber also installed the first-generation low-altitude level bombing scope jointly developed by Bavarian Precision Instruments and Zeiss. It is said to have good performance. It enters from a height of 200 meters and its speed is controlled at about 100 kilometers per hour. Under the circumstances, bombing targets such as warehouses and cargo yards should be pretty good.
At the same time, in order to ensure the shooting effect of the ball machine gun tower, the bombardier is also equipped with a very primitive reflective sight. In principle, it is very large, but in fact, it is said that the experimental effect is not available. Although it is better than visual aiming, it does not seem to be very cost-effective considering the cost.
Generally speaking, even if the bomb power is not considered, this bomber is absolutely worthy of the title of gunboat in the first battle. 3 12.7MM machine guns and 2 7.92MM machine guns, as well as up to 3000 rounds of ammunition, are enough to make this Other aircraft of the era paled in comparison. Although the amount of bombs is not too good in theory, if you consider machine gun armament, the firepower is still amazing, not to mention the use of the first-generation horizontal bombing sighting equipment and very primitive and immature, but theoretically bombing The reflex sight of the sky! Coupled with the non-telecommunication transmitter that may be installed on the plane, at least technically speaking, this aircraft is too powerful!
In short, what needs to be summed up is that the future is bright, but the road is tortuous, especially the engine problem. In history, Germany did not have an engine with 300 horsepower until the end of World War I... And if the engine is not off~www.wuxiaspot.com~ the design of the aircraft is no good. Compared with the J-5 fighter jets that can be mass-produced and can almost be used for customs clearance on the eastern route, the K-4 bomber needs a longer time to complete, so it will not be mass-produced in a short time.
"The engine problem should be resolved as soon as possible. If Germany can't solve it, we can go to the United States, or even the United Kingdom and France to find suitable engine prototypes. We can contact me directly at all costs, funding and personnel issues. I hope that in 6 In a year, our fighter jet engine can be increased to 240 horsepower, while the bomber engine can reach about 400 horsepower." said the prince.
As a veteran industrial power, the British and even the French have considerable accumulation in some new industries. Not to mention the existence of Rolls-Royce until the 21st century. Even in the First World War, the French had more engines than the Germans. Stronger. The prince doesn't mind using some extraordinary means to get things that he can't make out temporarily...
"My request is very simple. I will strive to produce a 250-horsepower bomber engine in two and a half years, and then enter the mass production stage in three years. Of course, pilots should start training as soon as possible, and they can continue to produce several aircraft. Do the training first. If possible, I hope to get a squadron pilot before the end of this year.” Finally, the prince gave a timetable. Three years later, in 1909, it is probably less than three years before the start of the war. In a year's time, the expansion of the aviation force is definitely enough.
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