Chapter 273 Big Belly No. 1
The performance of the third-generation military aircraft has been greatly improved, and its cost has also increased.
The cost of the Eagle-3 reconnaissance aircraft has reached 27,425 Australian dollars, and the cost of the Wild Tiger-3 fighter has reached 29,105 Australian dollars. The most expensive is the Ghost-3 bomber, which has reached 32,725 Australian dollars.
Arthur's plan to build 500 military aircraft includes 150 reconnaissance aircraft, 100 fighters and 250 bombers, with a total cost of 15.25 million Australian dollars, which is not a small number.
Even this is only a few million Australian dollars less than Australasia's military expenditure last year, which is enough to show that the current aircraft is expensive.
However, compared with these expenses, the role that these 500 aircraft can play is far greater than the cost.
After all the aircraft are equipped and combat effectiveness is formed, the combat capabilities of the Australasia Navy and Army in the near sea and within a certain range will be improved.
The reason is that Australasia has mastered a complete air superiority.
Imagine if a country's navy and army were fighting with the army of Australasia, and suddenly hundreds of bombers appeared in the sky to carry out bombing, who could stop them?
This is not only a huge and unprecedented threat to the army, but also a huge threat to the warships within the bombing range of the aircraft.
At present, all kinds of warships have not mastered air defense weapons. If these 250 bombers are dispatched, they can at least blow up several dreadnoughts, not to mention anything else.
If the aircraft that have been equipped before are added, after this aircraft order is completed, the number of military aircraft equipped in Australasia will reach 560, far exceeding the total number of military aircraft equipped by other countries in the world.
Of course, it is hard to say whether other countries have military aircraft at present. Arthur also felt the feeling of Australasia's loneliness and invincibility for the first time in some aspects.
However, although it has been a big step ahead of other countries in terms of military aircraft, Arthur has not yet made the idea of making the air force completely public.
The last war with Portugal has brought airships into the eyes of countries around the world. After the war, many countries began to invest in the research and development of airships and achieved considerable results.
Although there were cases of research and development failure, how could the research and development of weapons be successful? Other countries had no doubts about the practicality of airships.
As far as Arthur knew, Britain and Germany had already invested a lot in airships, at least millions of pounds.
Of course, the achievements were also very good, catching up with or even surpassing the achievements of Australasian airships, and they were still in continuous research and development and experimentation.
The success of these two countries also convinced some powers and sub-powers with weaker research and development capabilities.
After all, the two most powerful countries were constantly researching airships and achieved considerable results. What reason did they have to doubt airships?
So far, the number of airships equipped in Europe has exceeded one thousand. It can be said that this is a temporary heyday of airships.
If there is no accident, Arthur believes that the most glorious moment of airships in history will be staged in Europe more than ten years in advance. After all, the attention and full research and development of a top power is not a joke.
It is precisely because of the importance that countries around the world attach to airships that various airship companies and factories have been born.
Although a specific commercial system has not yet been formed, Arthur feels that airships will soon become a major means of transportation in Europe, and then will be popular all over the world from Europe.
Although airships do have good transportation capabilities, some places in Australasia are also using airships for transportation.
However, Arthur is more looking forward to airplanes for air transportation.
Yes, after Arthur asked the aviation laboratory to develop a passenger aircraft last time, after four years of research and development, the first passenger-carrying aircraft was finally born.
Of course, if it is just for passengers, the second-generation reconnaissance aircraft is already one. However, this kind of aircraft that can only carry two people cannot be used for commercial purposes. How much does the plane ticket cost for a special trip for one person?
The first manned aircraft developed by the Aviation Research Laboratory was named SF-1 by Director Theodore.
SF actually means safe. After all, it is a plane with multiple passengers, and the most important thing is to ensure personal safety.
SF-1 can currently carry up to 7 people in addition to the pilot, with a maximum load of 1.5 tons.
Because the seat is in the belly of the aircraft, SF-1 has a big belly, and is even jokingly called Big Belly No. 1 by researchers in the aviation laboratory.
Because SF-1 carries more people and weight, the average flight speed of this manned aircraft is only 170 kilometers per hour, and the maximum flight speed is only 195 kilometers per hour.
This flight speed is far behind military aircraft, but it is enough for manned flight.
After all, neither current trains nor ships can reach the terrifying speed of 170 kilometers per hour.
Take the current passenger trains in Australasia as an example, the average speed is only 70 kilometers per hour, and the maximum speed is only 85 kilometers per hour.
Not to mention ships, the speed is far behind trains, not to mention being comparable to airplanes.
This also means that this manned aircraft can greatly improve the connection between two distant regions and greatly reduce the time to travel to distant regions.
If you take the industrial railway from Western Australia to the capital Sydney, it will take more than two days at the fastest.
But what if you take this passenger plane? According to the average speed of 170 kilometers per hour, it only takes more than ten hours to reach Sydney.
Of course, the current aircraft cannot support such a long voyage. Even the SF-1 equipped with multiple fuel tanks has a maximum range of only 1,100 kilometers.
In fact, according to the size of the SF-1, it is entirely possible to add a few more fuel tanks to increase the maximum range to at least 1,500 kilometers.
But doing so will not be worth the loss. After all, no one can guarantee that there will be no problems with the long-term operation of the aircraft engine.
Even the currently very stable car engine may fail after running for more than ten hours.
Although the possibility of failure has been reduced to a very small frequency, if the car fails on the road, that is, it breaks down and cannot go, once the plane fails in the sky, the mortality rate is 100%.
Therefore, the maximum range of 1,100 kilometers is enough for current aircraft. After all, if the average speed of 170 kilometers per hour is used, it will take nearly seven hours to fly 1,100 kilometers.
After more than seven hours, even if there is no problem with the aircraft engine, it must at least be cooled and repaired before it dares to set sail again.
Anyway, it is not too far from Western Australia to New South Wales. At most, it will transfer once in the middle, which will not waste too much time.
Although passenger aircraft have been born, Arthur does not plan to take it in a short time, at least not within two years.
At least, he will not try it until the passenger aircraft has undergone long-term and high-frequency experiments to determine that the failure rate has been compressed to a very low range.
Of course, even in such a situation, Arthur will be fully prepared.
Arthur is not very satisfied with the current passenger capacity and stability of SF-1. In addition, there is no need to expose the aircraft to the eyes of various countries in advance, so he gave Theodore an order, that is, to continue to develop passenger aircraft, and to increase the aircraft's navigation speed and maximum range as much as possible while ensuring the stability and safety of the aircraft.
As for the number of people on the plane, Arthur did not ask for it in the short term.
After all, even if the plane is put into commercial use quickly now, it is absolutely impossible for ordinary civilians to come into contact with the means of transportation.
Before it is popularized in the lives of ordinary people, even if the plane is put into commercial use, the market will not be too large.
Therefore, a plane with seven people is barely enough, and at most a few more flights will be added.
The successful development of several aircraft made Arthur very pleased, and the rewards for these researchers would naturally not be less.
All experts and researchers in the aviation research room can get at least 5,000 Australian dollars in rewards, plus various materials worth thousands of Australian dollars, which made them smile.
Even ordinary workers in the aviation research room, that is, those ordinary workers, can get at least 500 Australian dollars in rewards and certain materials. The rewards alone may be their salary for several years.
Although the rewards cost millions of Australian dollars, it is just a drop in the bucket for Arthur.
What's more, compared with the more than one million Australian dollars, Arthur cares more about the work attitude of these researchers and the development progress of the aircraft.
After instructing Director Theodore not to neglect the quality of the manufactured aircraft, Arthur left the aviation laboratory with his subordinates and returned to Sydney Palace with satisfaction.
The next task of the aviation laboratory is to manufacture the 500 aircraft, and Arthur does not need to stay in the aviation laboratory to personally supervise the construction of the aircraft.
This kind of thing can be left to his subordinates. For Arthur, apart from the research and development of some advanced weapons and the construction of major national projects, there are not many things that can make Arthur appear in person.
After all, as a king of a country, he still has to have the style he should have. Arthur has earned enough reputation, goodwill and support among the people. What he needs now is to improve the king's authority.
A few days later, Arthur arrived at the Royal Dockyard to inspect the current progress of the Royal Dockyard.
Since the three dreadnoughts were completely completed in October 1909, the Royal Dockyard has been preparing to start the construction of the unified-class battlecruisers.
But after all, the three Monarch-class battleships are in the process of sea trials. In order to be on the safe side, the Royal Dockyard did not start building new warships, but was ready to repair battleships at any time.
After all, any battleship is the result of millions of Australian dollars spent by Australasia to build, and there must be no accidents.
The good news is that there have been no accidents in the sea trials of the three dreadnoughts for more than three months, and the one-year sea trials of the Australasia battleship have basically been completed, and it will soon be officially equipped to the navy.
As for the remaining battleships Australia and New Zealand, if the sea trials are still smooth, I believe they will be officially equipped to the navy in the second half of this year and become the trump card of the Australasia Navy.
By then, Australasia will officially become one of the top ten navies in the world. Even to exaggerate a little, it is not impossible for the top naval forces to enter the level of great powers.
In fact, if the air superiority of aircraft is taken into account, the Australasian navy does have the combat power of the great powers in near-shore operations, but it can only be regarded as the bottom great powers.
If you want to catch up with top powers like Britain and Germany, it is impossible without more than a dozen dreadnoughts.
After all, from the birth of the dreadnought in 1906 to 1914, it was only eight years, and the construction of dreadnoughts by the major powers was already very exaggerated.
The British Empire built the most dreadnoughts, and built 29 dreadnoughts in eight years, ranking first in the world.
The second place is naturally the German Empire, which followed closely behind, and also built 17 dreadnoughts in eight years.
Although the United States was not very strong before World War I, it also built a total of 12 dreadnoughts of six levels.
The construction speed of the United Kingdom is very exaggerated, with an average of 3.6 dreadnoughts built each year, which is a speed that the current shipbuilding industry in Australasia cannot catch up with.
Germany is also very exaggerated, building an average of two dreadnoughts per year.
If we follow the shipbuilding speed of Australasia, we can only build a dozen dreadnoughts at most in eight years at full capacity.
Of course, this does not take into account the construction cost of dreadnoughts and the training time of crew members, and is only a reference to the construction speed of warships.
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