Siheyuan: I eat melons while doing scientific research

Chapter 1227 Car Engine Flying to the Sky (4k, today Friday 9k)

At this moment, they felt like a monkey eating ginger - it tastes spicy but smells delicious when you throw it away.

Don't want to do it? How is that possible! I've been begging and waiting for this opportunity.

Don't dare to do it? Not really. Comrades still have some courage.

The biggest problem is the fear of delaying things.

Seeing the expressions of his comrades, Gao Zhendong laughed and said, "Don't worry, this new development is absolutely in line with your current situation."

He could probably guess what his comrades were thinking.

With his words, the comrades gained confidence. It was not a blind obedience to authority, but a kind of technical affirmation and endorsement.

"Chief Engineer Gao, what exactly is this new development?"

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, “Long-flight drones and small patrol drones may not be very long at the beginning, but you can move in this direction.”

Comrades, your jaws are about to drop, and you still say it’s not difficult?

"Chief Engineer Gao, a long-flight UAV should be quite large, right? And a long flight time itself represents difficulty."

This was something that could be guessed by intuition without any analysis, but he didn't expect Gao Zhendong to shake his head.

"Did you notice that I mentioned long flight time but didn't make any other flight performance requirements?"

After hearing Gao Zhendong's reminder, Chief Engineer Jian came to his senses a little: "What do you mean, you don't really pursue speed and altitude?"

Gao Zhendong nodded: "Right! That's what I mean. We don't even pursue payload. We only need to be able to complete the necessary tasks. It doesn't need to be too large."

When technical conditions are limited and core indicators are prominent, such trade-offs can indeed be made. However, for Chief Engineer Jian and his colleagues, they can also make such trade-offs. The main reason is that they don't know which indicators to choose. With Gao Zhendong's words, the rest of the things will be easy.

"If that's the case, the entire wing should be like that of the U-2, flat, straight and long! It will have good lift performance and can hold more fuel!" Chief Engineer Jian had seen the U-2 that we shot down and was deeply impressed by its wing.

"It's not fast enough to fly like this, is it?" said a comrade nearby.

Gao Zhendong's easy-going behavior livened up the comrades and created a good atmosphere.

Hearing what the comrade said, Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "No need to hurry. Let me tell you this. This long-flight UAV has only one core purpose, which is to provide campaign-level battlefield surveillance for the comrades in the army. Therefore, it must be remotely controlled. After all, the battlefield situation changes rapidly, and it is definitely impossible to complete the task by program control. However, on the one hand, it is affected by the distance of remote control and image transmission, and on the other hand, it is limited by demand. In fact, a remote control distance of 50 kilometers is almost enough. Or if you work harder, 70 or 100 kilometers is the maximum, which is enough. When we develop equipment, we don’t want to make the indicators too high, but we just want to be enough."

Gao Zhendong then gave an example: "Just like the current long-flight UAV, when doing battlefield surveillance, considering the performance of the current optical system, the speed cannot be too fast."

This time Chief Engineer Jian understood everything.

"Chief Engineer Gao, I understand what you mean. This aircraft does not need to be controlled from a very long distance, but it needs to stay in the air long enough. It does not need to be fast or too high. It should also be cheap. After all, there are many kinds of anti-aircraft weapons on the battlefield, and the loss rate of this aircraft may be relatively high. With just this flight performance, it basically has no defense against anti-aircraft weapons."

As he spoke here, the door rang, and a comrade from internal security and two comrades from the army stood at the door.

"Chief Engineer Gao, these two comrades are here to see you. Please invite them over as soon as they arrive," said the internal security comrade.

Gao Zhendong stood up and welcomed the comrades from the army in. He said to Chief Engineer Jian and the others, "Come on, let's meet each other. This is the first user of the long-flight UAV you are going to develop, a comrade from the Land Equipment Bureau."

Land Equipment Bureau? Not the Air Force… Chief Engineer Jian had just thought of this when he suddenly realized that this thing was prepared for the Army's campaign level. There was nothing wrong with it.

The comrades greeted me warmly and sat down.

Gao Zhendong nodded: "Yes, you are right, so you have to consider the flight altitude of this aircraft and the performance of the optical system. It must be able to hide outside the enemy's field air defense range and complete the battlefield monitoring mission. Well... we should be more generous with the enemy. The mission altitude is 4500 meters. The optical system must be able to complete tasks including battlefield monitoring and artillery calibration at an altitude of 4000 meters and a distance of no less than 7 kilometers."

When the comrades from the Land Equipment Bureau arrived, they heard that Gao Zhendong had planned such a big job. After thinking about the parameters Gao Zhendong had mentioned, they nodded repeatedly, thinking what a good thing!
"Yes, Comrade Zhendong is right. This height and distance are already the maximum effective range and altitude of the 76mm anti-aircraft gun. Even with portable anti-aircraft missiles, they will not pose a threat to the drone."

In fact, even the 76mm gun can be used for field air defense. The range of the 76mm gun is only 5 to 7 kilometers, and the maximum effective altitude is 4 to 6 kilometers. Moreover, the maximum altitude cannot be reached at the maximum range.

And portable air defense missiles cannot reach this distance. No matter which one, including our own, portable air defense missiles cannot reach this far.

If I have to say, it is the missile part of the combined missile and artillery field air defense system that we are developing that can reach it. The threat posed by other field air defense systems to this aircraft is very small. As for the fighter jets in the air, no matter how far or how high, they will not be of any use, so there is no need to consider the issue of fighter jets too much.

After the comrade from the Land Construction Bureau finished speaking, he turned to look at Gao Zhendong and said, "Comrade Zhendong, can we go a little further and higher?"

The old problem came back. Gao Zhendong laughed and said, "No, this optical system is the mission payload. It is enough for now. It will not be too late to change it when there is definite evidence that the enemy has a field air defense that can threaten this aircraft. I think it is still too early. It doesn't matter if we save a little now. As long as the optical system is replaced, the distance and altitude can be increased at any time. As for the flight performance of the aircraft itself, we can set an effective ceiling of 6000 meters, so there is enough margin."

Chief Engineer Jian thought about it and nodded: "Well, if we adopt the solution of straight long wings, this parameter is not difficult to achieve. But we are now short of a suitable small turbojet. Is the small turbojet imitated by Qianhangfa used for this?" Gao Zhendong shook his head: "Why do you want a turbojet? The cheaper the better. You don't need to make it so big. You can choose a car piston engine, such as the 463 2.0-liter L4 piston gasoline engine, which can be used after some modification. Hang it on the butt of the plane and push it, there will be absolutely no problem. If the plane is smaller, the Beijing Automobile Factory has even improved the 363 L3 gasoline engine, which can also be used."

The piston engine of our first-generation reconnaissance and strike drone has a horsepower of only 100, but at least 463 has 120.

That's it? Even the comrades from the Land Equipment Bureau couldn't stand it anymore. Isn't this thing a bit too much? The whole engine is installed on the car. It's really cheap, but it's a bit awkward.

Seeing their expressions, Gao Zhendong laughed: "As long as it works, it's fine. For this drone, what's important and novel is the way it's used, not what specific new technology is used. Even if the technology on it is all mature and old, as long as it can complete real-time battlefield monitoring and artillery calibration, it's a good thing! In fact, mature and old technology can greatly speed up the formation of this aircraft. Let's use it first, don't you think?"

Gao Zhendong's last question was directed to the comrades from the Land Equipment Bureau.

The two men from the Land Equipment Bureau thought about it and realized that this was indeed the truth! Having eyes in the sky and not having eyes in the sky were two completely different things in terms of combat.

Thinking of this, a comrade from the Land Equipment Bureau said, "Comrade Zhendong, there is a problem, that is, we may not have a field airport to use..."

Gao Zhendong said: "You don't have to use a field airport for takeoff and landing. You can get a 6-8 meter long plane with manually folded wings. If you think the wings are too wide, you can fold them a few more times. At most, you can make the connecting hinges and fixing screws thicker. Anyway, this thing is manually folded and there is no need for high speed. You can do it in any convenient way. Finally, put it on a universal crawler chassis, take off with rocket boost, and recover with parachute, and you're done."

The 5DL tank has a hull length of 6 meters and a gun barrel length of 9 meters, making it equally flexible and maneuverable.

Gao Zhendong's plan sounded like a makeshift one, but it did not sound that way to the comrades at the Land Equipment Bureau and Qianfei Factory.

This means taking full account of the battlefield environment, aligning user needs, utilizing existing conditions, and building feasible solutions, achieving a good balance in major demands such as combat empowerment, cost expenditure, ease of use, and ease of maintenance.

The comrade from the Land Equipment Bureau nodded and said, "Very good! Let's do it! Equipping a division with more than 5 aircraft is enough for a campaign, and they can be recovered and repaired and used again very quickly."

For the comrades at Qianfei Factory, this was the overall plan, and as they discussed it, it became clear enough.

"Understood, Chief Engineer Gao." Chief Engineer Jian and his comrades quickly recorded the information in their notebooks.

"Also, you can use something similar to the S2, like the P-38 Lightning fighter of the Citigroup, with twin tail struts, twin vertical tails, and the propeller in the middle of the twin tail struts. This way, the height and area of ​​the vertical tail can be made smaller, making it easier to maneuver on board."

Most people may not be too familiar with the P-38, but there are actually two very familiar things related to it, but most people don’t know that these two things are related to the P-38.

One of them is the Type 38 of the Japanese army. This thing was shot down by a P- and died.

The other one is the F-35 Lightning II, the "II" in its name means the second generation, and the first generation of Lightning is the P-2. As for some people saying that it is also related to the John Bull's ugly but good-performance "Lightning", Gao Zhendong thinks that John Bull is just flattering himself.

But the comrades were familiar with the P-38. However, after Gao Zhendong finished speaking, he was afraid that it was not safe for the comrades to copy the entire P-38, because the tail support of that product was very thick and it was unnecessary here. Gao Zhendong still drew a structure similar to the later ASN-206 on the blackboard, but the size was larger than the ASN-206.

"That's about it. You can work in this direction and there will be no problem. Even if there are some aerodynamic problems, a wind tunnel can solve the problem. This plane can't fly fast, and there are more than one wind tunnel in China that meets its speed requirements. As for the optical system, you can ask the Dongguang Institute. An optical system of this level can be easily built by them, even if the size is required to be small."

The Dongguan Institute has even developed the optical system on the satellite. The observation distance is less than 10 kilometers, so there is no problem at all. Maybe the Dongguan Institute can develop it by looking through old drawings. After all, there are similar systems on the Tu-4S and Be-6.

"As for image transmission and remote control, we will organize the comrades who are engaged in TV-guided bombs to improve their TV guidance systems. It won't be a big problem." TV-guided bombs have a remote control and image transmission range of 60 kilometers, and they also need to control the bombs, but the image transmission frame rate is slightly lower. It is not difficult to improve this, after all, it is not necessary to have 25fps for remote control.

Upon hearing that almost all the important subsystems were available, the comrades at Qianfei Factory were overjoyed.

"Comrade Zhendong, thermal imager! Thermal imager!" The comrades from the Land Equipment Bureau could no longer sit still. They had tasted the benefits of the thermal imager. At night and under some special weather conditions, it was almost one-way transparent.

Gao Zhendong smiled: "Yes, yes, you must integrate the thermal imager into the aircraft. Even if the aircraft may become larger and longer, it cannot be without it." The entire thermal imager will not make the aircraft much larger or longer, especially when the optical system is properly designed.

The comrades from the Luzhuang Bureau nodded repeatedly. Comrade Zhendong is indeed one of our Lu's own people. His considerations are very thoughtful and his requests are considerate.

"Comrade Zhendong, can we hang some bombs on it or something?" The army comrade couldn't help but ask.

Gao Zhendong shook his head. "It's troublesome to hang these things on a vehicle-mounted launcher. We will be in a dilemma of adding water when there is too much flour, and adding flour when there is too much water. I suggest that we consider this after we have a drone that can take off and land on a runway. With the remote control distance of this drone, it's better to call for artillery fire directly from the rear than to hang these things."

"Artillery fire from the rear? Can it reach so far?" They knew that this plane could fly 50 kilometers, or even 70 or 100 kilometers. If it was at the extreme distance, where would the artillery fire be so far away?

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "Have you forgotten the 270 fire you are working on?" The 270 fire is somewhat difficult, and the production supporting facilities also need to be studied. It has not been fully completed yet, but the progress is still smooth.

The comrade from the Land Equipment Bureau slapped his head and said, "Right, right, right! Look at my memory!"

Although it has not been finalized yet, according to the current progress, the range of the 270mm missile should be at least 50 kilometers.

Although the problem has been solved, it is well known that the disease that the army suffered back then cannot be cured.

(End of this chapter)