Development of productivity started in 1981

Chapter 144 Stratospheric Airship Manufacturing

Led by his uncle Cen Yong, Wang Jiankun inspected the base under construction.

At this time, the roadbeds of several main roads have been completed, and they have been backfilled with pebbles and sand next to the base.

Because the cement production here is still limited, the road surface has not yet been hardened, and we are also waiting for the natural settlement of the roadbed to be completed.

However, there is no problem driving the American Hummer off-road vehicle made by Wang Jiankun on this kind of road.

"Jiankun, this is the airport area. Currently, there is only a simple single-story building. The construction of the airport can only begin after you finish the foundation below."

"Okay, tell the staff on duty here to go off duty now. I'll go and use my super powers to transform the foundation, and then you can arrange for people to start repairing the runway first."

"Soldier, an important activity is going to take place here. Take everyone inside away from here now and stand by at the gate of the base."

"Yes, Chief Cen."

After his uncle Cen Yong asked the guards on duty to evacuate, Wang Jiankun began to drive the Hummer at a low speed on the airport runway. At the same time, he used his superpowers to transform the soil layer 2 meters underground into solid granite.

The area above 2 meters to about 1 meter will be transformed into a mixed structure of sand and gravel. These sand and gravel can be dug out and processed before backfilling during construction.

Wang Jiankun did not move the part within 1 meter. This part was used as a cover. When ordinary construction workers come to build the airport, they will mainly deal with the part within 2 meters, which will greatly reduce the workload.

The entire runway was designed to be 3 meters long. Wang Jiankun saw that he still had enough superpowers to use, so he continued forward and did not stop until he had processed 5 kilometers.

The reason why it took so long to process is mainly because the location was chosen with solid rock underground, so it can be completed in one go.

"Uncle, let's go. The foundation under the runway has been prepared. Just follow my construction drawings when the time comes."

"It's all right now. It's only been less than half an hour."

"Yes, the total amount to be processed is not much, and the place we chose at that time was not too deep underground, which is the location of bedrock."

"Okay, if it's done, I'll have the construction team come here tomorrow to build the runway. By the way, Jiankun, why are you in such a hurry for the runway?"

"I plan to build an airship first to solve our transportation bottleneck."

"Airship? The Zeppelin airship that Germany built during World War II? It's not very practical. It's easy to catch fire. It's very large, slow, and can only transport a small amount of cargo."

"The principle is the same, but the shape and materials used will be completely different."

"Oh? Can you tell me more about it?"

"Come to this temporary building. I'll show you the renderings and overall structural diagram."

Arriving at the temporary building next to the airport, Wang Jiankun mobilized the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen elements from the grass and trees outside to create the drawings that Zhizi helped design.

"Look, uncle, this airship has a three-dimensional delta wing shape at low altitude. The skeleton structure is made of high-strength titanium alloy, and the airbag is made of graphene-coated polymer material."

"Isn't this size wrong? You said you want to fly to the top of the stratosphere, but this airbag volume can't support flying that high, right?"

"That's right, uncle. Look, aren't there external structures on the outside of these skeletons? These are the retractable air bags."

"Why is it designed like this? Wouldn't it be better to have fixed airbags?"

"Of course, this is to take into account low-altitude stability and adapt to relatively bad weather. At low altitudes, the external sub-airbags will all shrink, and the lost part of the buoyancy will be provided by these four fans. In this way, the airship can be relatively stable at low altitudes. Because of its streamlined shape, it can maintain a certain stability in strong winds, which is conducive to taking off and landing at sea."

"When the airship reaches a high altitude and approaches the stratosphere, these retractable airbags will be inflated, and the volume of the entire airship will slowly expand to three times its original size, which will support the airship to fly to the top of the stratosphere 3 kilometers above the ground."

"Is that so? In other words, in the troposphere, these airbags will not be inflated, and the airship can take off and land in relatively bad weather, and then after rising to the stratosphere, the airbags will be deployed and then fly at an altitude of 50 kilometers?"

"That's right, little uncle, you understand it correctly. The large airbags of ordinary airships are of fixed size and have a teardrop-shaped structure. This structure can only be used in light winds. It cannot take off or land in strong winds."

This design that can expand and grow was developed after Wang Jiankun gave the requirement to Zhizi, and Zhizi used its super computing power to simulate for half a day.

The shrinkable airbag materials are also very unusual. They are very light and thin, can withstand very high pressure and very large temperature differences, and are integrated with a layer of solar power generation film.

This allows the airship to have 6 square meters of solar power generation area when at high altitude, which can continuously charge the airship during the day, and the energy storage system can be charged approximately 3 degrees per hour. If there is no take-off and landing operation and it is only flying level, the airship can remain at high altitude without landing.

Its flying speed at high altitude is also quite impressive. Driven by two 2-megawatt superconducting fans, it can reach a speed of 1 kilometers per hour.

The pod underneath has a designed load capacity of 6 tons and can hold 20 large containers.

The cargo version of the pod can operate by hovering in the air. For example, when loading and unloading cargo at sea, the pod can hover above the ship or dock, and the containers can be lifted up and down with slings.

Wang Jiankun designed this specifically for the transshipment of goods on offshore platforms. At that time, the goods purchased from Hong Kong will be shipped to the offshore platform, and then transported to the confidential warehouse of Nanjiezhen by this cargo version of the stratospheric airship.

In addition to the cargo version, there are of course several other versions, such as the high-altitude test platform version, which is used for testing laser weapons, electromagnetic guns, etc.

Pseudo-satellite version, the airship will carry communication equipment, and the communication base station on the ground can transmit the signal to the base station hundreds of kilometers away through the equipment on the airship. The airship flying at an altitude of 50 kilometers is equivalent to a satellite and can forward the signal of the ground base station.

At present, Wang Jiankun and Nan Jiezhen do not have the ability to launch and maintain communication satellites, so they plan to use this airship as a substitute.

By then, dozens of airships will be dropped over the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean over some countries that have no air defense capabilities. These airships will form an air communication network, and all members of the organizations under this network can enjoy convenient communication services.

This will make it easier to command branch bases in Africa and South America and their personnel. Unlike now, the people my uncle sends to the African base can only communicate using shortwave radios, and the communication restrictions are particularly severe. Because shortwave radios require very long and large antennas, they can only be used in some fixed places, which is very inconvenient for personnel who are going out on missions.

Moreover, the communication equipment carried by the airship is also an experimental version of future satellite communications. When the time is ripe in the future, the communication system with multiple iterations can be installed on the satellite, thus surpassing the communication capabilities of the United States and the Soviet Union.

"Jiankun, your idea is great. Do you plan to build an airship for testing first?"

"Yes, uncle, please help me purchase the materials according to this list. I will go to the Bay of Bengal to collect uranium tomorrow. The round trip and collection time will take about 5 days, which is just the right time for you to collect the materials."

"Okay, I'll arrange it right away. The titanium element is the only one that's a bit troublesome, but luckily you only need ore that's rich in titanium. Otherwise, it would be a lot of trouble to buy smelted titanium."

Wang Jiankun also knew that the element titanium was not something that could be smelted by ordinary smelters. Currently, it seemed that only the top few major countries had the ability to smelt and purify titanium metal. Moreover, due to the complex process and high requirements for equipment, the price of titanium steel is currently very expensive.

"Titanium ore can be purchased as a common raw material for us. There is a lot of titanium ore in India, Sri Lanka and Australia. We can purchase it nearby. South Africa, which is a little further away, also has a lot of titanium ore."

"Okay, I'll have someone purchase some and ship it over quickly, and then continue to purchase."

In fact, the content of titanium in the earth's crust is quite high, with an average content of 4400 grams per ton. Wang Jiankun has collected and stored several tons of it at his base in his hometown.

If the ore purchased by his uncle has not arrived by then, Wang Jiankun plans to use his superpowers to collect it underground in the base, although this will cost him a lot of energy.

That night, Wang Jiankun asked his uncle to take the guards out to arrange the follow-up work, while he stayed at the base to collect elements to manufacture the Y-1 transport aircraft.

The next morning, after notifying several radar stations on the confidential channel, he flew a Y-1 transport plane from the base to the Bay of Bengal.

He flew at the highest speed all the way and it took him more than three hours to reach the Bay of Bengal, more than 3 kilometers off the coast of Myanmar, far away from the shipping route.

Then, after observing for a few times to make sure there were no ships below, he circled and landed on the sea surface. To save trouble, he simply modified the appearance of the plane, and then began to collect uranium in the cockpit.

Since there was no need to worry about fuel, he collected uranium while using exhaust gas to synthesize aviation kerosene, allowing the aircraft to maintain a high speed of 30 knots.

Every two hours, he would stop to rest for 2 minutes to relax, and then continue to repeat the work.

At night he would stop the plane and sleep in the cabin for about 6 hours. Fortunately, there was no strong wind at sea during the days he chose, so although it was a little shaking, there was no discomfort when resting on the floating bed made with super powers.

After waking up, he continued collecting for 50 hours in the Bay of Bengal, collecting a total of 4 kilograms of uranium. The uranium 235 extracted from these uranium elements will be able to generate 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.

"Uncle, I'm back. Are the materials ready?"

"Only titanium ore is on the way. It will arrive at the base tomorrow morning. So, do you want to use it today?" "It's fine if it arrives tomorrow. I will refine the uranium and start the nuclear reactor today, and then build a small charging base. All graphene batteries used in electric devices in the future can be charged here."

"Okay, I'm outside the base, come in now."

"Uncle, wait outside the base for three hours before entering. I will refine the uranium first, and then come in after I successfully start it."

"Why, is it dangerous?"

"It's better to be safe than sorry. I have my own protective clothing made with my super powers. There is a chance of radioactive material leaking during the refining process. If it leaks, I will use my super powers to clean it up, but you may be in danger."

"Okay, then take care of yourself."

Letting my uncle wait outside was indeed to prevent any unexpected events. After all, all his energy was focused on controlling the uranium element during purification, and he might not be able to take care of my uncle.

In less than 3 hours, Wang Jiankun refined 4 kilograms of uranium, made it into small ceramic balls of nuclear fuel with an enrichment of about 3%, and sealed them in radiation-proof containers.

After the fuel ball is made, the next step is to start the nuclear reactor. Since it has been started many times at the Wuyuan base, the process is very sophisticated. In less than half an hour, the reactor successfully generated electricity.

Keeping it running at low power first, he then began to build a charging base on the ground.

Because it was inside the base, Wang Jiankun used a large amount of CD318 materials, and all the wires were superconducting, and transformers, fan motors, etc. were also used.

When the charging station was being built, my uncle had already driven over with two guards.

"Jiankun, is it started? How is it going?"

"It's started, running at really low power. Once I finish building this charging station, I'll take you down to have a look."

"Okay, why are there only 4 charging ports?"

"Four are enough. There is still space left next to it. When there are more power-consuming devices, we can add more. Now we will make a group. Four charging ports are just right for a nuclear power plant."

Because the 300-megawatt nuclear power plant has not been tested yet, Wang Jiankun has to wait until some of the basic construction at the base is almost completed before proceeding. He will first build a 3-megawatt nuclear reactor and then increase the number after qualified trained personnel arrive.

The finishing work was completed quickly. After letting my uncle wait for a while, he took him to the underground nuclear reactor to watch.

"Is there a nuclear reaction going on in here? Why is it so quiet?" My uncle said as he looked at the nuclear reactor with a flashing green indicator light indicating safety.

"Because the steam turbine and the engine are made of superconducting materials, the internal friction disappears, and the gas vibration is also absorbed by the sound-absorbing material, so you can't hear any sound."

"Is that so? Your integration is too good. We can't see anything from the outside. Let's go out!" My uncle didn't have the superpower of perspective. He felt that looking at this big box was meaningless. He also couldn't understand some of the data on the LCD panel.

After arriving on the ground, Wang Jiankun moved four graphene batteries, connected them to the charging port and pressed the charging button. The indicator light came on, and the electricity generated by the underground nuclear reactor was continuously transmitted to the graphene batteries.

Seeing that the charging had been successful, Wang Jiankun began to control the underground nuclear reactor to increase its power. Half an hour later, the reactor began to operate at full power, capable of generating 2850 kilowatt-hours of electricity per hour, all of which would be charged into the battery with almost no loss.

"Jiankun, it takes 4 hours to fully charge four batteries at the same time, which is only enough to power the four devices we built a few days ago for one day. What should we do if we need to use a large number of electric construction machinery in the future?"

"Don't worry, this one nuclear reactor is not enough. I will build a few more. You should quickly find a few reliable people to be responsible for charging and guarding the nuclear power plant. I will build five reactors in the next few days."

"Build 10 more? Well, that would generate 75 kWh of electricity per day, enough to power 70 large electric engineering equipment."

After some mental calculation, my uncle agreed to Wang Jiankun's arrangement.

"Isn't the copper mine still under preparation for large-scale mining? I'm building reactors and engineering equipment one after another, so I can keep up with the progress."

In the next five days, Wang Jiankun built reactors, graphene batteries and electric engineering equipment while conducting personnel training.

There are both reactor duty personnel and personnel responsible for charging the graphene batteries.

Because it is all a fool-proof operation, as long as you can strictly follow the operating procedures, you don't need a high level of education, as long as you have graduated from primary school and can recognize words, the most important thing is to be loyal and reliable.

After completing the training, Wang Jiankun came to the temporary airship base. The airship take-off and landing do not have particularly high requirements for the site, and the test phase does not require a large area. Currently, there is only a single-story building and a 2-square-meter hardened ground.

The materials that had been waiting for a long time were placed in the small building, waiting for Wang Jiankun to assemble them into an airship.

The previous manufacture of reactors and charging stations was also preliminary preparation for the airship, because the airship is fully electrically propelled and uses universal graphene batteries with a capacity of up to 1 kWh.

This first experimental model was going to require 20 pieces to be installed, so he waited several days before building the airship.

The manufacturing process was very short. The drawings had been checked many times. Wang Jiankun began to use his superpowers to manufacture according to the construction sequence listed by Zhizi.

First is the main frame of the airship, the main material is titanium, which is mixed with some iron, copper and other metals.

After the frame is manufactured, the next step is to install the internal cables, detectors, flushing and exhaust devices, 4 large fans, etc.

After completing these, Wang Jiankun mobilized elements such as carbon, hydrogen and oxygen from the surrounding grass and trees to make air bags.

Because of the use of graphene, the entire airship looks like a triangular translucent bubble that is 160 meters long and 80 meters wide at its widest point.

At this time, because the helium cylinders have not been installed and inflated, the airship is lying flat on the ground and the pod below has not yet been manufactured.

"Uncle, come, push these helium cylinders and graphene batteries into the airship."

"Okay, let's compete to see who can move more."

The two men competed in strength, and in the end the uncle won. Without the assistance of his superpowers, Wang Jiankun was really no match for his uncle in terms of physical strength.

After the helium cylinder and battery were installed in place, Wang Jiankun turned on the power for a test, and then controlled the filling of some airbags with helium.

When helium enters the airbag, the airship slowly begins to float. Because there is a cable tied underneath, there is no need to worry about being blown away.

After the airship was more than 30 meters off the ground, Wang Jiankun began to manufacture the lower pod while controlling the amount of helium filled into the airbag.

"It's really spectacular! It's even bigger than Boeing's 737. Is it really easy to control such a large aircraft?" asked my uncle as he looked at the airship floating in the air.

"According to the design, in case of a force 3 wind, this airship can hover relatively stably above the target. It is now fixed with cables because the fan has not been turned on yet. After I finish the test, I will take you up for a test flight?"

"Okay, I really don't understand how you control such a big airship. I have to prepare a parachute to carry on my back." My uncle said with a smile.

"It's not dangerous. It's 10 a.m. now. Let's fly to 2 meters and take a look before coming down."

So Wang Jiankun notified several nearby radar stations to get ready and collect data from the airship when he launched it.

Then, with the help of two guards, the two climbed up the ladder and came to the sealed cockpit.

Buzz, hum..., four consecutive sounds of the fan starting up were heard.

Uncle, get ready, fasten your seat belts, we're about to take off.

"Untie the cables, the airship has started smoothly." Wang Jiankun notified the two guards below to untie the cables.

"receive."

After confirming that the cable was untied, Wang Jiankun pulled the joystick towards his arms with one hand like flying a plane, and flipped a few switches with the other hand.

Driven by the super fan, the airship began to rise rapidly like a triangular dart.

(End of this chapter)