Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

Next up was Heinkel's F-86.

As Heinkel said, when the F-86 fighter entered the dive state, Yannick saw a looming white mist appearing around the fuselage, which indicated that the speed of the aircraft was very close to the speed of sound.

"Can it break the sound barrier?"

When an aircraft flies close to the speed of sound, the rapidly coming air in front of the aircraft will not disperse as usual, but will accumulate around the aircraft, generating great pressure and triggering invisible air vortices. This air vortex is in turn known as Known as the "death vortex", if the aircraft fuselage is not reinforced, it will be torn apart by the huge pressure in an instant.

The airflow reaching the speed of sound around the aircraft will generate shock waves, and the shock waves will make the airflow flowing over the surface of the fuselage and wings very turbulent, causing the aircraft to vibrate violently and making control very difficult. At the same time, chaotic airflow will cause the wings of the aircraft to sink and the nose of the aircraft to tilt downward. If the aircraft is climbing at this time, the fuselage will automatically tilt up. These will seriously affect flight safety. Improper operation may cause the aircraft to crash.

In the era of propeller aircraft, people believed that the speed of sound was an insurmountable obstacle to the speed of aircraft flight, hence the name sound barrier.

In 1947 in the original time and space, the famous British test pilot Geoffrey de Havilland tested an experimental aircraft called "Flying Swallow". When the speed reached Mach 94, the aircraft fell apart, and the UK gave up its supersonic flight test.

On October 14, 1947, American pilot Charlie Yeager broke the sound barrier for the first time in a rocket-engine-propelled Bell X-1 aircraft, reaching a speed of Mach 07. On September 27, 1956, American pilot Apter Milburn flew the Bell X-2 to a maximum flight speed of Mach 2, breaking the thermal barrier and setting a new flight speed record. However, misfortune struck suddenly. After the X-2 broke through the thermal barrier, the system control suddenly failed and crashed in the Mojave Desert in California. Test pilot Apte Milburn died in the line of duty.

Yannick had discussed breaking the sound barrier with Heinkel, Messerschmitt and others a long time ago, and the original F-86 was also the first fighter in the world to go supersonic in a dive. It stands to reason that this Pirated fighters should also have similar performance.

Heinkel said respectfully. "Your Highness, theoretically this aircraft can break the speed of sound now, but for safety reasons, the speed is limited to 1,100 kilometers per hour."

"..." Yannick also didn't want to see the tragic image of the machine falling apart and the machine being destroyed and people killed. "What about the voyage?"

"It's about the same as a MiG-15."

Yannick sighed in his heart, but he also knew that early jet engines had serious fuel consumption problems, and it was not until the end of the second-generation aircraft that they gradually improved.

"The fuel consumption of the engine must be reduced as much as possible!" Yannick ordered as he looked at the B-47 bomber preparing to take off on the runway. "Find a way to increase the range of the main fuel tank to more than 1,500 kilometers, and then talk about the installation."

The B-47 strategic bomber is also the world's first mass-produced swept-wing jet strategic bomber. The development of this bomber can be traced back to the late World War II. In 1943, the US military proposed the concept of a large jet bomber. R\u0026D ideas. However, the U.S. military's ideas were still in their early stages, and specific indicators were still being discussed. It was not until the successful development of Germany's AR234 Lightning jet bomber that the U.S.'s strategic jet bomber development ideas began to mature. After World War II, with the help of the investigation and research of the German AR234 jet bomber, the United States finally improved and completed the development and design of the B-47 stratojet strategic bomber.

This plan won a contract from the U.S. Army Air Forces, and then the U.S. Air Force decided to start mass production of this strategic bomber. A total of 2,041 B-47s were produced, becoming the mainstay of the U.S. Air Force's bombing force. However, as the earliest jet strategic bomber, the B-47 also has many shortcomings, and the aircraft's reliability problems are very serious.

The accident rate of this aircraft is also very high, including the accident in which a US military nuclear bomb was lost in the 1950s. At that time, a US military B-47 disappeared along with three pilots and two nuclear bombs. The two nuclear bombs were not found until later generations. .

Furthermore, from 1950 to 1960, due to the special historical environment, nuclear deterrence was an important strategic mission in that era, so the B-47 bombers, as the backbone of nuclear deterrence, had to work hard. Frequent takeoffs and landings, aerial refueling, endless patrols and combat readiness missions, with almost no rest time, undoubtedly make the B-47's imperfectly designed airframe more likely to have problems.

In the later period, in order to reduce the accident rate of B-47 stratojet, the US military stepped up training for pilots. By the time the B-47H arrived, the crew had been changed from 3 to 6, and each pilot was equipped with an ejection seat. But overall, the reliability of the B-47 is still very problematic. A total of 203 B-47s crashed during the entire service period, accounting for about 10% of the total number of manufactured, resulting in the death of 464 pilots. The aircraft was even ridiculed as a "crew killer." .

After the more mature B52 strategic bomber entered large-scale service, the B-47 quickly withdrew from the stage of history.

Yannick did not plan to mass-produce B-47s for service. The reason for developing this bomber was just to accumulate experience for the future B-52 bomber.

Unlike the B-47 stratojet strategic bomber, the B-52 is a strategic bomber in the full sense and one of the most successful strategic bombers developed in the history of human aviation. The aircraft was delivered for use in 1955 and has remained one of the main models of strategic bombing in the United States until the 21st century. According to the US military's public plan, the US military will use the B-52 until 2050.

Therefore, Yannick was not very enthusiastic about this bomber. After the B-47 landed, he encouraged the engineers of Arado Company and left the viewing platform to go to the base conference room.

"You have also seen that the new jet fighter requires a very hard and long runway. Once the runway is attacked by the enemy, even the most advanced fighter aircraft will become a display. Maybe we can deploy a tight anti-aircraft fire network around the airport. But what if the enemy attacks with weapons like V1 or V2? How to intercept it? We need a fighter aircraft that can take off vertically or at a short distance."

The first person to consider this issue in the original time and space was Germany during World War II. At the end of World War II, airports all over Germany were bombed by the Allies. The German army had to consider building vertical take-off and landing fighters that did not rely on airport runways; they even designed a model called " Viper" vertical take-off and landing fighter, but it was still in the design stage, and Germany surrendered.

There are many countries around the world researching vertical take-off and landing fighters. Only the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union have successfully developed and equipped their troops. (After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has actually lost the ability to develop vertical take-off and landing fighters. The British aviation industry has also collapsed and cannot do it alone. development of fighter aircraft).

Although the earliest vertical take-off and landing fighter equipped with troops and used in actual combat, the most produced vertical take-off and landing fighter was the British "Harrier" fighter. However, as early as 1957, the X-14 technology demonstrator of the American Bell Aircraft Company successfully tested flight, including vertical take-off. , hover, and then land vertically. However, because it was too advanced and could not meet practical requirements, only one verification aircraft was produced. In addition, the U.S. aircraft carrier is large enough and the demand for vertical take-off and landing aircraft is not that strong. Since then, the United States has basically withdrawn from the research field of vertical take-off and landing fixed-wing aircraft.

After the war, Germany also demonstrated its excellent quality and extremely high efficiency in the field of vertical take-off and landing fighter development. In 1965, the VJ-101 developed by Germany made its first flight, a year earlier than the British Harrier. Moreover, VJ-101 achieved supersonic flight in 1969, reaching Mach 14, and was the earliest supersonic vertical take-off and landing aircraft. , due to restrictions on Germany and the technical conditions at the time, this aircraft was not equipped with troops.

The schematic diagrams and dynamic diagrams of the F35B vertical take-off and landing can be seen everywhere on the Internet, and Yannick has seen a lot of them, and now he drew the schematic diagrams on the small blackboard. "This is the general principle of vertical take-off and landing. However, this project will not be approved for the time being, and there is no funding. We will wait until our engine thrust exceeds 10 tons before starting it. You can do your own research first."

Everyone present couldn't help but take a breath. The thrust of the current jet engine is less than 3 tons. If it needs to exceed 10 tons, why shouldn't it be studied for 20 or 30 years?