Chapter 230 Improvement

Yannick convened engineers from the Naval Design Department and the Aircraft Design Department to begin studying how to improve the aircraft carrier.

"I experienced the operation of an aircraft carrier today and found that our aircraft carrier still has many imperfections that need to be corrected." He said and drew two straight lines on the small blackboard next to it, representing the deck of the aircraft carrier. "The first is the deck of the aircraft carrier. This is the straight-through flight deck we use now, which is smooth from beginning to end. Under normal circumstances, it is basically impossible to carry out takeoff and landing operations at the same time (if you insist on doing it at the same time, there is a way. On the deck An anti-collision net is set up in the middle to divide the deck into two parts: the front part is used for take-off and parking of aircraft, and the rear part is the landing area. However, in actual operations, various situations will occur and it is difficult to achieve perfection.) .

So I wonder if the takeoff and landing areas can be separated at a certain angle so that they no longer share the same channel. like this. "Draw the angled deck with a few lines. "Since this one is angled, I'll call it the angled deck first. In this way, the aircraft can take off from the straight deck and the angled deck at the same time, which can greatly improve the take-off efficiency. When landing on the ship, the carrier-based aircraft lands from this angled deck. After landing, it quickly leaves the angled deck and enters the parking area. The next aircraft continues to land on the ship. In this way, the landing efficiency is also improved. The most important thing is that this design allows the aircraft carrier to perform takeoff and landing operations at the same time. "

The engineers in the naval design department nodded frequently. "His Highness, I hope you will start researching it immediately after we return."

After World War II, the United States modernized the Essex-class aircraft carriers that were still in service, which included transforming the deck into a tilted deck. However, due to limited tonnage, the size of the tilted deck was also very small, but it was enough to meet the needs of propeller carriers. machine needs. "I did a rough calculation and found that an inclination angle of about 9 degrees should be enough. If the angle is too large, it will affect the center of gravity of the entire ship. However, this will make the landing area relatively shorter and narrower. The pilot is choosing It will definitely be troublesome when landing on the ship. If the landing point is too far forward, the aircraft may easily rush out of the ship deck or even fall into the sea; if it is too far back, the aircraft may collide with the stern of the ship. "

Then he talked about the "Fresnel" lens optical landing assist system that was widely used in later generations. The structural principle of this system is simple and reliable. It consists of 4 groups of lights, mainly 5 segmented light boxes arranged vertically in the center. It emits 5 layers of light beams through a Fresnel lens. The light beams are parallel to the landing runway and maintain a certain angle with the sea level. , forming a 5-layer slope.

When the carrier-based aircraft is not allowed to land, the red lights on the left and right sides flash, and the green horizontal reference light does not light up; when the carrier-based aircraft is allowed to land, the red light does not light up, and the green reference light emits a fixed light, "Fresnel" The lens also glows simultaneously. The light it emits is stronger than the green reference light, and the directional beams emitted by the lenses at different positions above and below each represent a glide angle. The yellow light is a high glide slope, the red light is a low glide slope, and the orange light is the correct glide slope. When the pilot of a carrier-based aircraft glides down, if he sees an orange light, he can land accurately; if he sees a yellow beam, it means that the glide angle of the carrier-based aircraft is too large; if he sees a red beam, it means that the carrier-based aircraft The glide angle of the aircraft is too small and the pilot can easily adjust it.

After talking about the beveled deck and the "Fresnel" lens optical landing assist system, Nick continued to talk about the steam catapult.

In this era, catapults were common, and cruisers, battleships, etc. carried seaplanes. It can be said that many of the seaplanes do not take off from the water; in order to allow the ship to take off without stopping, the ship can allow the plane to take off in a short time. Countries have long developed various flight-assist devices, that is, seaplane catapult structures include drop-weight type, flywheel type, rocket-assisted type, hydraulic type and pneumatic type (early stage), etc.

However, Yannick knew that most of these ejection methods would be eliminated in the future. The mainstream in the future would be steam catapults and more advanced electromagnetic catapults. Unfortunately, the electromagnetic catapult was not perfect until Yannick traveled through it. It was a new technology that was not very mature, so he decided to get the steam catapult first.

The principle of the steam catapult is actually quite simple. It is to send the high-temperature and high-pressure steam generated by the ship's boiler (or nuclear reactor) into a cylinder, push the piston, and use the "iron hand" extending from the piston to pull the aircraft to accelerate the aircraft from zero speed. to takeoff speed.

But it is such a seemingly simple technology that only the United States will fully master in future generations. The Soviet and Russian aircraft carriers use ski jumps to take off. The British aircraft carriers have a special preference for vertical take-off and landing aircraft and do not need catapults. The French aircraft carrier "Charles de Gaulle" uses American C-13 catapults. The aircraft carriers of other countries either use For ski-jump take-off, it is either simply equipped with a vertical short take-off and landing aircraft such as a Harrier or a helicopter. The United States is the only country that uses steam catapults on a large scale.

Although the principle of the steam catapult is simple, the requirements for manufacturing processes and materials are quite high. It needs to withstand high temperatures and pressures and is large in size, so it places particularly high requirements on manufacturing materials, manufacturing equipment and welding processes. The manufacturing materials must use heat-resistant special alloy steel, which must have good tensile strength. It also has to withstand hundreds of thousands of ejection pressure/decompression fatigue cycles. The load-bearing slides, guide rails, cylinders, pistons and transmission devices required not only require super-precision tool machining, but also have a very complex and precise process.

However, Yannick feels that German manufacturing technology is quite superb and worth a try.

An engineer raised his hand when he heard Yannick propose the steam catapult manufacturing plan. "Your Highness, there doesn't seem to be much need to install a catapult on an aircraft carrier, right?" After all, today's propeller aircraft are light and powerful, and can take off easily without catapult assistance.

Yannick smiled. "How much does the current FW-190T weigh?"

The engineer answered quickly. "Empty weight 3500 kg, full load 4300 kg, maximum take-off weight 4800 kg."

Yannick nodded. "With an empty weight of 3500 kg, there is indeed no need for a catapult. However, in the near future, fighters weighing ten tons or even more will be moved onto aircraft carriers, so catapult assistance is necessary."

Seeing that no one objected, he continued to talk about carrier-based aircraft. "The carrier-based aircraft on the aircraft carrier must also be replaced, and the liquid-cooled Stuka must be removed." Yannick was thinking of the American SBD Dauntless dive bomber.

Ju87 first flew in 1935 and made its debut in 1937. Although SBD originated from the Northrop BT series of the same period, it was not formally finalized until 1939. Ju87 was old in design, and its performance was naturally not particularly superior. Ju87 seemed to be able to bluff people when it was knocked on the B2 in 1940, but the problem can be seen when compared with SBD-2 in 1940.

As for SBD-2 alone, SBD-2 has less horsepower than Ju87 B2, but it has more mounts than Ju87, has a longer range than Ju87, and is faster than Ju87. It is even "naturally" lighter than Ju87. SBD is not a fast or long-range naval dive bomber. How can it blow up the Americans if it is beaten to the ground by SBD?

After thinking for a long time, Yannick suddenly thought of the A-1 attack aircraft, the successor to SBD.

The single-seat, single-engine A-1 adheres to the design concept of simplicity and efficiency. The manufacturing process is not very complicated, but it has many characteristics. For example, its range can reach an astonishing 2,500 kilometers; as a propeller fighter, it has a very terrifying bomb load, 14 underwing pylons and one fuselage central pylon can carry up to 3,036 kilograms of bombs. This does not include the four 20mm cannons with 200 rounds of ammunition each. Because it has a lot of room for improvement, it was not retired until the 1980s.

Just as Yannick and the engineers were studying new carrier-based aircraft, Goebbels' propaganda machine started again. To be precise, his propaganda machine has never stopped since the outbreak of the war.

However, the news this time was quite shocking; His Royal Highness the Crown Prince personally took a Stuka attack aircraft and participated in the attack on the British fleet. In this battle, the German Navy sank the British battleship Warspite, two heavy cruisers and a battlecruiser in one fell swoop.

Although this result was a bit "shabby" compared to the U-47 that sank several battleships a few days ago, the people were still boiling again. They are proud of having such a prince who leads the charge, and they are even more convinced that Germany will win the final victory under the leadership of the prince. If this were a game, the public's support and loyalty would have exploded.