The Rise Of Australasia - Chapter 226: Equipping Airplane

However, Arthur was still not satisfied with the current performance of these three aircraft, so the Aerospace Laboratory shifted its focus to the development of Pioneer-3. After successfully developing Pioneer-3, they successfully created the second generation of all three military aircraft, the reconnaissance aircraft Eagle-2, the fighter aircraft Bengal Tiger-2, and the bomber Phantom-2.

Arthur can confirm that in terms of military aircraft, Australasia has successfully taken the lead in the world, and can even be regarded as the most powerful aircraft manufacturing country at present.

Of course, this conclusion is not baseless, but derived from Arthur’s hands-on observation of the combat performance of these three military aircraft.

First, the reconnaissance aircraft Eagle-2 has two seats, the front for the pilot and the back for observation.

The size of the Eagle-2 reconnaissance aircraft is slightly larger because it is equipped with a larger fuel tank, allowing for a maximum range of about 600 kilometers. If equipped with two auxiliary fuel tanks, the maximum range can even reach thousands of kilometers.

Of course, due to the increase in size and weight, the speed of this reconnaissance aircraft has also decreased.

The average flight speed of the Eagle-2 reconnaissance aircraft can reach 190 kilometers per hour, with a maximum speed of 210 kilometers per hour.

Although it cannot compete with faster fighter aircraft, this speed is already sufficient for intelligence reconnaissance.

Speaking of fighter aircraft, the weapons currently loaded on them are still very rudimentary. The Bengal Tiger-2 fighter aircraft is equipped with only two Australasian-Military-Factory-developed MA-107 Maxim machine guns, with most of the remaining weapons carried by the pilots themselves.

What does this mean? If the ammunition for the two machine guns on board the Bengal Tiger fighter runs out, the only option for the fighter aircraft to engage in combat would be relying on the pilots’ own weapons, other than returning to the airport to reload.

This is an unavoidable situation, as various weapons are not well-adapted to the current fighter aircraft. Even the onboard guns were manufactured after a long period of research by the military factory.

Due to the use of drum magazines, these two machine guns have a combined ammunition reserve of 1,500 rounds.

This is the current disappointing aspect of the Bengal Tiger fighter aircraft, but its combat weapons are believed to evolve into a diverse range as a result of joint research between the military factories and the Aerospace Laboratory, eventually maturing into a true fighter aircraft.

Although there are many shortcomings in terms of weapons, the Bengal Tiger-2 fighter aircraft already has a maximum flying speed of 235 kilometers per hour and a maximum range of 500 kilometers.

At present, among the three aircraft, the combat performance of the Bengal Tiger fighter aircraft is the worst, and its practicality is also not high.

Of course, this is because countries around the world have not yet realized the importance of aircraft.

Even the famous Wright Brothers, who have built Flyer II and III, have not yet received attention from the news media and the U.S. military.

Their aircraft were even stored in a stable for more than two years before the U.S. military realized their powerful potential.

That is to say, at present, only Australasia has mobilized national resources to research aircraft.

This is why Arthur is confident that Australasia is currently the world’s number one aircraft superpower since there are no competitors in the short term.

Of course, this also greatly reduces the practicality of fighter aircraft. Because of the lack of opponents, Australasia’s various aircraft are still very safe in the skies.

Apart from the reconnaissance aircraft, the most practical one is the bomber.

At present, the only means for the military to bomb long-range targets is artillery, but the parabola of artillery is basically fixed, and even the powerful shipborne artillery cannot avoid it.

This is why the heaviest armor protection on modern battleships currently only covers some essential facilities.

One of the reasons for the eventual obsolescence of large warships like battleships is the rise of aircraft.

The thick armor on the battleship’s hull and other areas is virtually useless against aircraft carrying bombs.

Various types of bombers can easily find the weak spots of battleships and then bomb them.

In addition to the ever-increasing cost of battleships, this is why they gradually declined after World War II.

The firepower coverage of battleships is often only tens of kilometers, but the attack range of aircraft carriers carrying various types of aircraft can even reach hundreds of kilometers.

This means that when battleships have not yet discovered enemy aircraft carriers, enemy reconnaissance and bombers have already arrived overhead.

Moreover, the design of aircraft carriers is straightforward. The initial design of aircraft carriers is even very rudimentary, requiring only the performance and practicality of aircraft.

At present, Australasia already has the capability to design aircraft carriers, and the birth of the world’s first aircraft carrier is not far away.

The bomber currently possessed by Australasia is the Phantom-2, an advanced bomber modified from the Pioneer-3.

In order to give this bomber the ability to bomb high-altitude enemies, the military factory specially modified the current shells and designed ammunition that could be loaded onto aircraft.

At the same time, in order to adapt to more combat targets, there are currently two models of this ammunition, which are 35mm shells and 75mm shells.

If loaded with 35mm shells, the Phantom Bomber has a payload of 32 rounds; if loaded with 75mm shells, the bomber’s payload would decrease to around 18 rounds.

These shells are fixed in rows on the gun rack. After the pilot presses the launch button, the first row of shells will cascade down followed by an automatic switch to the second row of shells.

The ammunition carried by the bomber now is still too small compared to the future, but it can basically meet the current task requirements.

Imagine, in the absence of any enemy precautions, a large number of shells falling from the sky would be enough to cause huge casualties to the enemy.

More importantly, various warships are also one of the targets of bombers now. Since aircraft have not become the focus of various countries, their warships have no real anti-aircraft capabilities.

If there is any defense capability, it might be navy soldiers using rifles to shoot at the bombers.

However, warships are not as stable as the land, and navy soldiers pay more attention to the control of warships rather than marksmanship.

In this situation, the chances of shooting down a bomber relying on navy soldiers are quite small.

This also means that the current fighter aircraft can cause huge casualties to the current warships, and the research of aircraft carriers becomes a possible task.

After watching the demonstrations of all airplane types at the Aeronautical Research Institute, Arthur nodded in satisfaction and immediately announced a reward of 10,000 Australian dollars for each staff member at the Aerospace Laboratory.

“Director Theodore, how is the production of these three aircraft currently? If Australasia is to adopt these three aircraft, can they be mass-produced at a large scale?” Arthur asked.

After the birth of the aircraft, the next issue is about the production and deployment of the aircraft.

No matter how luxurious the aircraft’s specifications are on paper, it ultimately needs to be equipped in the military and tested through training and real warfare.

Although Australasia currently is not troubled by wars, Arthur already plans to deploy aircraft on a large scale.

It will not only improve the combat capability of the Australasia Army, but will also train more pilots for the future Australasia Air Force in advance.

Keep in mind that pilots are not like regular army and navy soldiers who can become formal soldiers after one or two years of training.

To become a qualified pilot, the training period is at least two years or more, and a large number of flight tests and real wars are required to transform into an excellent pilot.

This is also the real reason why major countries prefer the aircraft to be destroyed rather than the pilot being killed in action.

For an industrial strong country, manufacturing an aircraft is not a troublesome thing. But training a pilot requires a lot of funds and time, and the importance of pilots is far more than that of aircraft.

Of course, the current research on aircraft has not been perfected, and the pilot training system is not yet established.

At present, the way for Australasia to train pilots is to rely on the experts of the Aerospace Laboratory. As the researchers of the aircraft, they are the most familiar with the operation of aircraft facilities.

However, despite this, training and nurturing pilots is still a hassle.

It has been more than two years since the birth of Pioneer-1, but to date, the Aerospace Laboratory has trained a total of fewer than a hundred pilots.

Although these two years have given the Aerospace Laboratory a lot of experience in training pilots, the future speed of training pilots will be much faster.

Nevertheless, even for Australasia today, pilots are still a very valuable asset.

“Your Majesty, due to the different models of these aircraft, their cost varies. If mass-produced, the cost of our Pioneer-3 is about 18,600 Australian dollars, the cost of Eagle-2 Reconnaissance Aircraft is about 20,100 Australian dollars, the cost of Bengal Tiger-2 Fighter Aircraft is about 22,000 Australian dollars, and the cost of Phantom-2 Bomber may exceed 23,500 Australian dollars.” The Aerospace Laboratory had already estimated the cost of these four aircraft, so Theodore’s answer was also very prompt.

Arthur nodded.

Due to the absence of war, currencies around the world are still relatively strong.

The cost of various aircraft in Australasia is basically around ten thousand pounds, with the highest cost not exceeding 12,000 pounds.

This is good news for Arthur, at least deploying aircraft on a large scale is not a burden on the current Australasian government’s finances, and the Australasian government can still afford it.