Chapter 833 Let the gold-swallowing beast lay golden eggs (fourth update, please subscribe)
October of 1954 seemed to be an extremely peaceful month, with nothing major happening around the world. There seems to be nothing significant worth recording in history.
At most, the Federal Republic of Germany has joined NATO.
Otherwise, the world is peaceful.
Calm...
For a small breaking ball, this might not be a bad thing.
On October 5, the C707 four-engine large jet airliner manufactured and developed by Nanyang Aviation Industries made its first cross-sea flight. Unlike the adventure of the C717, the test flight of the C707 seems a bit conservative.
There is a reason to be conservative - on December 13 last year, a de Havilland DH106 Comet aircraft operated by BOAC suddenly broke apart and crashed into the sea at an altitude of 8,000 meters near the Mediterranean Island of Elba. None of the 35 people on board survived. Just three months later, on March 17, a South African Airways Comet aircraft taking off from Rome disintegrated in almost the same manner at cruising altitude in northern Sicily, killing all 21 people on board. Two tragic accidents resulted in the indefinite grounding of all Comet aircraft in service.
Even the 717, which has been in operation for almost two years, has been implicated - because of its insufficient test flights and the guidance of outsiders. Of course, there is also worldwide suspicion of jet aircraft. After all, in Never before have aircraft crashes occurred in such a short period of time.
As a result, the 717 passenger plane was grounded for a month due to the Comet incident. After various inspections were conducted, it resumed flying.
Therefore, the test flight of C707 will naturally be more complete. After all, there are now doubts around the world about the reliability of jetliners.
“What a pity!”
Sitting in the car, Li Yian said with regret as he looked at the calculated range of the C707 passenger plane after completing its first long-distance cross-sea voyage.
“The flight range is only 7,200 kilometers, which is really a pity...”
A flight of 7,200 kilometers is definitely enough if it is only used to fly the Atlantic route, whether it is From London to New York, or from Paris to New York, they can meet the needs, but for Nanyang, it is a bit too high or too low. Because a direct flight from Nanyang to the United States requires a flight of 12,000 kilometers. In other words, taking a 707 passenger flight to and from South America still requires a transit in Hawaii.
Similarly, it is not possible to fly directly to the UK, the distance is still a little bit different.
“We still need to continue to work hard to develop large aircraft!”
Reflecting on the difficulty of direct flight, Li Yian felt more pleased. After all, whether it is from 717 to 707, Success means that Nanyang has carved its own path in the field of large aircraft.
“If all goes well, it will be put into operation next year. However, the jets of Boeing and Douglas have not yet started test flights, which means that at least for the next two years, the C707 will not be available. Any opponent.”
The most lonely life is to be invincible!
Of course, this kind of invincibility is exactly what Nanyang needs. Only in this way can we seize the current opportunity, lay a solid foundation in the world civil aviation market, and become the setter of future civil aviation standards.
Once such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is missed, it will be gone. Fortunately, this period of opportunity has been firmly grasped.
"The big plane... belongs to us..."
With emotion, the convoy continued to drive on the highway. Compared with a few years ago, there are fewer cars on the highway now. There are already more and more, Li Yian said to himself as he looked at the cars passing by the convoy from time to time.
“Perhaps, in a few years, we can consider widening the highway.”
This is inevitable. After all, the expressway in Nanyang is a ring-island expressway. If it is widened from time to time, congestion will inevitably occur on the expressway as the number of cars increases.
Fortunately, when the highway was built, land for widening had already been reserved.
“Let’s wait a little longer. When there is an economic crisis in the future, we can use the expressway to pull another wave.”
While the car is driving, Li Yian will occasionally cast his eyes on the high-speed railway construction site in the distance. Now Nanyang's high-speed railway has been fully rolled out for two years. Like the round-island expressway, the high-speed railway is also a round-island high-speed railway. At present, the West Coast High-Speed Railway has been basically completed. According to the project plan, the entire project is expected to be completed in 2059, that is, before the Olympic Games.
A few hours later, the convoy passed the checkpoint and entered Wanhujiao. Different from the secrecy in the past, now as the horn of "March to Space" sounded, Wanhujiao was also decrypted and entered the world's sight.
The reason why Li Yian is here today is because today is the third test flight of the Wanhu Type 5 rocket.
Although he knew that it was likely to fail, Li Yian still came. He hoped that through the support of his own people, he could send a signal to the outside world that Nanyang would continue to march unswervingly into space.
Compared with the launch sites in Soviet Russia, the Wanhujiao launch site should be said to be the best launch site in the world. It is almost on the equator. The lower the latitude of the launch site, the better it can take advantage of the earth's rotation. It can save more fuel and increase payload. The equatorial launch site is the optimal solution.
Although Nanyang has the advantage of equatorial launch sites. But the aerospace industry does not just require launch sites. It requires relevant efforts that are unimaginable to the world.
For example, when the Soviet Union promoted its aerospace industry, it often used the whole country to promote it. How much manpower and material resources their space program used is a confusing account that can never be clearly calculated.
But the United States can be used to quantify it.
Take the famous "Apollo Project" as an example. From 1960 to 1973, the United States invested US$25.8 billion in the "Apollo Project". That was the era of "US dollars". At its peak, 20,000 companies, more than 200 universities and more than 80 scientific research institutions participated in the project, with a total number of more than 300,000 people.
With such human, material and financial resources, how does Nanyang compare now?
In fact, if you think about it carefully, it is natural for the United States to catch up from behind in the "Space Race". With such national support, even if the Soviet Union is one step ahead at the beginning, it will only be a matter of time before it catches up with the Soviet Union.
But what is certain is that Nanyang will definitely not be able to catch up in this kind of money-burning competition.
It’s not just Nanyang. In fact, as a former overlord, Britain also tried to maintain the dignity of the British Empire in the early days of the Cold War and made a series of plans covering various aspects, most of which were fruitless. Ultimately, the reason is lack of money.
A penny stumps a hero, and the same goes for spending it on the country.
Compared with the UK, the biggest advantage of Nanyang is that the government has a large amount of state-owned asset income. Although the funds that can be invested are much stronger than the UK, it is impossible to blindly invest in aerospace without taking into account people's livelihood. .
Moreover, what Nanyang has always been most proud of is the standard of people's livelihood.
Therefore, how to use limited funds to achieve the same goal has become something that the Nanyang Space Program must accomplish, and it is also something that Li Yi'an needs to consider.
As far as this era is concerned, the aviation industry is an industry with large investments and small returns. In fact, before Musk entered the aerospace industry, all countries’ space programs in the world were losing money, including but not limited to "Apollo Project", even from a macro perspective, "Apollo Project" obtained a lot of valuable data and experimental materials, trained a large number of scientific workers, and in order to complete the plan and solve various problems encountered in practice, Many of the technologies developed found other uses, and the results of the Apollo program also inspired many people—not just Americans.
However, this plan still lost money. Although human science and technology progress benefited a lot from the plan, because the investment was too large, even the US empire could not support it. Finally, in 1973, that is, "Apollo Ten" After the failure of "Three", this plan was quickly ended because it was too expensive. The cost of sending three people to the moon was almost enough to purchase a full aircraft carrier formation.
Even the US emperor cannot support such a huge expenditure.
Similarly, Soviet Russia, which has institutional advantages, cannot hold on. Just like the Soviet Union’s "Buran" space shuttle project. Although the cost of the spacecraft cost 1.4 billion rubles, the entire project took 20 billion rubles is almost equivalent to 1% of the GDP of Soviet Russia. No one can support such a high investment.
"Any high-input, low-output industry is unsustainable..."
As the convoy entered Wanhujiao and headed towards the launch site, Li Yian secretly thought about how to This industry has changed from a "gold-eating beast" to a big white goose that can lay golden eggs.
(End of this chapter)