Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 245 Zero Mustang
Thinking of this, Deng Zhaoxiang immediately asked:
"Si Ling, you said you wanted to convert the Congqing from a cruiser into an aircraft carrier, but we don't have any fighter jets! What's the use of an aircraft carrier if we don't have fighter jets!"

"Who said we didn't have any fighter jets? During the Huaihai Campaign, I personally led a team to seize Xuzhou Airport and captured more than 50 P-51 Mustang fighters, as well as five B-24 bombers. However, in order to get the flight school to agree to help us train pilots, I gave the bombers to the flight school. Anyway, bombers can't take off and land on aircraft carriers!"

Of course, Wang Gensheng did not stay in this secret shipyard for the whole time. After determining the flight length of the Congqing aircraft carrier deck, he went to the flight school.

That's right, Wang Gensheng was going to complete the aircraft carrier simulation training on land. To be honest, he really wasn't confident about the 150-meter distance.

It's important to know that for a P-51 Mustang fighter jet to take off fully loaded, it needs a distance of nearly 500 to 491 meters.

The main carrier-based aircraft of the US aircraft carrier is the Hellcat fighter jet, which has a takeoff distance of only 244 meters, which is the standard distance of the flight deck of the US aircraft carrier.

The Hellcat's ability to achieve such a short takeoff distance is mainly due to its powerful engine, which can output 2,000 horsepower, a quarter more than the 1,500 horsepower of the P-51 Mustang.

This created a stalemate. Since there was no way to improve the takeoff distance of the Mustang fighter jet, the cost was that Wang Gensheng's dream of building an aircraft carrier was shattered.

Even if Wang Gensheng had received a Hellcat instead of a Mustang, it still wouldn't have mattered, since he couldn't extend the deck of the Congqing by nearly 100 meters to reach 240 meters, which is the Hellcat's takeoff requirement.

Adding just over ten meters wouldn't be a problem, but adding a hundred meters or so is simply impossible unless the Congqing ship is dismantled and rebuilt entirely.

This reminded Wang Gensheng of the glorious carrier-based aircraft that dominated the skies for the Japanese, the most important thing being that these carrier-based aircraft had a takeoff distance of only sixty meters.

Such a distance could be easily accommodated on the Congqing aircraft carrier.

In the early stages of World War II, there was a fighter plane that once reigned supreme, dominating the entire air battlefield and establishing a so-called myth of invincibility, with almost no other country's fighter planes able to contend with it. This was the Japanese Zero fighter.

The Zero fighter was an excellent fighter at the time, with its light weight and long range. With standard external fuel tanks, the Zero could reach a range of 2,900 kilometers, a range that was rare not only at the time but also decades later for jet fighters.

Moreover, the Zero fighter had a combat weight of only 2.5 tons, and its shortest takeoff distance was only 60 meters.

These performance figures were significantly superior to those of the US Wildcat fighter plane of the same era. Therefore, in the Pacific theater at that time, the Japanese could fully utilize this advantage to strike the US from outside its defense zone, which caused the US considerable headaches.

I've always wanted to find a complete Zero fighter for research. However, since the battlefield was in the Pacific Ocean, any planes shot down in combat either crashed into the sea or exploded, making it impossible to find a complete Zero fighter.

Later, by chance, a Japanese Zero fighter plane, after completing a cover mission, was returning to base when it was damaged. During an emergency landing, the fuselage flipped upside down, resulting in the pilot's death. Aside from minor damage to the cockpit and engine, the aircraft was structurally intact. Later, again by chance, it was discovered by a US military patrol and recovered by the US. The US military subsequently repaired the Zero fighter and used it for testing, obtaining extensive data on its combat performance. Based on this data, they conducted targeted research, and subsequently, the US military turned the tide in its battles against the Zero fighter, ultimately achieving victory.

With the Japanese Zero fighter plane achieving brilliant results, it was highly praised by the Japanese military, and its production increased dramatically. In the five years from 1940 to 1945, the annual production of the Zero fighter plane even reached 2,000 aircraft.

Furthermore, more improved versions have been introduced to meet the needs of different combat missions.

Of course, the Zero fighter's good maneuverability and light weight were not due to the use of more advanced technology, but rather due to the limitations of Japan's domestic industrial level. At that time, Japan did not have the ability to manufacture high-powered aircraft engines, so it had to find a way to reduce the weight of the aircraft itself. And there was only one way to do this: to find a way to reduce the weight of the aircraft itself.

In an effort to reduce weight, the Zero fighter's fuselage was riddled with holes. Furthermore, it lacked essential protective measures such as armor plating. This meant that if hit, the aircraft was highly likely to be penetrated, nearly disintegrating. Zero pilots faced extreme danger in combat; they either avoided being hit or, if hit, were almost certainly killed.

Therefore, in the later stages of the war, many shortcomings of the Zero fighter were further exposed, and even with increased production, it was ultimately unable to avert the Japanese defeat.

This is somewhat similar to the Japanese cars, which are all thin-skinned. In order to cover up the fact that they are fragile, they have to talk about energy absorption.

However, this Zero approach is not without its merits. After all, at this stage, if we don't imitate the Zero and reduce the weight of the Mustang fighter to shorten its takeoff distance, then getting it onto an aircraft carrier is simply out of the question.

Therefore, in order to ensure that the Mustang fighter could be deployed on aircraft carriers, Wang Gensheng had no choice but to convert it into a Zero-type Mustang fighter.

Just like cars, if one car is empty and the other is fully loaded, the fully loaded car will definitely be the slowest to start. The same applies to airplanes; with the same power, the heavier the airplane, the longer the runway it needs to accelerate.

It should be noted that Wang Gensheng also tested it and found that even with only a little fuel and taking off almost empty, the takeoff distance still needs to be 200 meters.

Of course, Wang Gensheng had no experience in modifying airplanes, so he went directly to Lu Haotian and asked Lu Haotian to find the Japanese technician, Jiechuan Run, to help with the modification.

Although Wang Gensheng disliked and hated the Japanese, he had no choice but to learn their technology.

Therefore, in order to learn specific knowledge about airplanes, Wang Gensheng shamelessly and humbly learned everything about airplanes from the Japanese technician, Jun Ikkawa.

After all, once he learns the technology, Wang Gensheng will feel more at ease modifying it himself.

(End of this chapter)