Chapter 130 - 126 Annual Settlement_1

On the runway, an ARJ21 passenger jet with engines a size larger than the original configuration fired up, executing a beautiful taxi before swiftly ascending, ascending at a speed far exceeding that of regular passenger planes.

After purchasing the business jet, the two single engines with 9 tons of thrust were replaced with XW-10 engines, each boasting 15 tons of thrust, while its empty weight was only 24.9 tons, with a maximum takeoff weight of 40 tons.

As a business jet, it definitely wasn’t going to be filled to its designed 90-seat capacity; typically, it would carry no more than 10 passengers, not exceeding 30 tons in weight. In other words, as a passenger jet, its thrust-to-weight ratio astonishingly exceeded 1...

Not only had this ARJ21’s engines been swapped out, but its flight control had also entirely been switched to the SC09 automatic system, making atmospheric flight far too easy for it, even more reliable than the average commercial pilot.

The aircraft’s maiden flight after this modification was unmanned, and the powerful ARJ21’s maximum service ceiling had increased to 13,000 meters, with a maximum range enhanced to 4,600 KM—something that would bring the original manufacturer to its knees.

Since the thrust-to-weight ratio exceeded one, the SC09, under ground commands, even attempted a vertical climb, leaving the watchers from Rong City Military Region’s air command utterly dumbfounded.

Since when was the ARJ21 so fierce, and the thrust-to-weight ratio of civilian aircraft so outrageous?

However, the plane in the sky didn’t fly for long before returning to base, making way for the flight school students.

Xinyuan Company had turned the four large hangars near the runway into temporary flight schools, teaching students from various universities on Saturdays and the company’s own trainees on Sundays.

During theory classes, every time instructors would rotate taking two students up to experience flight, given that the initial training aircraft had both a long service life and were not very expensive.

But today, they had to wait for the aircraft with the call sign CDX0001 to take off first—Factory Manager Lin’s personal plane.

Lin Ju sat in the forward cockpit, increasing the throttle while releasing the wheel brakes, with the Colorful Cloud training plane beginning to taxi with abundant power, and the backseat’s Deng Lei gripping the control stick tightly.

This was to be Lin Ju’s last flight as an instructor companion; the next time, he’d be flying solo.

But Deng Lei was not too worried, because in addition to daily flight training, Lin Ju also flew the H1 simulator. His piloting skills were already quite good—after all, as the boss, his daily flight hours were completely up to him. Even if he wanted to fly up to the moon in the middle of the night, the ground crew had to prepare the aircraft.

After taking off, Lin Ju maintained a 1,000-meter altitude, then pushed the throttle to the max to fly at top speed, and he was still not satisfied. With a slight push of the nose down, he dove, instantaneously breaking through 350 kilometers per hour, then leveled off 100 meters above the ground, zooming high-speed over forests and hills.

Flying had become Lin Ju’s biggest hobby, and he even bluntly declared on his blog that he would ride on his own spacecraft to space and land on the Moon and Mars in the future.

After he had been flying for more than an hour, the students and instructors at the airport also began taking off one after another. By around 11 o’clock, as many as 20 planes were flying in the area.

Fortunately, most of them were flown by instructors and had organized themselves into formations. Despite the number, there was no chaos.

Meanwhile, locals in the suburbs bore the brunt of it; the skies buzzed just like during air raids seventy years ago.

Even five planes formed a formation to purposely fly at low altitudes, following roads and rivers, now and then diving and pulling up, attracting quite a bit of attention.

The air commanders from the Rong City Military Region, constantly calling out according to protocols in the radio, nearly passed out from exhaustion. Then, realizing Xinyuan might have up to 2,000 planes in the future and if they were to form formations, they could blanket the sky with a foreboding cloud capable of citywide surprise attacks, the commanders felt an overwhelming pressure.

But the sense of pride and excitement experienced as squadrons of planes swooped over the mountains was something that could not be erased. If hundreds or even thousands of planes could fly like this, it could qualify as a world record-breaking spectacle.

Lin Ju flew nonstop for nearly two hours, but he had to wait a while to land because Progress, mounted on the back of an Il-76, landed at the airport.

At the time of landing, Progress had already been hoisted onto a transport vehicle, ready to be shipped back to the main assembly facility for retrofitting.

It would be equipped with the SC09 smart flight control, and then its sister aircraft Unity would also receive an avionics upgrade soon after, enhancing the safety and reliability of the planes.

Additionally, there are three consecutive pieces of good news this December.

The first piece of good news was that Stellar One, the supercomputer, was finally assembled successfully with components in place, just completing a test run. With a customized system, it achieved a peak computational speed of 35.9 billion-billion operations, an entire machine’s peak power of 6,000 kilowatts—more energy-efficient than most supercomputers, with an hourly electricity cost of just 4,000 yuan.

Engineers were still working overtime to perfect the AI module to be mounted onto Stellar One, separated and enhanced from SC09, providing powerful computing support and artificial intelligence analysis services to both bases.

Besides, fluid dynamics simulation and motion analysis could also be run on Stellar One; previously, they had to rent supercomputers from Modu City and the Capital, where they charged by core hour—not only expensive but also requiring queuing.

Of course, aside from that, Stellar One is now the world’s most powerful supercomputer, and also the only ternary supercomputer. If the outside world knew, they might think they’ve seen a ghost.

The second piece of good news is that the overall design of the An-1250 was completed four days past the deadline and has been delivered to production.

The airframe, as it’s basically a reference to (or copy of) the An-225, apart from some changes in materials and structure, was quickly designed.

This giant transport aircraft, the first of its kind with a maximum takeoff weight exceeding a thousand tons and dimensions surpassing 100 meters in both length and wingspan, has as many as 32 landing gears, 16 more than the An-225.

The front landing gear alone includes six assemblies, arranged in rows of three, each equipped with two high-pressure tires with a pressure of 130 megapascals that need to be custom-made; the main landing gear consists of 13 assemblies on either side of the fuselage, totaling 64 tires for all the landing gears.

However, since the empty weight of the An-1250 reached 390 tons, ordinary tires would be too much trouble, requiring replacement after at most 40 takeoffs and landings.

For this reason, Lin Ju invested 120 million in the research institute, using the system’s power to expedite progress and independently developed a new type of tire, applying for a patent, and planning to find a chemical plant to contract manufacture it.

The new tires are for exclusive use on the An-1250, needing to be replaced after every 90 takeoffs and landings.

The airframe has been handed over to the factory for production. Additionally, there is the large turbofan engine XW30 that needs to be adapted for the An-1250. The basic design is nearly complete, and a prototype will be made before the Spring Festival, with the official version due by March 2016. It will offer a maximum thrust of 340KN, bringing the total thrust of the aircraft to 272 tons.

The first batch of the An-1250 will produce two aircraft, directly involving 700 companies, with 40% requiring customized production.

It’s expected to roll off the production line around April 2016, at which time the assembly and first flight will be completed.

The third good news is that Mountain and Meridian series satellite platforms have been successfully developed.

The Meridian series is a multi-purpose 1100-kilogram near-Earth orbit satellite platform that can be equipped with different instruments according to needs, for functions like infrared remote sensing, space/ground guidance, communication, etc. It can also be launched into a sun-synchronous orbit to provide services to the polar regions.

Mountain is a large satellite platform, weighing around 5800 kilograms, designed for major scientific experiments, providing strong power and cooling support for the required equipment. Its main design purpose is to launch six satellites into geostationary orbit to provide global communication and guidance services, which will be launched by the New Yuan 5A rocket.

In addition, the development is ongoing for the Overhead satellite platform, which operates in near-Earth orbit and weighs 40 tons. It will be equipped with a nuclear reactor to provide power, with an output in the hundred-megawatt range... purpose... top secret.

Actually, there’s a fourth piece of good news. The "Fly Higher" mission to expand the influence of aviation and aerospace was settled based on January 1, and it happened to be settlement time.

Just after midnight on December 31, Lin Ju couldn’t wait to ask the system about the results.

[Long-term mission: Fly Higher

Over the past calendar year, you have made various efforts to strengthen the public’s awareness of aviation and aerospace, leading to human interventions in the policies of multiple space institutions.

Note: Suspected of triggering the event "Space Race," this event will be confirmed when the first rocket to land on the Moon is launched. Registered rockets include: CZ-10, SLS Space Launch System, Heavy Falcon, New Yuan-2A, New Yuan No. 3, H2 Spaceplane, XN90 Spaceship. Competition milestone: before 2019. The event will be acknowledged afterwards, and an extra reward will be provided.

Settlement for the year 2015 has been completed. Reward item: 38% enriched standard uranium rod, model 1977 * 100]

Lin Ju: ...

"Wouldn’t taking them out directly be lethal due to radiation?"

[The 1977 model standard uranium rods are stored in specialized containers; the external radiation level is not harmful to the human body.]

Lin Ju agonized for a long time and felt like extending some heartfelt greetings to the system.

Sure, these 100 uranium rods are incredibly valuable, but what use are they to him now? Sell them to a nuclear power plant?

Every time he thought about how much money he had spent on the mission, Lin Ju felt suffocated.

But upon further reflection, it felt somewhat reasonable—the uranium rods would be needed later for spaceships, and it would be quite expensive to buy them from the state. Consider it saving some money, he thought...

He had been eagerly anticipating for so long, hoping only that the additionally mentioned event "Space Race" would yield a satisfying reward.