Chapter 1260: End of WW1 (1)
After the Dutch surrendered, Vijay no longer remained on the front lines and immediately set off for the empire. Besides, with the fall of Warsaw under his administration, there was nothing he looked forward to in the near term. And since he had decided not to take on the Kingdom of Prussia right away, not to mention that the army had not yet attacked Prussia from its other side, it was not the right time either.
Besides, after reading the intelligence report he had received, he did not even think he would have to return to the front line ever again. In his mind, the end of the European Union was already set in stone.
February 1709
The Bharatiya Army finally reached Oxford in England and began their campaign without wasting even a moment, moving with speed and purpose as soon as they arrived.
In France, Rouen had already been conquered, and without giving the enemy any time to recover, the army immediately set off towards Paris, continuing their advance deeper into the country.
All the troops in the Netherlands completed handing over their weapons, marking the end of resistance, and the Bharatiya army continued to march inland, preparing to set off on a campaign towards Frankfurt in Prussia.
In Spain, several cities had already fallen, and the Bharatiya troops were now only 100 kilometres away from Salamanca, closing in steadily with little opposition left to slow them down.
Alfonso IV continued to put up desperate resistance against the Bharatiya troops in Coimbra, fighting with everything he had, exchanging thousands of lives every single day just to survive and hold his ground for a little longer.
The Italian Federation remained unaffected for the time being, but Doge Leandro Contarini was desperately mobilising all the monetary resources at his disposal, trying to build as many warships as possible and recruit as many conscripts as he could, preparing for the storm he knew was coming.
While all of this was going on across Europe, Vijay finally set foot back in the empire, where he was personally welcomed by several military logistics officers, the prime minister, and his son, Vedant.
Vijay smiled and reciprocated the greeting he was offered, but he came straight to the point, "Is what you said in the letter true?" he asked with eagerness. He knew the chances of his son lying to him were extremely low, but still, he could not help it; the things mentioned in the letter were simply too enticing.
"It is true, father," Vedant smiled, looking at the impatient look on his father’s face. "Would you like to see it?"
"What are you waiting for? Let’s go," He impatiently moved forward.
Seeing that his father had not changed even after all these years, and that he still held the same curiosity for new things, he felt a deep sense of happiness.
"Coming, Father," he called out, hurrying after the old man who walked ahead with a pace faster than that of a young man.
One of the benefits of travelling through a locomotive was that he did not have to deal with the same hangover he experienced in his past life when he travelled through a plane. Not to mention, he slept most of the time, so he was in excellent spirits when he landed in the empire, making him able to travel several hours in the car without any discomfort.
A few hours later, he finally set foot in a secret research facility of the Takshashila Institute of Human Exploration in Sindh.
Vijay, taken directly to the prototype of the engine, was pleased.
He was extremely impressed because it no longer used an inline configuration; instead, it used a horizontally opposed twin configuration, much more suited for the purpose for which the engine was built.
"It has been named Garuda Aero Engine Mark One, father, built to be used in a light aircraft, whose purpose could be reconnaissance or even actual war implementation."
"Has the development of the plane already begun?" Vijay asked with curiosity.
"Yes, father, the group of researchers from Gagana Aerospace and the Bharatiya Space Research Organisation have already begun building a prototype modelled after a bird. When the planning started, this power plant was meant to be its heart, and now that it is ready, testing shouldn’t take too long. By the end of the month, we should finally see whether humans can truly take flight."
Vijay was filled with anticipation, but he did not let himself get too excited over something that had not been proven yet. "How much does it weigh? It’s not the same as Chatushchakra, right?"
"Don’t worry, father, the weight has been carefully accounted for. It does not come anywhere near 300 kilogrammes like the Chatushchakra. In fact, it is even lighter than the first-generation Sangabadi engine, weighing over 167 kilogrammes."
"Just tell me the number. Looking at it, is it 150 kg?"
"Close, but no, it’s only around 90 kilogrammes."
Vijay was surprised.
Vedant had a faint look of pride on his face. After all, he was one of the core researchers behind the project. "And guess its power," he added, his tone once again turning mysterious.
Vijay thought about it, took a closer look at the prototype, and noticed a new part that felt somewhat familiar. Thinking about it for a moment, he suddenly realised what it was, and his eyes widened, but he quickly regained his composure and responded, "Is it around 30 horsepower?"
Vedant was ready for his father to heavily underestimate the power of the engine since it was way smaller than whatever they had built in the past, but hearing him get the number so close, he was a little disappointed. "Almost, it’s 34 horsepower with an operating range of 350 to 1100 RPM."
Even though he had given a number which he already thought was exaggerated, he was still caught off guard when he was off by 4 horsepower.
"I’m guessing this is the reason for the increased power?" he asked as he pointed at the new component of the engine that had never been seen before.
Vedant was surprised that his father was able to immediately figure out the component that led to the massive jump in performance, but he did not think too much about it since his father always had a kind of intuition, a foresight almost, when it came to machines. "Exactly, father, this is what we call a carburettor."
"This is an invention made by Mr Sangapati himself. It is used to create a pressure differential in the intake tract so that the fuel is input into the combustion chamber more evenly while having precise ratios of air to give optimal combustion most of the time."
"When we tested the engine without this component, we discovered that the normal method, where we use gravity to feed the fuel, fails at high altitudes and in directional changes of the flight. We had even sent the engine within a hot air balloon in order to test this, and the result we got was that the combustion did not happen properly at all, and there were even times when the engine straight up choked."
Vijay nodded in understanding. "It’s a very good invention, and it can be used in other engines as well. It looks like Mr Sangapati is going to get his third Dharma Award in machinery."
Just then, something caught his eye, and even he was not entirely sure what this was. "This is?"
"It’s another new component that was built exactly for this engine, father, called the magneto-based spark system."
"Remember when I said in order to test the prototype, we had strapped the engine within the carriage of the hot air balloon and sent it 1000 feet up?"
Vijay nodded
"In that test, along with discovering the problems of fuel delivery, we also discovered the problems of spark generation."
"A dynamo simply cannot produce sparks once the rpm drops under a certain limit, this is not a big problem for engines that work mostly on the ground, but for aerial applications we found it unacceptable, so we had to reach out to Mr Anand Binoy himself, and he helped us develop this dual circuit magneto-based spark system completely independent of the dynamo."
"I read that HeyRam New Materials Pvt Ltd has come up with a new alloy, light in weight but extremely durable and extremely resistant to pressure and temperature. I am guessing the engine is using this alloy?"
"Yes, father, but this alloy is only used for the crankcase; the cylinders are still using the tightest tolerance grade two cylinders, the crankshaft is still using forged steel."
A month later, the prototype of the plane was finally brought out by the group headed by Homi Jehangir Bhabha, along with Satyendra Nath Bose, Meghnad Saha, Vikram Sarabhai, and Satish Dhawan, the original inventors of the Bhagat missile and the permanent staff of the missile programme, along with some help from a private aerospace institution.
With the Garuda Aero Engine Mark One and the plane code-named Vamana B20 officially married, the test was officially conducted in Nagpur.
Vamana B20, from what Vijay saw, was a very mature design that highly resembled a bird, with its fins curved like one and its tail shaped with clear purpose and balance. Unlike the earlier planes from his last life, which had two or three wings, it reminded him of the first military aircraft used during the early wars of his past life, simple in structure, built more for observation than combat, yet marking the beginning of a new kind of warfare where the sky itself had started to matter.
