Chapter 190: 189, Taishan Airlines Earthquake Relief, Aftershocks And Dive Bombing Of The Gat-tian Lake Dam
Taishan Airlines took collective action, and Fang Wen used his own financial resources and material resources to carry out this rescue.
Although time was tight, the four airplanes fully loaded with a total of 8 tons of supplies, under the lead flight of the Shrike Hao that he was piloting, landed one after another on the temporary stone slab runway outside the county government.
They were all flight apprentices brought out by Fang Wen, and they were quite tacit in their unified action.
The first Boeing 247 to land on the stone slab runway was immediately approached by people to unload disaster relief supplies, then the pilot would refuel on-site with the carried fuel, and then take off.
Only after the previous one took off could the next one continue to land, and in this way, the three Boeing 247s completed the supplies transport and began to form up for return to base, while only Pan Jiafeng’s airplane stayed in place to carry out the follow-up mission.
This was the first collective transport action of Taishan Airlines, and Fang Wen was very satisfied with it, as it meant that in future wars, Taishan Airlines would be able to take on more responsibility.
After the three Boeing 247s flew away, Fang Wen piloted the Shrike Hao and also landed on the stone slab runway.
However, this time, he landed very carefully, trying to minimize the jolts.
After all, there was a 70-kilogram bomb mounted under the fuselage.
The bomb weight exceeded the standard!
This was a choice made to ensure the explosive power.
For the same volume, a 50-kilogram tinplate napalm bomb fully loaded with bullet propellant would weigh more.
That was because the fuel density was 0.8 grams per cubic centimeter, the gel gasoline density was 1.0 grams per cubic centimeter, but the propellant density was 1.4 grams per cubic centimeter.
Therefore, to fill a 50-kilogram class tinplate napalm bomb, 70 kilograms of propellant were needed, which also increased the power by 40%.
But even if the power increased by 40%, it was still necessary to find the appropriate mechanical weak point of the gat-tian lake.
Fang Wen parked the airplane well, and the people arranged by the county government placed a ladder next to the cockpit. He got off the airplane and walked towards the Boeing 247 nearby.
Outside the Boeing 247, Mr. Pan Jiafeng and Mr. Lin Liang had already gotten off and were talking with county government members.
Fang Wen came over and asked Pan Jiafeng: “Should I introduce the two gentlemen?”
Pan Jiafeng nodded: “I already did.”
Fang Wen walked over and talked with the county magistrate.
“There’s a bomb with huge power under the airplane I flew in. I went to great lengths to get it; it’s very precious, just this one. Have your people watch it carefully, and don’t let any mishaps happen.”
The county magistrate glanced at the oval large object under the Shrike Hao and involuntarily stepped back half a step.
“Rest assured, I will arrange personnel to protect it and post a notice to prevent those reckless people from causing trouble.”
The county magistrate went to make arrangements, and knowing it was a bomb, no one would dare to mess around.
Fang Wen had Pan Jiafeng stay behind, while he and the two gentlemen Lin Liang quickly headed to the county annals room of the county government.
The county annals room had the most complete local information, where two professors from the geology department of Tsinghua University were researching the information.
The addition of the two Lin Liang provided them with some new perspectives.
Experts from two different fields conducted extensive discussions after reviewing a large amount of local information.
Fang Wen listened on the side, always feeling that something was missing.
It seemed different from the knowledge he had learned in the future.
Exactly what was different? He tried hard to recall.
Got it.
“Why don’t you consider the earthquake cause produced by plate tectonics?”
“What plate tectonics?” The two geologists were very surprised; they had never heard of this term.
No way, hasn’t the plate theory appeared yet?
For the gat-tian lake problem, Fang Wen braced himself and said: “I heard it from someone else too. I’ve only met that person once, and we’re not close. He said the earth’s surface is constantly moving, just very slowly, imperceptible to humans. But the surface movement isn’t uniform; it’s divided into different plates, and due to different movement directions and forces, collisions and compressions occur.”
Such words would be fanciful nonsense to others, but in front of geology experts, it was a bold and novel academic viewpoint.
Based on this academic viewpoint, the two geology department professors made new inferences about the current situation.
“If there really are plates, this earthquake makes sense. The Tibetan Plateau to the west may have been formed under different plate movements, and the low terrain of the Sichuan Basin may also be related to plates. No wonder the terrain difference between the two sides is so great.”
“Conversely, the Tibetan Plateau, with its enormous elevation, produces powerful potential energy, thereby compressing this area. So earthquakes are frequent here due to the interaction of two geological forces.”
The old and young geology professors discovered a new academic continent and became as happy as children.
Fang Wen coughed twice: “Let’s think about the gat-tian lake first.”
The two geology professors immediately became serious and began new inferences.
“If the earthquake here was produced by different geological forces, the follow-up issue is that there will still be aftershocks. Aftershocks can cause secondary landslides, increasing the gat-tian lake’s height, thereby forming greater silted water potential energy, or cause the gat-tian lake to collapse, flooding the downstream with released lake water. Therefore, as long as aftershocks occur, it’s not good for the gat-tian lake.”
Just as he was speaking, there was a muffled boom.
Immediately after, the ground began to shake.
“It’s the earth sound; there’s another aftershock.” The geology professor exclaimed.
Earth sound is the strange noise produced when seismic waves from underground reach the surface and contact the air.
The alert Fang Wen was the first to react, quickly pushing the four experts out of the room.
The five ran out of the county government and arrived outside.
Fang Wen first checked the airplane situation.
The two airplanes were fine; the guards and onlookers knelt on the ground, shouting: “Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva has shown his miracle.”
This time it wasn’t the city god, and who knows who elevated the immortal’s status symmetrically.
They even thought the strange sound just now was made by Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva’s divine beast.
Immediately after, the ground shook repeatedly one after another; even standing on flat ground, bodies felt unsteady.
In the distance, a building collapsed with a roar.
Gat-tian lake!
Fang Wen and the four experts thought of it at the same time.
They must go check as soon as possible.
Fang Wen originally wanted to fly the Shrike Hao over, but then negated the idea—what use would he be going alone? The experts needed to observe the gat-tian lake situation to make reasonable judgments.
“Let’s get on the airplane and go to the gat-tian lake side.” He said, then quickly ran towards the Boeing 247. The four experts followed closely behind.
Pan Jiafeng said eagerly: “I’ll go too.”
Fang Wen thought for a moment; the four experts weren’t familiar with the inside of the aircraft and needed someone to accompany them, as it would be inconvenient for him to fly, so he agreed.
Everyone boarded the airplane; the county magistrate and county government staff mobilized together, clearing the people on the road to the sides, thus giving the airplane room for takeoff run.
The airplane jolted during takeoff run, building up takeoff potential energy; this was a very difficult process to control, as the ground had become more complex due to the secondary earthquake.
Fang Wen, who entered the mechanical perception state, had more sensitive judgment, and at the moment of reaching takeoff potential energy, decisively ascended.
The airplane flew up, over the county town houses, towards the gat-tian lake upstream of the Min River.
Looking down from high altitude was the best way to understand the urgent situation.
Here, there were mountains everywhere; gorges between mountains formed the Min River channel.
On both banks of the river channel were townships and the county town.
Once the gat-tian lake above collapsed, the surging lake water would sweep downstream, flooding all villages and the county town along the way.
The airplane flew upstream along the gorge river channel and arrived at the gat-tian lake location.
Fang Wen controlled the airplane to descend in altitude and decelerate as it passed over the gat-tian lake.
Pan Jiafeng guided and assisted, saying it was better to observe through those windows.
The four experts carefully observed the situation below and began drawing diagrams.
Their drawing methods were different, but they all wanted to record the situation using their own expertise for discussion.
During the airplane’s low-altitude back-and-forth flight, Fang Wen was also watching the situation below.
Landslides had occurred on the mountains on both sides due to the earthquake, with falling stones and debris flows converging into the low-lying gorge, blocking that section.
It was because it was blocked here that the Min River, originally just a trickle, was cut off, with a large amount of river water silted here forming the gat-tian lake, which according to county government people was dozens of meters higher than before.
And now, this gat-tian lake dam dozens of meters high had become even higher under the impact of aftershocks.
The higher it was, the more lake water accumulated, and the greater the threat to downstream.
（The gat-tian lake site back then）
Flight observation ended, the airplane returned to base, and the four experts immediately began a new round of discussion.
This time, the two architecture professors Lin Liang took the lead.
“The gat-tian lake dam has an S-shaped structure. We use the arch crown beam method for analysis, treating the arch dam as composed of a series of horizontal arch rings and a series of vertical beams, calculating the stress of each part through the arch beam load-sharing method.”
The two gentlemen’s idea was to treat it as a large dam under construction and calculate the stress using artificial building methods.
They judged that the left end of the S-shaped structure had a weak stress surface, making it easier to destroy.
Subsequently.
The geology professor added that the local rocks should mainly be diorite, which was also the main material of the gat-tian lake dam.
Diorite is a type of granite, composed of plagioclase and various ores, with a darker color and grayish tone.
Its Mohs hardness is 6-7.
Iron’s hardness is 4-5, meaning its hardness is higher than iron.
Therefore, the shockwave from the explosion must accurately envelop the target to loosen it, rather than destroying these hard stones through explosion.
After reaching the conclusion, the pressure was on Fang Wen.
He needed to carry out precise bombing at the left end of the S-shaped gat-tian lake dam, because there was only one bomb, and it had to hit the target on the first try.
Fang Wen took the bombing structure diagram drawn by Mr. Lin and examined it carefully.
The four experts fell silent, knowing how much pressure this put on Fang Wen.
Pan Jiafeng walked over concernedly: “Master, I believe you can definitely do it.”
Fang Wen looked up with a smile: “That’s what I think too. Rest assured, I will definitely succeed.”
His reply was full of confidence, infecting everyone.
Everyone busied themselves for this; once the gat-tian lake bombing succeeded, the released lake water, though not as massive as in the future, would still impact the townships and cities downstream.
The residents of villages and towns along the way must be temporarily evacuated as soon as possible.
For this, the county government and kind-hearted people in the city went to the villages and towns along the Min River downstream channel, organizing locals to temporarily withdraw.
After doing all this, it was already a day later.
The gat-tian lake had risen another section.
Everyone watched as Fang Wen boarded the Shrike Hao and took off again.
Without prior training, even the most experienced pilot wouldn’t dare say they could definitely hit.
Fang Wen wasn’t 100% either; his probability compared to other pilots should be 90% versus 70%.
That was already enough.
Not to mention, after continuously absorbing the mysterious power of the amber cross, there was still much untapped potential.
He now wanted to verify how much he had improved.
The airplane traveled through the high air at 370 kilometers per hour.
This speed was the fastest among current aircraft.
Fang Wen, who had fully activated mechanical perception, felt he still had spare capacity.
To pursue hit rate, he abandoned high-altitude bombing and switched to dive bombing.
Dive bombing was jokingly called the brave man’s suicide game by pilots, a bombing action exposing oneself within the enemy’s effective shooting range.
Although accuracy improved, the danger coefficient increased exponentially; it was an unconventional flight tactic.
Fang Wen had practiced it, and the Shrike Hao was perfectly suited for dive bombing.
The dive bombing tactic he had specifically practiced appeared in his mind.
It was an extremely radical operation: diving towards the target at over 45° dive angle at high speed, pulling up the airplane at very close range to the target, and dropping the bomb simultaneously.
With this angle and timing mastered, no complex aiming device was needed, and the hit rate was many times that of normal airdrop bombing.
For Fang Wen, it was mainly about grasping the timing to pull up the fuselage and drop the bomb; nothing else was difficult.
He took a deep breath.
Began the first bomb drop attempt.
The Shrike Hao suddenly pushed down the fuselage from 4000 meters altitude, with a dive angle exceeding 60 degrees.
The airplane dived at high speed, aiming at the left side of the gat-tian lake dam.
Just as it was about to pass over the gat-tian lake dam at 400 meters altitude, the fuselage suddenly pulled up.
After the bomb drop attempt, Fang Wen judged that the dive process and pull-up angle were fine, but the timing to pull up the fuselage was off, likely causing the dropped bomb to overshoot the gat-tian lake dam and fall into the river water ahead.
If pulling up at 300 meters altitude, the hit accuracy should be very high.
After this judgment, Fang Wen attempted again.
This time pulling up the fuselage at 300 meters; to outsiders, it would look like it was about to crash into the ground, yet miraculously arced upward.
After the second attempt, Fang Wen felt ready to proceed.
He flew back to 4000 meters altitude, took a deep breath, and entered mechanical perception again.
Merging as one with the Shrike Hao, he transformed into a fierce little bird in the sky.
Echoing the Ming Dynasty poet Yu Qian’s 《Shrike Hao Ode》: “In the war-torn era as a shrike, transforming form and spirit is wondrous.”
In an instant, the airplane plunged into the gorge, yet swiftly flew out.
Just as the airplane flew out of the gorge, the dropped bomb accurately hit the gat-tian lake dam.
The 70-kilogram tinplate bomb, filled entirely with propellant for high density and high combustion efficiency, exploded instantly upon triggering by the detonator mercury fulminate.
The shockwave instantly shredded the tinplate, then affected the gravel on the dam surface.
This explosive force caused the gat-tian lake dam to loosen.
And under the potential energy of the high water level of the gat-tian lake, it finally collapsed.
A gap appeared, small water jets spurted out, followed by gravel being flushed out by water energy, then large stones.
At the moment of collapse, the gat-tian lake could no longer block the Min River water, and massive water flow swept away.
Fang Wen, circling in the air observing, couldn’t help worrying about the downstream situation.
