Armor-Piercing Munition: Face Me, Carbon-Based Monster!-Chapter 567 - 290: Airport Plan

While Huang Meng, Yu Qian, and Guo Xu’s teams were advancing the Netway Plan at full speed and doing their utmost to connect ground passages, a discussion about "transportation" was also taking place in Mountain City.

Chen Jian sat in the combat command room, quietly listening to the report from Lei Jie, who was far away at Base 011.

"....So, considering the current situation comprehensively, in fact, it’s not impossible for us to promote large-scale ground transportation infrastructure construction, but the cost-benefit ratio is relatively low."

"Currently, the situation faced domestically is consistent with the situation faced by America before the cataclysm."

"That is, sparsely populated with vast lands, complex ground environments, high construction difficulty and requirements, and a severe shortage of equipment and personnel."

"Therefore, if we want to rebuild a nationwide transportation network, it’s practically unachievable."

"According to the current situation of population, resources, and equipment, I have already instructed Fu Xi to perform an accurate calculation."

"If we want to build a nationwide traffic network that can accommodate large equipment, it would take more than 50 years."

"And that’s on the premise of rapid population growth and widespread education."

"If we settle for less, only requiring the construction of basic unpaved roads to ensure road safety, it would still take over 10 years."

"And this 10-year time frame is based on the fact that we invest more than 20% of our available workforce."

At this point, Lei Jie paused slightly, then continued:

"Will these investments be recoverable?"

"To be honest, yes."

"However, the expectation of recovering the costs is based on the premise of long-term human persistence and long-term development."

"A very simple numerical calculation, assuming building a road costs 50 yuan, and in each following year, we can recover 1 yuan in benefits, then to reach the breakeven point, it would still take at least fifty years."

"According to the outline of the Seed Plan, we actually do not have 50 years."

"Therefore, in my view, such large-scale infrastructure work is of no great significance to us."

Upon hearing this, Chen Jian slowly nodded.

Indeed, it’s pointless.

In fact, even the "Netway Plan" that he proposed, is merely intended to utilize existing simple roads to create a relatively safe environment for the relocation of low-armed civilian groups.

As for large-scale infrastructure?

Don’t be joking.

Given the domestic geographical conditions, let alone large-scale infrastructure, even repairing pre-cataclysm infrastructure is almost an impossible task.

Otherwise, the Huaxia Army wouldn’t leave so many existing transportation infrastructures unused and instead open up new routes themselves.

Some bridges cannot be crossed, some furnaces are impassable.

Even repairs are impossible.

Do you really think building a bridge is easy?

This is not something that can be done by choosing one of having a large population, strong industrial capacity, or strong organizational capabilities.

All three are needed simultaneously.

Take a look at a certain neighboring eastern country?

Therefore, Chen Jian had no objection to Lei Jie’s judgment.

After a brief silence, he asked:

"So your suggestion is...to build an airport?"

"That’s right!"

In the video, Lei Jie nodded solemnly, then replied:

"Building large airports is currently our best option."

"Firstly, in terms of purpose, the main, and even the only purpose in the foreseeable future, for us to urgently need transportation infrastructure, is for large-scale population relocation."

"And ’population’ as a ’divisible’ cargo, just happens to match the air transport method."

"If we can fly more, we transport more; if not, we transport less, it’s very flexible."

"Secondly, the technical path for developing airports aligns with the technical path we currently have."

"Objectively speaking, we have already established a relatively mature aircraft production process system."

"Moreover, after the subsequent development of piston engines is completed, the fault tolerance will be even higher."

"Preliminarily estimated, starting from this month, we can complete the production of 3 electric drive aircraft per month."

"After the piston engines are grounded, at least 5 long-range, heavy-load transport aircraft can be manufactured per month."

"Within just three months, our air transport capacity can expand to a scale of more than 30 aircraft."

Is this a fairly...conservative figure?

In fact, according to Fu Xi’s report, the capacity of producing 5 aircraft a month is far underestimated.

If the industrial manufacturing capabilities of Mountain City and Base 011 are fully liberated, not just 5, even 10 can be manufactured.

The only problem is, there aren’t that many pilots.

Of course, this isn’t really a big problem either.

With full network coverage, takeoff and landing can be roughly solved by swarm robots.

Furthermore, as not many complex flight missions are needed, the speed of pilot training is also accelerating.

Totally feasible!

With this in mind, Chen Jian asked:

"According to your estimation, within three months, what level of transport capacity can we reach?" 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

"That mainly depends on site construction."

Lei Jie replied:

"From the perspective of transport capacity alone, 30 transport aircraft can provide us with the ability to transport 1600 to 1800 people per day."

"Of course, not all populations and all areas need to rely on air transport, with water and land transport as supplements, the daily passenger delivery capacity should exceed 3000."