Castle of Black Iron - Chapter 603

Chapter 603: Five-Element Ground-look Sutra
When Zhang Tie steadily landed the man-powered plane, a lot of people swarmed up at once .



As citizens of Hoorn Republic, these engineers felt pretty happy when they witness so many marvels concerning gliders in such a short period .

Several months ago, Zhang Tie created a marvel in this base by foot . However, today, he created another marvel by only sitting in a glider . Compared to the first marvel, the second one was more inspiring .

"Can we make it lighter?" soon after Zhang Tie got off the man-powered plane had he asked those experts from the Hoorn Republic .

"We used a very expensive light alloy to make this man-powered plane . Although its shape looks like that of WindTalker, its internal and external structures and raw materials had been greatly optimized . Therefore, although we added a set of variable transmission gears and some actuators inside this man-powered plane, we decreased its weight to 670 kg . It's the best we can do . " An expert explained to Zhang Tie .



After hearing this expert's explanation, Zhang Tie knew that someone had already posed the concept of manufacturing man-powered plane a long time ago in the Hoorn Republic, which was crazy about flight . Many people in the Hoorn Republic had fantasized about providing a driving force to a glider to make it a real man-powered plan with stepping pedals like riding a bicycle .

Actually, all those who had posed similar thoughts had failed . There were mainly two reasons for failure . Firstly, the man-powered plan was too heavy, which could almost not be driven by a human . Secondly, even though they could barely produce a very light man-powered plane, its performances could not even match that of common gliders . Nobody in the Hoorn Republic thought that could be qualified as a plane .

Many years ago, the Hoorn Republic had already made a man-powered plane using canvas and some light alloy . They controlled the weight of the man-powered plane within 150 kg . However, its best achievement in trial flight was 37 km's distance within 5 m in height .

After that light man-powered plane failed its trial flight, the engineers and glider fans in the Hoorn Republic reached a conclusion, in this age, the man-powered plane had to be designed with an excellent structure featured with an optimal lift-drag ratio and aerodynamic configuration . However, if a glider satisfied these conditions, it would weigh at least 700 kg . This posed a very high requirement to its driver . Besides being a top glider driver, he should have unrivaled strength and endurance .

It could be said that the man-powered plane was waiting for the right man .

The Hoorn Republic was a mini country, whose total population could not even match that of Blackhot City . Therefore, it was very rare to have powerhouses above LV 10 in this country .

Zhang Tie's advantage could be described as follows: those who had greater strength and endurance than him could not pilot gliders better than him while those who could pilot gliders didn't have greater strength and endurance than him .

In many powerhouses' eyes, glider sports was a very low-end and populist . Most of those who liked this sports were commoners . Few people above strong fighters would fly gliders when they were free . In commoners' eyes, glider sports were interesting . However, in powerhouses' eyes, it was as boring as playing mahjong . When they were free, they preferred to cultivate so as to promote to a new level or advance to knights .

Given the combined factors, Zhang Tie finally became the first person who could drive a man-powered plane to fly into the sky by foot .

After having crew members carry 1000 vials of all-purpose medicament off the Idiots and gift them to the Glider Base of Hoorn Republic as his gratitude, Zhang Tie left the Glider Base .

This time, the experts and engineers of the Hoorn Republic produced three man-powered planes for Zhang Tie in total . However, one of them was a prototype which could fly but had faults . Therefore, the prototype was left in the base . Zhang Tie carried away the other two man-powered gliders, a pile of detailed manufacturing blueprints and parts which were used for replacement and maintenance .

When driving a man-powered plane, Zhang Tie needed only to pay attention to the set of variable transmission gears . However, that set of gears had to be maintained with lubricating oil . According to those experts and engineers from the Hoorn Republic, even Zhang Tie stepped pedals of man-powered plane 10 hours a day, the set of gears would have no problem in a decade . Because the set of gears were top industrial products in the Eastern Continent, whose durability and precision could even match that of gears in different machines .

After staying in the Glider Base of the Hoorn Republic for a few hours, it was already dusk . When Zhang Tie returned to the Crystal Battle Fortress using the Idiots, there were already two bright moons in the sky .

Major General Ford had already waited 4 hours for Zhang Tie in the Crystal Battle Fortress . Soon after Zhang Tie returned to the base of the Crystal Battle Fortress had Major General Ford boarded on the Idiots .

. . .

Zhang Tie met Ford in the command module of Idiots once again .

"Major General Ford, it seems that you've got a gift for me?" at the sight of Major General Ford, Zhang Tie had already focused on the metal box in Ford's hand . A metal chain linked the box with Ford's right wrist . It looked very valuable .

After throwing a glance at Zhang Tie, Major General Ford placed that box on the table . He then input the code and opened it . After that, he took out of a piece of diamond crystal being covered with a silvery metal and passed it to Zhang Tie .

Soon after Zhang Tie took it had he injected a strand of spiritual energy into it . In a split second, Zhang Tie saw some Chinese characters——"五行地像经(Five-element Ground-look Sutra)" in his mind .
. . .