Rebirth of the 1980s: The Military Industry Empire

The J-11 has already emerged and is now ready for service, so what about the J-10? What is the progress of the J-10? For Qin Yang, he is more eager to see this domestically developed third-generation fighter be built as soon as possible.

To promote the J-10, Qin Yang has also done a lot of work, such as pointing out a lot of problems with the David people's Lion fighter, and then letting them spend money to ask our side to help blow the wind tunnel to solve it, such as surveying and imitating the French single-rotor engine, so that Lao Song can use this mature engine first. However, the development of a fighter jet is bound to be a lengthy process, and it is impossible to come out in a short period of time.

Hearing Qin Yang's words, Old Lin said: "They are still developing it. The appearance has already come out. The key is the flight control. After all, the canard layout fighter must use fly-by-wire control to be tamed. They are planning to build an iron bird test rig to test the flight control."

Upgrading from hydraulic operation to fly-by-wire operation involves a series of problems that require a lot of arduous exploration. In later generations, China first used the JJ-6 to modify the variable stability aircraft BW-1, and then transformed a K-8 trainer to explore various flight control laws. Even the Northern Institute built a J-8 with fly-by-wire operation to relax static stability. After a series of preparations, the J-10's flight to the sky is still full of twists and turns.

Not to mention the current 1980s, without any preparations, directly tinkering with the J-10 will inevitably require a lot of arduous efforts. This cannot be rushed.

"Okay."

"Lao Song and the others are doing something that our aviation people have never done before. I also admire him," Old Lu said. "Although we have now completed the task of surveying and imitating the Tomcat, we will not stop here. We will also conduct reverse engineering and strive to fully master the technology of this aircraft, and then we can improve it. In the future, we will definitely use fly-by-wire control."

Old Lu is a person who likes to get to the bottom of things. To do scholarship, you have to do it thoroughly. Although the J-11 fighter can already fly, they dare not move anything. It is almost just copying it exactly, which is impossible to improve.

The next step is to thoroughly understand the technology.

In later generations, the Northern Institute in China started with surveying and imitating the Su-27. However, they could not fully understand the complete technology of the Su-27, and the country had to continue to purchase the Su-30, and even purchase the Su-35, in order to continue surveying and imitating. There have even been many storms and repetitions in the process, which made the troops gnash their teeth.

Now, Old Lu and the others will not make this mistake. They want to thoroughly understand the technology of this aircraft.

The first person in China to do this was Old Song. During the process of surveying and imitating the MiG-21MF, he wanted to do it positively, recalculate everything, and thoroughly understand the technology. However, Old Tu did not want to do it, because it would waste too much time. The Air Force had promised so well, but it might change its mind.

Sure enough, things were as he thought. Old Song led the team to develop it positively and mastered all the technology. However, the Air Force did not want it. Old Tu was most depressed. Those aircraft that had already started production on the production line were all produced by Factory 132 with its own funds, and all went down the drain.

In the surveying and imitation of the Tomcat fighter, this kind of mistake cannot be made. First, copy it like a cat, and imitate it first. But after the imitation is successful, you must not lie on the results and sleep soundly. You must continue to thoroughly understand the technology.

After all, the Tomcat fighter was developed by the Americans in 1967 and put into service in 1972. Many of the technologies used at that time were old, such as the operating system, which only had hydraulic operation. Although the variable sweep wing was controlled by a computer, the other operating systems were no different from second-generation aircraft.

In that era, this was normal. Even in the 1980s, the old Maozi's MiG-29 was still hydraulic, and the Sukhoi Design Bureau's Su-27 also planned to use hydraulic. However, after the plane crashed, they had no choice but to use fly-by-wire, which was still analog fly-by-wire.

If this aircraft is handed over to the Northern Institute, not to mention their slow surveying and imitation, but even after the surveying and imitation is completed, it would be even more difficult to improve it.

Looking at how long they took to change the J-8's nose intake to side intakes, and then looking at how long it took for Old Lu to do it, you can see the technical gap between the two sides.

Looking at Old Lu, without his own reminder, he is about to start reverse engineering, thoroughly understanding all the technology above, and then improving it.

"The airframe platform of the Tomcat fighter is very excellent. There is a lot to be done to improve this aircraft," Qin Yang also joined the discussion. "For example, it has a two-seat layout, so it is easy to be improved into a fighter-bomber."

Even excellent heavy fighters, even if they ensure that not a single gram of weight is used on things unrelated to air combat during development, will be modified into bomb trucks in the later stages.

The F-15 is like this. It was originally built as an air superiority fighter, but in the F-15E, it became an excellent fighter-bomber. The Su-27 is also like this. After existing as an interceptor for several years, it began to build ground attack aircraft on two-seat trainer aircraft, becoming the more popular Su-30.

What about the Tomcat?

The mission of the Tomcat is to carry Phoenix missiles and intercept the overwhelming old Maozi bombers. It can be said that it is more like a fighter-bomber, but in the later F-14D, it was also converted into a multi-purpose fighter that can carry bombs for ground bombing.

If it weren't for other factors, the Tomcat fighter would definitely be able to live for several more decades.

Now that the Tomcat fighter has arrived in the East and become the J-11, it is logical to improve and upgrade it on the basis of this fighter. Moreover, this aircraft was originally a two-seat layout, with a dedicated weapon operator in the back, which makes it more convenient to improve.

"That's right, this also requires the help of our Factory 960. After all, the radar on it was surveyed and imitated by you. If you want it to have ground bombing capabilities, then you have to improve it."

If you want to bomb the ground, you must have advanced electronic equipment.

The main thing is the radar. The radar must have terrain mapping function, and it can form a ground shape map on the radar screen. The pilot can fly according to the terrain. If there is fly-by-wire operation, and it can be linked with the radar, you can even hand it over to the electronic system to fly. Pull up where needed, turn at the right place, and the pilot only needs to take care of the takeoff and landing, and doesn't need to worry about anything else.

At the same time, bombing data can also be loaded before takeoff, and the entire bombing process will be automatic at that time. This can refer to the Mirage 2000. The French aircraft already has this function. As long as the route is determined on the ground computer, and then the data is stored on the airborne computer, it can automatically fly according to the planned route, which is quite powerful.

Okay, it's Factory 960's job again. Qin Yang nodded: "Of course, our Factory 960 is willing to cooperate with our Factory 320 to transform the weapon system and turn the fighter into a fighter-bomber. However, the problem of external hardpoints has to be solved by you."