#头条首发大赛#
It has been almost 13 years since the J-20 debuted, and almost 7 years have passed since the J-20 was officially put into service. According to the model of "production generation, research and development generation, and pre-research generation" in weapons research and development, China's sixth-generation fighter has been developed for seven years, and in the case of neighboring countries successively equipped with fifth-generation fighters, J-20 has been unable to make the PLA maintain absolute air superiority, and China's demand for sixth-generation fighters is becoming more and more urgent.
Recently, the South China Morning Post reported that at an airfield on the southern edge of the Mu Us Desert in northwestern Ningxia, Chinese engineers and scientists successfully tested a manned/unmanned "new concept" design for the next generation of fighter jets. Unlike previous fighter jets, the concept aircraft has a more complex wing design with the ability to deform in the air, and the normal state is a swept delta wing characteristic of high-speed fighters, with a W-shaped layout on the trailing edge. When it needs to be deformed, part of the trailing edge of the wing falls off and becomes two drones with a similar flying wing layout, and the trailing edge of the main wing becomes a large V-shaped shape. In this way, one fighter can be used as three, realizing the integrated and coordinated flight of multiple aircraft with different functions.
In fact, the official has hinted at the fact that China's next-generation fighter has the ability to deform. In 2020, Yang Wei, the chief designer of J-20, once said: The aircraft of the future may be like the Transformers in science fiction movies. In 2022, Yang Wei said again: In the near future, people will see J-30 and J-40.
And this design of large aircraft with small aircraft appeared during the Cold War. After the advent of jet fighters, although the speed and climb performance of fighters have been enhanced, the early jet fighters faced a serious problem, that is, the high fuel consumption rate of turbojet engines, resulting in a large limitation of jet fighters' air time, and it has been difficult to provide long-term escort for bombers like the P-51 propeller fighters of that year.
In those years, when US strategic bombers wanted to bomb the major cities of the Soviet Union, they often had to fly thousands of kilometers, which made US escort fighters beyond their reach. At that time, Soviet fighters were generally equipped with large-caliber cannons, and they also had a very strong ability to damage strategic bombers with rough skin and thick flesh, and if there was no fighter escort, the US bomber force would have suffered heavy losses. So the American designers had a whimsical idea to develop a "parasitic life" that could be carried by bombers. The design idea is to develop a small fighter jet, when the bomber is on duty, this fighter hangs on the belly of the bomber on standby, encounters the Soviet fighter, the bomber will release the fighter, let these parasitic fighters against the Soviet fighter, and wait until the mission is completed, and then the bomber will recover the fighter. In this way, the problem of the inability of fighters to escort bombers for a long time was solved.
Later, the United States created a pocket fighter called XF85 "Imp", with a length of only 4.53 meters, a height of 3.35 meters, and a wingspan of 6.43 meters. And later test flights also proved that this idea is very unreliable, first of all, the performance of the pocket fighter is very limited, and it can be seen from the appearance that the maneuverability is very average, let alone escort when encountering Soviet fighters, and even protect yourself can't do it. Secondly, the air time of the pocket fighter can only last for half an hour, even if it can survive the fierce air battle, the remaining amount of fuel may not be able to sustain the successful recovery, because the control technology at that time was not mature, once the pocket fighter is released, the success rate of the use of the recovery device is very low.
Later, as the performance of surface-to-air missiles continued to increase, the number one enemy of high-altitude bombers changed from interceptors to surface-to-air missiles, and it no longer made much sense to continue to equip pocket fighters, and the XF85 project was eventually abandoned.
China's sixth-generation concept aircraft designs part of the wing as a drone with independent flight ability, avoiding the problem of additional drag when installed in other positions, and when mounting a drone, it is also equivalent to increasing the wing area and improving the overall lift of the aircraft.
Fighters should be additionally equipped with UAVs, which will certainly not be to escort themselves, but greatly expand the flexibility of fighters, such as under the command of the sixth-generation aircraft, the UAV can act as an outpost aircraft and explore the path in advance for the sixth-generation aircraft in front. In the era of stealth fighters, the distance between fighters to find each other is getting shorter and shorter, and whoever exposes the target first will be at a disadvantage, and the UAV is equivalent to helping their own sixth-generation aircraft in front of the eye, expanding the detection range of their own sixth-generation aircraft, and at the same time, it can also help their fighters attract firepower, and in the case of the enemy firing first to expose the target, to achieve the second strike.
In addition, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has proved that modern air defense weapons have posed a serious threat to fighters, and it is difficult for fighters to escape the blows of high-performance anti-aircraft missiles with only maneuverability and limited electronic jamming capabilities. On the one hand, UAVs can lure enemy anti-aircraft missiles to fire in front of them and mark high-risk areas for their own fighters, on the other hand, UAVs can also carry ammunition or incarnate as cruise missiles to directly attack enemy air defense positions. The reserve amount of long-range anti-aircraft missiles is relatively limited, a launch vehicle usually has only 4-8 spare bombs, and when the Ukrainian army attacks the Russian S400 air defense system, it usually uses drones and cruise missiles to consume the Russian army's air defense missiles first, and the tactical ballistic missiles finally arrive on the battlefield to complete the lore of the Russian air defense system. And 1 Chinese sixth-generation aircraft can carry 2 UAVs, and 4 Chinese sixth-generation aircraft can use UAVs to suppress enemy air defense systems.
And judging from the flying wing shape of the UAV, it itself also has good stealth performance, and in the future it can even carry air-to-air missiles, penetrate the enemy's air defense network, and hunt the enemy's early warning aircraft and tanker aircraft under the guidance of the sixth-generation aircraft.
However, there are still certain technical risks in this design, the XF85 pocket UAV developed by the United States during the Cold War is hung on the central axis of the fuselage, and the bomber usually flies steadily, so the UAV has little impact on the flight state.
The sudden separation of the UAV on the wing will lead to a drastic change in the aerodynamic focus of the fighter, coupled with the turbulence of the airflow during the separation process, which can easily lead to the loss of control or even crash of the fighter. In the 50s of the last century, the US Air Force tried to fix two fighters to the left and right wingtips of a bomber, however, during the actual tests, a strong wingtip vortex appeared, which caused the fighter to crash with the bomber.
If you want to safely launch the drone, this requires the carrier aircraft to work the aerodynamic shape and flight control algorithm. In the more extreme case, if the dropping device fails, resulting in one wing dropping the drone out, and the other wing remains in its original state, the fighter's flight control system must be able to ensure that the aircraft can return smoothly and complete the landing in the case of unbalanced lift on both sides.
Therefore, if you want to realize the above concept, it requires the research and development country to have a very deep foundation in aerodynamic design and flight control writing, just these two aspects are precisely China's strengths, you can question China's engine technology or material technology, but compared to aerodynamic design and flight control writing, the Chinese have not served anyone on the Blue Star, J-20 is the best proof.
According to the South China Morning Post, the sixth-generation concept aircraft used the FCC-100 flight control computer developed by Northwestern Polytechnical University, which can complete complex calculations in a short time, and then issue highly reliable control instructions to the control system, coupled with the rudder with rapid response ability, which is enough to ensure the flight safety of the UAV in the process of separation. It is precisely because Northwestern Polytechnical University now has very high attainments in the field of national defense that US intelligence agencies have tried to infiltrate the university's computer network many times in recent years in order to obtain China's top-secret scientific and technological information.
Judging from the limited public information, the overall layout of China's sixth-generation aircraft is much more streamlined than that of the J-20, without canards and horizontal tails, and the use of a pair of V-shaped vertical tails with large angles and inclinations is responsible for fuselage stability, and the air intake is suspected to be designed above the fuselage. From these materials, it can be seen that China's sixth-generation aircraft will no longer pursue maneuverability, but pay more attention to the stealth performance and supersonic flight ability of the aircraft, and use the drone carried with it to expand the multi-purpose performance, which is not only a fighter, but also a "pilot aircraft", but also a command aircraft.
Yang Wei, the chief designer of the J-20, once said in a university speech in October 2023 that the current war is not the era of pursuing "mobility is king", but "information is king, intelligence is king". This shows that China's next-generation fighter may not have a complex aerodynamic shape, but it has stronger stealth performance and an integrated and intelligent control system, and the pilot has changed from controlling the aircraft in the past to sitting on the aircraft to control the drone and other systems, and the control of the aircraft is handed over to the intelligent aircraft itself.
The current fighter has entered a bottleneck in terms of maneuverability, because the human body's ability to withstand is limited, resulting in the maximum overload of the fighter is usually limited to 10 G, and the continuous overload capacity is maintained at 7G, which is very good, and the pilots who can withstand more than 10G overload are rare. The UAV does not have this limitation, the maximum overload that the UAV can bear, depending on the strength of the airframe, the future air combat will gradually evolve into unmanned, manned fighters in the rear as decision-makers and commanders. Now China's sixth-generation concept aircraft has also begun to pay attention to the combination with UAVs, proving that China is already leading in this regard.
Although many fifth-generation fighters also have plans to fight with UAVs, such as Russia's Su-57 and the "Hunter" large UAV. However, the relationship between fifth-generation aircraft and UAVs is more like the relationship between long aircraft and wingmen, which is restricted by the range and speed of UAVs, and is very limited in performing tasks.
China's sixth-generation concept aircraft integrates UAVs and fighters into a combat system, and UAVs are equivalent to a module of fighters, which greatly reduces the requirements of UAVs for fuel carrying, and in the case of limited UAVs, more space is used to enhance performance. Moreover, the integration of the drone and the fighter jet also greatly reduces the distance detected by the enemy's radar, even if it is exposed, the original 1 target will suddenly become 3 targets, and the opponent will be caught off guard.
Of course, at present, the world still does not have a unified concept of the sixth generation fighter, in the past, China can touch the United States and Russia to cross the river, whether it is J-7, J-10 or J-20, in the design will refer to the advanced fighters of other countries, but when it comes to the development of the sixth generation fighter, there is no model for Chinese researchers to learn from, which puts forward high requirements for the innovation ability of Chinese scientific researchers, at least from the current situation, Chinese researchers have come up with a number of good ideas.