[Military Martial Plane] Author: Lele
Recently, the Air Force sent a team composed of J-10C, J-7A, and J-500 to go to Thailand to participate in the joint military exercise. This is a very rare overseas operation after the domestic Air Police-500 early warning aircraft was put into service. Coincidentally, the AVIC delegation, which recently participated in the military forum in Russia, also exhibited a high-definition model of the KJ-500, indicating that this advanced equipment has entered the export equipment sequence. In fact, although the KJ-500 is not very concerned by the outside world due to its small size, its combat performance is actually not under the large early warning aircraft of the KJ-2000 that has attracted much attention from the outside world. And after the large-scale service of the KJ-500, public opinion was able to use -20 as a dedicated large-scale early warning aircraft for the development of the body, and may not appear again.
▲KJV-500 model for participating in exhibitions abroad
In the 1970s, a series of technologies for the operation of radar in the air were broken through. The US military successively launched advanced early warning aircraft such as E-2C and E-3, while the Soviet Air Force developed A-50 early warning aircraft in a targeted manner. The performance of these models is greatly improved compared to earlier early warning aircraft. It can monitor the actions of opponents' air teams and guide their teammates to act, so it is called the second generation early warning aircraft. Among all second-generation early warning aircraft teams, they are generally divided into medium-sized and large-scale according to their body shape. The former is often based on medium-sized propeller transport aircraft, with limited battery life, radar operating range, and monitoring/command targets. It is mainly equipped with air force with limited economic and technical strength, or ship-based models such as the US-made E-2C that are restricted by operating platforms.
▲E-2C carrier-based early warning aircraft landed on aircraft carrier
In contrast, large early warning aircraft often use large military transport aircraft and large civilian passenger aircraft as platforms. All indicators significantly exceed medium-sized early warning aircraft, but the economic burden is relatively large, and generally only relatively advanced air force can bear it. Judging from decades of development and use of second-generation early warning aircraft, the scope of medium-sized early warning aircraft can cover is very limited and often can only undertake tactical tasks. Large early warning aircraft are the real strategic responsibility. The full combination of the two is an ideal model to balance combat effectiveness and economic fields. This is also an important reason why China launched the large-scale KJ-2000 and medium-sized KJ-200 at one time when domestic early warning aircraft were developed in the early 21st century. However, since the platform of the KJ-2000 is an introduced Il-76 large transport aircraft and is a special model transformed by Russia (it was originally used for the "Felcon" project to cooperate with Israel), there are only 4 KJ-2000 aircraft in total.
▲The number of domestic air warning-2000 is relatively small. The number of
The number of too small limits the performance of the air warning-2000, and also makes the outside world have great expectations for the third-generation large-scale domestic early warning aircraft transformed with the Y-20 as the platform, which is not limited by the number of platforms, after the domestic air warning system started to be put into service in 2016. However, few people realize that the times have become different. With the US-made F-22A stealth fighter initially forming combat effectiveness in 2005, how to deal with stealth fighter jets has begun to become a problem that air forces in various countries must face. With the first flight of the Russian-made T-50 prototype and the Chinese J-20 stealth fighter , the US Air Force, which originally had a unique position, also had the same worries as other countries. This is related to the competition for air supremacy , and the need to determine the success or failure of national defense will eventually be transferred to new early warning aircraft developed by various countries.
▲The US-made F-22A stealth fighter has ushered in a new era
Israeli "Sea Eagle", American E-2D, and China Air Police-500. These are currently recognized as only three active third-generation early warning aircraft. What is interesting is that these three are medium-sized fuselages, which are completely different from the situation in the previous generation of early warning aircraft equipment sequence, where large early warning aircraft are the main force. Technically speaking, the reason for this situation is of course the third-generation medium-sized early warning aircraft, which has been able to complete the tasks of the previous generation of large early warning aircraft. Specifically, the typical technical advantages of large early warning aircraft are long battery life, large radar diameter, and many internal facilities.However, after 2010, the rapid development of technology has greatly increased the speed of communication, network and information processing. The command and guidance that originally needed to be completed within the early warning aircraft can be transmitted to the ground command center for completion, and the demand for the number of processing equipment in the aircraft has been greatly reduced.
▲KJ-500 has entered the ranks of the world's most advanced early warning aircraft
Secondly, the performance of early warning aircraft onboard radar has been further improved with the changes in the operating mechanism of the new phased array radar. Even medium-sized aircraft such as E-2D and KJ-500 can reach the traditional detection limit of 400 to 450 kilometers. Theoretically, the radar working distance of the mainframe can be further extended, but when the performance of other equipment in the existing air combat system (such as fighter jets and air-to-air missile ) has not been substantially improved, the detection distance of the early warning aircraft is only increased, and the lack of cooperation has led to low tactical benefits. Moreover, the emergence of stealth fighter jets has also made early warning aircraft pay more attention to anti-stealth combat distance, not just combat distance. Finally, the air stagnation time of the early warning aircraft is a key performance in actual combat, which is directly related to the level of early warning and surveillance on the battlefield. However, the propeller transport aircraft is already known for its good economic performance. Although its oil carrying capacity is relatively small, there will be no fundamental gap in overall view.
▲E-2D early warning machine is a typical
for old platforms and new equipment. More importantly, while the performance reaches a certain level, the small size of the medium-sized early warning machine has significantly reduced its radar reflection cross-sectional area, which is conducive to the survival of the stealth era; the digital and grid-based design has also led to a significant increase in its monitoring ability for stealth targets; the decline in platform tonnage has further reduced the production and maintenance costs of early warning machine, and the demand for software and hardware for take-off and landing airports has also decreased, expanding the scope of use. Therefore, medium-sized early warning aircraft is actually the most reasonable design of advanced early warning aircraft in the future. It is not impossible to develop special large-scale early warning aircraft based on large air platforms such as the Y-20, but it is too wasteful.
▲Y-20 derived will no longer be a dedicated early warning machine
Since medium-sized early warning machines can meet equipment needs, it is very luxurious to develop large-scale special early warning machines. Therefore, in the future, the large electronic warplane developed with the Y-20 platform in China should be a multi-functional model. While part of its energy to undertake air early warning and command tasks, it will further expand its applications in ground surveillance, communication relay, joint command of multiple arms, and truly become a mobile air joint command platform. The most reasonable design is to truly become a mobile air joint command platform. This change is similar to the fact that the ultimate model of the medium-sized J-10 is limited by its size and is still mainly air combat. The J-16 developed by the heavy J-11 is a multi-purpose model that is both air-to-sea/ground. The reason is similar. In this case, the electronic model derived from the Y-20 can no longer be simply called an early warning machine, and it may even become a new model creatively.
