In the previous issue of the "Perspective Early Warning Machine" column, we took stock of the development history of the two large land-based early warning aircrafts of the Soviet Tu-126 and A-50. It can be said that under the guidance of the correct principles, there were no major mistakes in the overall planning of the Tu-126 and A-50.
However, in the development of light carrier-based early warning aircraft, the Soviet Union's planning was not successful. In the end, not only wasted a large amount of resources, but also failed to form satisfactory technical achievements. The root cause of this result may be that the use scenarios of light carrier-based early warning aircraft are not clearly defined, which has led to the sway and hysteresis of relevant plans.
For the Soviet Union, does early warning aircraft have to be on the ship?
As a special aircraft, the use scenarios of early warning aircraft are very targeted: for a vast country like the Soviet Union (Russia), a light early warning aircraft largely means a carrier-based early warning aircraft.
On land, large early warning aircraft such as the Tu-126 and A-50 have more advantages than light early warning aircraft. A larger engine means that it can support more power and more complete airborne radar systems, and a larger range can also achieve target search/tracking and air command within a larger range.
But in aircraft carrier battle group , the role of carrier-based early warning aircraft is very prominent. In addition to providing aircraft carriers with over-visual low-altitude target detection capabilities, carrier-based early warning aircraft can also provide air conditioning support and command and dispatch tasks for the carrier-based fighter fleet with hundreds or even thousands of kilometers in front.
Therefore, for countries with a vast territory and territorial waters, the development of light carrier-based early warning aircraft must be based on the development of carrier-based capabilities, and more precisely, it needs to be coordinated with the R&D and manufacturing of aircraft carriers.
The Soviet Union's "Gorshkov" aircraft carrier (pictured above), was later modified and sold to India, and was named "Vicramatia" (pictured below). Soviet Navy can only use "carrier cruisers" that are non-length decks, can carry helicopters and vertical take-off and landing aircraft for a long time. One of the core considerations is to form a significant difference from conventional take-off and landing aircraft carriers in the West.
For a long historical period, the Soviet decision-makers linked the development of aircraft carriers to political ideology. For example, Khrushchev clearly defined aircraft carriers as " bourgeois 's aggressive weapon." This led to the Soviet Union taking many detours in the research and development direction of aircraft carriers.
Although the Soviet Union launched aircraft carrier research and development plans since the 1960s, until the late 1970s, the Soviet Navy still had to promote the development of aircraft carrier projects in the name of "carrying cruisers". During this period, the Soviet aircraft carrier project has experienced a lot of debate and twists and turns, but has not yet reached a conclusion on issues such as "whether aircraft carriers should be done" and "whether design focus should be on ship-borne sensors and weapons, or whether carrier-based aircraft operations should be the main focus".
Therefore, in the 1960s and 1970s, although the Soviet Navy continued to try to promote the carrier-based early warning aircraft project, and multiple aviation factories proposed their own different plans, due to the unclear overall route of aircraft carrier development and repeated sway, the development of Soviet light/carrier-based early warning aircraft also mainly stayed in the theoretical and planning stages.
US S-3 carrier-based anti-submarine aircraft
In the 1970s, the Beryev Design Bureau designed a carrier-based early warning aircraft code-named P-42. Overall, the fuselage platform of the P-42 is similar to the Lockheed Martin S-3 aircraft; but in 1976, due to the death of former Soviet Defense Minister and former Soviet shipbuilding industry, the P-42 project lacked impetus, the death of the P-42 project.
P-42 imaginary image produced based on public information. Since the turbofan engine performs far less than the turboprop engine at stationary or low speeds, the P-42's power system actually cannot meet the weight needs of carrier-based early warning aircraft takeoff, especially in the context of huge weight and volume of Soviet airborne electronic equipment.
By the early 1980s, due to the tremendous changes in the political and economic situation inside and outside the Soviet Union, the development of light/carrier-based early warning aircraft began to get on track.
, especially the fifth Middle East War of , which broke out in 1982, , the US E-2A early warning aircraft played a crucial role: the battlefield airspace surveillance capabilities it provides, allowing the Israeli Air Force to fight against the Arab countries equipped with large numbers of Soviet aircraft on its own, and achieved an overwhelming victory.
E-2C is the benchmark target for the Soviet light early warning aircraft.
The situation of the Fifth Middle East War had a great impact on the Soviet decision-making level. The Soviet Ministry of Defense decided to merge the former Ministry of Aviation Industry and Ministry of Electronic Industry , and proposed to develop light early warning aircraft models similar to E-2 aircraft, and the performance level should be consistent with the latest version of E-2C at that time.
But at this time, since the aircraft carrier development route still has a high degree of political sensitivity, the design goal of boarding the ship was not taken into consideration at the beginning during the demonstration of the new light early warning aircraft project at that time.
-71 early warning machine. radar is installed in fairing above the vertical tail, completely eliminating the obstruction and obstruction of the vertical tail on the antenna. The upper-mounted engine can increase the lifting effect, effectively shorten the take-off and landing distance, and is very conducive to the take-off and landing of the harsh runway. However, from the perspective of carrier-based aircraft, the degree of strengthening of its performance cannot meet the requirements of ski jump takeoff, and these characteristics will also affect the height control of the entire aircraft after the wings are folded.
From 1982 to 1983, the Soviet Union determined the research and development plan for the An-71 light early warning aircraft. It is worth noting that the An-71 is a pure land-based model. In other words, although the An-71's initial target was E-2 early warning aircraft , since it did not have the need to board the ship, it finally chose a power form that was very different from E-2 and aerodynamic layout .
At the same time, the Soviet Union's aircraft carrier research and development path took a major turn, and the decision-making level decided to develop conventional take-off and landing aircraft carriers. This transformation brought about the aircraft carrier platform plan equipped with carrier-based early warning aircraft projects, which was later the USS Kuznetsov and the USS Ulyanov nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with catapult .
This dramatic transformation has put the An-71 in an embarrassing position of being unable to turn back but not being able to board the ship. Although the Antonov Design Bureau then spent a lot of effort to study the carrier-based aircraft modification of the An-71, its basic layout has determined that its carrier-based aircraft modification will not be successful. Therefore, after only three prototypes were manufactured, the An-71 project was terminated.
Radical, correct but untimely new aircraft platform
Jacques-141 vertical take-off and landing aircraft, pay attention to the two lift engines in the red circle.
At this time, the carrier-based early warning aircraft plan of the Jacques Design Bureau became the "last hope". The relevant research of the Jacques Design Bureau began in 1979, and there were many innovative designs with "brained ideas": for example, the Jacques Design Bureau considered installing four vertical lift engines in the cabin of a carrier-based early warning aircraft, but in the end it was given up because the aircraft really couldn't provide such a large amount of space and weight redundancy.
Jacques-44E appearance diagram. Although we refer to E-2, it can be seen that the specific designs of the Jacques-44E's radome installation and lifting, wing folding method, landing gear, etc. are all significantly different from those of the E-2.
Although the appearance is similar to the American E-2 early warning aircraft family, the Jacques-44E body is very different from the E-2 from the size, weight to the power system.
Jacques-44E's maximum take-off weight reaches 40 tons, which is a full 60% higher than the E-2C's less than 25 tons. The larger body also gives the Jacques-44E a surprisingly comfortable and has designed a seating area with a bathroom and a bed. However, in terms of wing area, the Jacques-44E (88 square meters) is only 35% larger than the E-2C (65 square meters).
In order to compensate for the increase in tonnage and make up for the lack of catapult acceleration when used on ski jump aircraft carriers, the Jacques-44E is equipped with a D-27 engine with a single-engine power of up to 5145kW (there are also reports that the engine used by this aircraft is D-227).
In order to absorb such huge power, when the propeller cannot be made very large in diameter, the Jacques-44E also adopts a counter-rotating propeller design with front 8 blades and rear 6 blades.
Jacques-44E's 1:1 model.According to the original plan, the aircraft will be equipped with a Doppler pulse radar developed by the Moscow Institute of Instrument Engineering Science, with performance better than the AN/APS-138 radar carried by the E-2C.
From the above main design indicators of Jacques-44E, it can be seen that this is the newly designed aircraft model by the Soviet Union in order to realize the shipboard. It is precisely because of its new identity that the Jacques Design Bureau comprehensively investigated multiple design directions and finally determined this plan. Obviously, from aerodynamic design to engine selection, and even to the work and resting places of the crew, the Jacques Design Bureau has carefully designed and laid out.
To be fair, the formulation of Jacques-44E's indicators is relatively radical. Especially the take-off weight of the 40-ton class is an extremely severe test, whether it is the power demand for aircraft carrier catapults or the safety redundancy in unfavorable situations such as single-engine failure during ski jump take-off.
However, based on the historical background at that time, the Soviet Union had stumbled on the development of light/carrier-based early warning aircraft for more than 20 years. Compared with the previous P-42 and An-71, the Jacques-44E is obviously a more likely early warning aircraft model, and is therefore entrusted with the high hope of "achieve the results in one battle".
Unfortunately, although the design performance of the Jacques-44E is quite outstanding, the real performance that this model can achieve cannot be verified: during the construction stage of the Jacques-44E prototype, disintegrated in the Soviet Union.
In the following two years, the Russian government tried several times to restart the development of Jacques-44E, but in the end, due to economic reasons, it officially gave up the development plan of Jacques-44E in 1993. Since then, until 1995, the Jacques Design Bureau has been struggling to seek potential international buyers and trying to regain support from the Russian Navy, but these efforts have ended in failure.
Among the several carrier-based early warning aircraft plans, the Ka-31 helicopter project, which has the least risky but the worst performance, has become the basis for the early warning capabilities of Russia's aircraft carrier, and all fixed-wing solutions have died.
is now "reviewed" at this historical node today: with the influence of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, if the research and development of light carrier-based early warning aircraft is paid attention to and anchored as soon as possible, this dilemma of investing a lot of resources but gaining nothing can be completely avoided. The successful research and development of a type of aircraft certainly depends on the accumulation of engineering and technology, but it requires coordination with the macro-national power development strategy in order to truly shine in the global aviation manufacturing industry chain and withstand the test of the sky and history.
