What kind of early warning aircraft is equipped with the aircraft carrier Liaoning and Shandong ships, has always been a hot spot for military fans. Not long ago, CCTV News exposed photos of the interior of the cabin of my country's new shipborne early warning helicopter Straight-18Y. The video has undergone a certain coding process to obscure the confidential content on the display, but this photo still caused widespread heated discussion.
Picture: Zhi-18 carrier-based early warning helicopter, the antenna of the early warning radar adopts the rear-mounted type, and put it down when it needs to operate, and put it away when flying.
The screenshot of the news video shows that the Zhi-18Y early warning helicopter has ample internal space. In addition to the two pilots, there are four battle positions in the command cabin with four radar operators sitting. This is a comparison among the shipborne early warning helicopters. superior. In contrast, in addition to the two pilots of the Ka-31 helicopter in active service in Russia, there are also two radar operators in the command cabin.
Figure: CCTV news straight -18Y early warning helicopters interior photos, screenshots of thanks: silence goat.
The Zhi-18 helicopter has excellent platform performance. As an early warning helicopter developed from the Zhi-8 transport helicopter, the biggest advantage of the Zhi-18 is that it has a very large internal space and a relatively large take-off weight, so that the helicopter can accommodate more avionics and tactics. Information processing equipment, generator sets and technicians. The 4 crew commanders in the CCTV photos should be 1 commander, 1 radar operator (and mechanical maintenance division), and 2 air formation commanders. In comparison, the Russian card-31 early warning helicopter is much smaller.
The maximum take-off weight of the Zhi-18 early warning helicopter reaches 13.8 tons. The power system is driven by three turboshaft-6C engines. Under the abundant power of three engines, the flight speed reaches 336 km/h, the maximum liter The limit is 9000 meters, and the maximum range is about 900 kilometers.The transport type of the Zhi-18 helicopter can carry 27 fully armed personnel, but after being transformed into a ship-borne early warning helicopter, the cabin needs to accommodate huge radar avionics equipment and generator sets, as well as equipment such as air intelligence consoles. Therefore, the command cabin can only carry 4 people.
Picture: Russia’s Ka-31 early warning helicopter with poor platform performance. my country introduced a small number of Ka-31 early warning helicopters in the late 1990s, which are mainly equipped with guided missile destroyers for command operations of surface ships and target instructions for anti-ship missiles.
Russia’s Ka-31 early warning helicopter can only take two radar operators, so its ability to control air information and command operations is weak, and the coordination functions of the command team members are incomplete, and they can only take care of key tasks. Therefore, the Ka-31 can only be regarded as a large radar reconnaissance aircraft, and its command function is not powerful. The Ka-31 early warning helicopter has a maximum take-off weight of 11 tons, a maximum flight speed of 226 km/h, and a range of only 600 kilometers. All these flight data are completely lower than the Zhi-18 early warning aircraft.
"Grey-backed Falcon" HM Mk2 early warning helicopter equipped with the British aircraft carrier, equipped with "Crow's Nest" radar on the side.
The command capability of the Zhi-18 carrier-based early warning helicopter is better than that of the US-made E-2 fixed-wing early warning aircraft. Judging from the situation of the cabin battle position, the command capability of the Zhi-18Y has already caught up with the E-2 Hawkeye early warning aircraft. Although the U.S. E-2 early warning aircraft has a relatively large maximum take-off weight, it is a fixed-wing early warning aircraft, but the internal space is not comparable. The Zhi-18 is much superior, especially the E-2 is also carrying a huge radar antenna, and its mechanical mechanism takes up a lot of space. The crew of the E-2 AWACS consists of 5 people. Except for the two pilots, there are only 3 people in the command cabin.
For a long time, the air command capability of the American-made E-2 AWACS has been criticized, and some people even ridiculed that the E-2 is just a "flying Yagi antenna." In fact, the E-2 early warning aircraft continues the US Navy’s main understanding of carrier-based early warning aircraft: commanding and detecting enemy surface formations and low-altitude flying targets, a large number of radar signals need to be transmitted back to the mothership for processing.This is related to the birth of the U.S. carrier-based early warning aircraft. The earliest combat mission of the U.S. carrier-based early warning aircraft is to take off and detect enemy bomber formations entering at low altitudes beyond the sea horizon and the enemy surface fleet beyond the sea horizon, and coordinate the formation of its own ships. action. Although the E-2 early warning aircraft has more mission types, the essential mission has not changed. Therefore, the U.S. Navy does use E-2 as a flying reconnaissance radar.
E-2 early warning aircraft can only command a maximum of two tactical flight formations, that is, four fighter jets in a high-intensity war. The only three technical personnel on board were the commander, the radar operator and mechanical maintenance division, and an air intelligence commander. These three people couldn't be deployed when the combat mission was heavy, so the U.S. military gave the radar operator the role of a second air intelligence commander. But in this way, the task burden of the radar operator exceeds the load.
In contrast, the command capability of the Zhi-18Y early warning helicopter is slightly stronger than that of the E-2 early warning aircraft, which is relatively rare among early warning helicopters. In addition, the Zhi-18 has better avionics performance and has networked nodes. Combat capability, the AESA active phased array radar equipped on the aircraft has good detection accuracy and performance. The Zhi-18 has better air situation control and tactical command within the combat radius than the E-2.
The earliest early warning aircraft in the world was the navy's carrier-based early warning aircraft. At that time, the main task of the carrier-based early warning aircraft was to find low-altitude targets and enemy ship formations, and achieve early warning of attacking enemy aircraft and enemy ships. The picture shows The early TBM-3W early warning aircraft of the US Navy was deployed on the VC-11 early warning aircraft squadron on the "Badong Strait" aircraft carrier in 1949.
The air situation control of the Liaoning ship equipped with the Z-18Y early warning helicopter is stronger than that of the French Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier . Although fixed-wing early warning aircraft have many advantages, they still need a certain number to be reflected. In fact, the Liaoning ship equipped with four Z-18Y early warning helicopters has better control over air conditions than the French Navy’s Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, because the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier only carries two E-2C early warning aircraft .
E-2C AWACS has a blanking time of 4 hours. A flight crew can carry out up to 2 ejection missions per day. In actual combat operations since World War II, the maximum average number of attacks per day of aircraft carrier fixed-wing AWACS crews is only 1.5 times. In actual combat operations, it is impossible to ensure that all aircraft are in a complete state at all times. Therefore, in order to ensure the attack rate on the large nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in the United States, they are generally equipped with four E-2 early warning aircraft to ensure that they have the opportunity to cover 24 hours a day.
The Charles de Gaulle is equipped with only 2 E-2 early warning aircraft. It can only dispatch a maximum of 4 early warning aircraft per day. Under normal circumstances, it can only dispatch a maximum of 3 sorties, which means that it can only cover 12 hours a day. This means For half of the day, there is no early warning aircraft, even if there is, there is only one early warning aircraft, and that one E-2 early warning aircraft has only three commanders.
The Liaoning and Shandong ships rely on 4 Z-18Y early warning helicopters. According to the calculation of 1.5 sorties per day by an early warning aircraft, the normal number of dispatches of 6 sorties per day can be obtained, which can basically cover the air to sea 24 hours a day. Reconnaissance and air intelligence command.
In actual combat, the navy fleet is in constant high-speed maneuvering and does not know the specific position of the opposing fleet. At this time, the carrier-based early warning aircraft cannot keep detecting in one direction according to the maximum combat radius, but has to Use paper clips or circular routes to continuously patrol the flight at a distance of 200-300 kilometers from the aircraft carrier, and use radar to detect surrounding sea and airspace. Therefore, the coverage period of the early warning aircraft is far more important than the flight radius. From a certain point of view, the four early-warning helicopters of the Liaoning ship with better radar performance, more commanders, and longer coverage of the airspace, are actually superior to the two E aircraft carriers of France’s Charles de Gaulle. -2 AWACS aircraft.
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