"The weather has cleared up and the rain has stopped, and Da Ying feels that he can do well again." The British sixth-generation aircraft project once stole the limelight, but reality slapped him in the face...
Virtual cockpit, one-click VR driving avatar Unmanned fighter jet , The top speed is Mach 5... The newly unveiled British sixth-generation fighter "Tempest" plan can be said to have stolen the limelight at the Farnborough Air Show that year, and it did not forget to step on the United States in its promotion. A kick "F-22 is not the opponent of Tempest at all "
Over the past few years, the fog shrouding the "Tempest" has dissipated, and the bullshit that has been blown out will definitely not be taken back. This has also become the British aviation industry in recent years. The most embarrassing memory.
(The "Tempest" was first unveiled at the air show in 2018, but no rainbow was seen after the storm)
The human aviation industry began in the early 20th century and has gone through more than a century today. Britain is one of the earliest participants and leaders in this game. It also produced the Spitfire, Hurricane fighter, and Lancaster four-engine long-range bomber during World War II. It also produced the " "Harrier" is an export star equipment.
But today's era is different from the past, and the requirements for advanced equipment manufacturing are constantly increasing. For the players participating in this equipment upgrade competition, 's past glory cannot be the capital to show off today .
(The Spitfire is the shining pearl of the British aviation industry. It can be hailed as the best piston fighter in World War II and has established immortal achievements)
Many people often have some unrealistic "expectations" for the British aviation industry , maybe Because their past achievements were too dazzling, when they launched the sixth-generation machine plan, they had the illusion that "China, the United States, and Russia are just that" and " and the British Empire and are back."
At the end of World War II, aircraft had just entered the jet age from propellers, and Britain still held a leading position in jet engines . In the 1950s, Britain successively developed the "Vulcan", "Warrior", "Victor", and strategic bombers . In the field of civil aviation, the United Kingdom created the "Comet" with a top speed of 740 kilometers per hour, setting a world record at the time.
What the British aviation industry is most proud of is the "Concorde" airliner that has achieved twice the speed of sound. This is the only supersonic civil aviation airliner in the world that is actually put into use.. In short, before the 1970s, the British aviation industry was at least the second or third largest in the world, second only to the United States and the Soviet Union.
(Concorde and the Tu-144 of the Soviet Tupolev Design Bureau are the only supersonic passenger aircraft put into civil aviation in the world. It only takes 3 hours to fly across the Atlantic)
British military aircraft were developed after the war A very serious mistake was made. Sixty years ago, ignored the fact that its post-war national power was gradually weakening and its colonies around the world were collapsing. developed and equipped a large number of various types of aircraft with similar performance and large quantities. After the 1960s, as Britain's national power continued to decline, a large number of aircraft projects under development were discontinued. Finally, they were successfully developed. The only fighters and attack aircraft equipped by the army were the Predator and the Harrier.
was finally forced to purchase the American F-4 "Phantom" fighter jet in 1970. In this way, the
Harrier fighter jet entered service in 1969 and the European joint development program of the Tornado fighter jet launched in the same year, eventually became an independent development project in the UK. The swan song on the road of fighter .
(The last independently developed Harrier was 2 years earlier than the collapse of the British aerospace engine industry in 1971)
The time came to 1991. In April, the American Lockheed Martin Company's YF- 22 prototype design plan eventually developed into the F-22 "Raptor" fighter jet that spanned the ages. marks that the development of human air force fighter jets has entered a new era.. The four "S" set by the United States have become the standards for fifth-generation aircraft, namely: Stealth, supersonic cruise capability, super maneuverability, and super information. Advantage.
Subsequently, China and Russia, which can continue to run on this track, began to catch up for many years. Finally, in 2010, the T-50, the first sixth-generation fighter of the Russian Aerospace Forces, made its first flight (named Su-57 in 2017). The "Black Ribbon" J-20 of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force made its first flight successfully on January 11, 2011, was finalized in 2014, and was officially commissioned into the army on February 9, 2018.
(Fighter fighter generation standards vary from country to country. Since the Russian standard is always one generation higher than the American standard, the Americans who couldn’t stand the loss finally changed the fighter aircraft generation to the fifth generation.)
As of today, there are only The fifth-generation aircraft are: American F-22A, Russian SU-57, Chinese J-20 and the "bad street" version F-35 which can only meet the 3 "S" standard and is common to all countries. It is conceivable that the development of the fifth-generation aircraft is a vast, cumbersome, sophisticated and extremely costly defense project. Once successful, the benefits will be substantial, and the threshold is also very high.
It has extremely high requirements on a country’s comprehensive industrial system and technological level, as well as the funds that can be invested. Because it is top-secret national defense equipment, outsourcing and joint development of shared responsibilities and cost sharing are not feasible. It can only be self-developed, self-made, and self-produced, and ’s advanced and complex manufacturing technology determines that its cost will never be low.
( wind tunnel used to test aircraft . Building a wind tunnel requires the joint efforts of multiple scientific research fields. The technology is complex and difficult. In fact, many countries cannot even reach this step)
has gone through expensive research and development before. , the final fifth-generation aircraft that can be mass-produced is still at a price that makes ordinary people tremble at the sight of it. The US F-22A is US$150 million per unit, the Russian SU-57 is about US$50 million to US$70 million, and the Chinese According to foreign military media speculation, the price of a J-20 is about 110 million US dollars.
As the most advanced fighter jet available in the advanced arms market, the F-35 has a unit price of nearly 200 million US dollars (and is only sold to allies of the United States and "friendly countries" it considers, and comes with a large number of additional terms) I thought By joining the joint research and development program, European countries can share costs and reduce final procurement costs. In the end, they have to pay the Americans obediently.
(Although the price is ridiculously high, the F-35 is still hard to find)
Looking back at the UK, it has independently developed a fighter jet for itself since 1979. Although the UK is responsible for the F-35 fighter project With the research and production of fuel systems, electronic warfare systems, anti-jamming systems, escape systems, low-observability antennas and other sub-components, is still far from being able to independently manufacture fifth-generation aircraft.
As fifth-generation aircraft from various countries gradually enter service and mature in application, everyone has turned their attention to the next-generation fighter jets, namely the sixth-generation fighter jets. However, no country has yet been able to produce a sixth-generation fighter jet. As for the specific performance indicators, everyone is constantly groping in the dark.
(One of the imaginary diagrams of the sixth-generation fighter aircraft in the United States. What the final opportunity for the sixth-generation fighter will be is still unknown)
In many discussions, various countries have specific directions for the concept of sixth-generation aircraft. Although they are divided into two major factions, there are One thing is clear to everyone: the sixth-generation machine is not a patchwork of the previous five-generation machine, but a qualitative leap.
- Drone: The air combat AI is fully mature and can be put into actual combat. Compared with manned aircraft, drones are not limited by the upper limit of the human body's biological functions. can make maneuvers that far exceed those of human pilots.
Secondly, AI will react faster than humans and capture target information more accurately. Finally, the appearance of unmanned aerial vehicles will also become simpler and lighter due to the elimination of human pilots and the need to design cockpits and life support systems.
-Traditional manned aircraft: omnidirectional stealth, twice the speed of sound cruise, longer radar detection range. The sixth-generation fighter may completely abandon its cannon weapons and become an aircraft using missiles, drones and small laser weapons. It will mainly rely on the small drones it carries to complete ground strikes and close range strikes. Air-to-air combat.
(Mature AI will completely change air combat, and even the mode of human warfare)
Just from the "Tempest" model displayed at the air show BAE, although in terms of overall appearance it is similar to the F22/35 of the United States, Russia, and China The Su-57 and J-20 are different, but it still has the traditional aerodynamic layout of manned aircraft, and is very similar to the appearance of BAE's early "replica" fighter jets. The aerodynamic shape of
is that of a traditional manned aircraft, and the body of the aircraft has not been greatly improved. This shows that the radar electronic system used is still at the current technical level and has not been significantly improved. It even directly uses part of the technology of the F-35. The only highlight of is that it adopts the DSI air inlet , which is popular in new fighter jets and can also improve stealth performance.
(The position of the radar and other electronic systems on its nose is not much different from the current mainstream fifth-generation aircraft)
Moreover, the model aircraft displayed at the air show is obviously still in an extremely early stage and is a purely technical concept. You can't see the key structures such as flaps, ailerons, and tail rudder that are necessary to control the aircraft. You can't see any structure that looks like it's equipped with a vector engine on the nozzle where the engine is installed.
The design of the nose landing gear gives people a top-heavy feeling, which is very unreasonable. has not disclosed the combat content of the fighter jet, and the magazine does not display , so we have no way of knowing whether it uses the traditional cannon + missile mode or a more advanced drone-assisted combat.
If the "Tempest" airframe design is lackluster and lacks the innovation that people expect, then what BAE focuses on "touting" is its new cockpit design that it claims can greatly improve combat effectiveness. The cockpit of the model aircraft at the air show can be said to be It's very detailed, and at first glance it seems quite innovative.
(The display can only be seen when wearing a helmet, full of science fiction feeling)
In the cockpit of the "Tempest", like common contemporary fighter planes, there are display panels in front of and on both sides of the pilot, but on ordinary fighter cockpit panels There will be pointer instruments, multi-function display and other equipment. while "tempest" only has one panel in black .
As for the real airborne display, requires the pilot to put on the helmet before the AR image with data will be displayed on the head-mounted display ... It sounds like it is more cumbersome than the previous traditional display and helmet HUD display. This indeed enhances the ability to perceive a wide range of environments, but will it become more troublesome during maintenance and ground maintenance?
According to BAE's view: the virtual cockpit is lighter than a real cockpit with a display, so can save weight in the design. Secondly, using the virtual cockpit has better upgrade potential, and the display content can be changed at will. The cost of upgrading will be significantly lower than that of traditional displays.
(In the past, there were a lot of dashboards and monitors on old fighter planes, and they were often jokingly called: watch shops)
Although it is said that the weight is reduced, it is somewhat forced to increase the height, because the weight of the onboard monitor is really small compared to the fighter itself. Worth mentioning.But can change the display content and display structure at will, which is indeed progressive . In the history of fighter aircraft upgrades, there have indeed been times when more and more displays were added as fighter planes continued to be upgraded.
But with contemporary aircraft With the enlargement and multi-function of the onboard display, the new airborne display system has basically taken shape. The display of various information of can also be easily realized on the airborne display by changing the corresponding program.
(The large screen display on today’s F-35 is very close to the “advanced” features emphasized by BAE)
What is very puzzling is that since helmet-mounted displays and AR technology are used, various pilot needs should be more closely integrated Only when the visual information is integrated. As a result, BAE did completely cancel the traditional display with , but also virtualized a "traditional display" in the AR display. How does this make me feel? ——I am playing " Ace Combat "
(If this is similar to the final effect claimed by BAE, my evaluation is worse than not changing)
"Tempest" other technical features, including the so-called "more advanced radar" ", sensors" and "new flight control system" and so on. In terms of design concept, cannot be said to be completely different from the contemporary fifth-generation aircraft, it can only be said to be exactly the same as . In the field of fighter technology, new technologies are often relied upon to surpass the previous generation.
Under the current circumstances, the "Tempest" obviously did not achieve this, and under such a premise, it began to call itself the "sixth generation" fighter of . The smell of 's self-promotion and stinking commercial hype is overwhelming. Come.
"I need the Soviet Union, the Party Central Committee, the State Planning Commission and the Industrial Military Commission, as well as 9 defense industry departments, more than 600 related majors and more than 8,000 supporting manufacturers. In short, a great country can be completed"
That year Makarov Factory Director stood at Nikolaev Shipyard and sighed at the unfinished aircraft carrier Riga, which also applies to today's British aviation industry. With an economy that has turned away from reality and a broken industrial system, is neither possible nor worthy to complete such a great work that spans the ages.
