"Military and Military Sub-Plane" Author: Lu Zhi
003 The aircraft carrier has been launched for a while, and there are many speculations about this aircraft carrier. As an aircraft carrier, the most concerning thing is not the aircraft carrier itself, but the carrier-based aircraft carried on the aircraft carrier. The carrier-based aircraft can be regarded as the real core of the aircraft carrier. Judging from some news currently known, the main carrier-based aircraft carried by the No. 003 aircraft carrier in the future will include the J-35 stealth fighter, the J-15 ejection multi-purpose fighter, and the Air Police 600 early warning aircraft plus some helicopters. Compared with the U.S. aircraft carriers at their peak, our country has fewer carrier-based aircraft in both quantity and type. On the one hand, this is because the overall size of our country's carrier-based aircraft is relatively large, and on the other hand, the tonnage of the aircraft carrier is not as good as that of the American super aircraft carrier . Not only that, our country also lacks a carrier-based aircraft with a very low status but a very high importance, which is the carrier-based transport aircraft. Recently, news has circulated on the Internet that our country is conducting a landing assessment of carrier-based transport aircraft. So what are the advantages of carrier-based transport aircraft? Which model of transport aircraft will our country finally choose?
▲Picture source: Internet.
The carrier-based transport aircraft is essentially a light transport aircraft, and its transport capacity is not even as good as some helicopters with larger tonnage. Generally speaking, it is mainly responsible for transporting various ammunition and key components such as aircraft engines. Of course, it can also transport some important personnel and cargo. The most famous carrier-based transport aircraft in the United States is the C2 Greyhound. The origin of this transport aircraft is very interesting. In order to improve the combat capabilities of the fleet, the United States developed the E2 Hawkeye early warning aircraft. The key components of the early warning aircraft are the early warning radar and the operators inside the aircraft. Therefore, the early warning aircraft and the transport aircraft have many things in common, that is, the body is relatively It's relatively large and has plenty of internal space. As early as the early 1960s, the E2 early warning aircraft had successfully made its first flight and was delivered to the U.S. Navy in 1964. It has been used for more than 50 years today.
▲E2 and C2 fly together. The layout of the two is basically the same, and the C2 body is thicker. Image source: Internet.
Not long after the E2 early warning aircraft entered service, the United States developed the C2 Greyhound transport aircraft based on the E2 early warning aircraft. A simple understanding is that the radar and internal control equipment are cancelled, leaving a relatively large internal space. The maximum takeoff weight of the C2 Greyhound transport aircraft is only a pitiful 24.6 tons. Its length is more than 17 meters, its wingspan is 24.57 meters, and its height is only 4.85 meters. Its maximum flight speed is 566 kilometers per hour, which is faster than that of a helicopter. Although it is a transport aircraft in name, you can see that the actual performance of the C2 Greyhound transport aircraft is really not much better than that of medium and large helicopters. Later, after the United States developed the MV22 Osprey, it planned to use this tilt-wing aircraft to replace the C2 Greyhound. After all, this tilt-wing aircraft has better take-off and landing capabilities and adaptability.
▲Picture source: Internet.
Judging from some news released so far, the model being trained and assessed in our country is a transport aircraft based on and 7. The basic data of the Yun-7 is actually very similar to the C2. It is slightly larger in appearance, but its take-off weight is even smaller than the C2 transport aircraft. With certain enhancements and improvements, it is capable of taking off and landing on large aircraft carriers, but it has shortcomings. Still obvious. It is not clear what the relationship between my country's Air Police 600 early warning aircraft and the Yun-7 family is, but from the appearance point of view, the Air Police 600 early warning aircraft is very similar to the American C2 early warning aircraft, so the Air Police 600 removes radar and other equipment. Under certain circumstances, it can completely transform into a ship-based early warning aircraft. Anyway, following the US weapons development path is a major feature of our country.
▲From a proportional point of view, the size of the Air Police 600 is basically the same as that of the E2. Image source: Internet.
For now, the use of helicopters for transportation of my country's aircraft carriers can actually solve a considerable part of the problems, but helicopters are indeed not as fast as C2 transport aircraft in terms of flight speed.Considering that the United States has used the MV22 Osprey to replace the previous C2 transport aircraft , it is not wrong for our country to use transport aircraft derived from the Air Police 600 at this stage, but it is lagging behind the United States in the field of carrier-based transport aircraft. The United States uses the MV22 tilt-wing aircraft more to unify the main transport vehicles of multiple services, and it is not the most perfect solution. Therefore, comprehensively speaking, it is actually necessary for our country to develop a carrier-based transport aircraft based on the Air Police 600, at least to solve the problem of availability first. Of course, if our country can deploy tilt-wing aircraft similar to the MV22 Osprey or even larger than the Osprey on the 075 or larger amphibious assault ship in the future, that will be the most ideal advanced transport aircraft for the aircraft carrier.
▲Picture source: Internet.
