Everyone knows that except for the US aircraft carrier , most aircraft carrier in the world use heavy oil . But have you heard that drones are now starting to use heavy oil? The boiler of the aircraft carrier is specially designed for heavy oil. Can the engine of the drone withstand it?
. The aircraft carrier has a special boiler to use heavy oil
The main reason for aircraft carriers is the low cost, because the cost of heavy oil is only about one-third to half of diesel. If an aircraft carrier goes out for more than a month, even if it burns heavy oil, it will cost tens of millions of yuan. If it is replaced with diesel, the cost will at least double. Although heavy oil is cheap, not everyone can burn it, because heavy oil has too high viscosity, complex composition, and low quality of oil, which is not suitable for ordinary gasoline engines and diesel engines.
The boiler of the aircraft carrier is to put it bluntly, it is used to burn hot water, and then drive the aircraft carrier through hot water. Not to mention using heavy oil, burning coal can also complete the task. Of course, the boiler technical standards of aircraft carriers are still relatively high, and are by no means comparable to those of coal-burning ships or trains before. Although Russia's aircraft carriers are rolling in black smoke, normally, aircraft carriers cannot emit black smoke like that, which requires the improvement of the combustion efficiency of heavy oil through technical means. China's aircraft carriers are doing a good job in this regard.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 The heavy oil that drones are going to burn is not the heavy oil that the aircraft carrier is going to burn, but the heavy oil that the aircraft carrier is going to burn. Aviation heavy oil refers to kerosene or aviation diesel relative to aviation gasoline . Although they are all called heavy oil, they are not the same thing at all.
2. Why do drones need to burn heavy oil?
Seeing this, some friends may say, isn’t it normal for airplanes to use kerosene? What's there to make a fuss about? Actually it's not that simple. Large aircraft often use jet engines, and there is no problem using kerosene. But small aircraft such as drones may not necessarily use kerosene.
Some small drones are purely electric, safe and environmentally friendly, and do not need to burn oil. However, drones that use electricity often have a short range, a relatively low flight altitude, and have limited application range. If you want to use a drone for a long distance for a long time, it is best to use a fuel engine. In the future, drones used on the battlefield will inevitably require higher flight altitudes and longer flight distances through coordinated combat through aircraft groups.
UAVs that burn oil often use piston engine . The piston engine technology is relatively mature, light in weight and sufficient power, and is very suitable for small propeller aircraft. However, the favorite fuel of piston engines is aviation gasoline because it has better performance at high altitudes, is not afraid of cold, has good fluidity, and is easy to ignite. Therefore, small aircraft that used piston engines in the early days often used gasoline as fuel, and even now, a considerable number of aircraft used aviation gasoline.
However, aviation gasoline also has its disadvantages, it has too high volatility, faster loss, and poor safety, because volatile gasoline is easily ignited and may explode once it is ignited. Relatively speaking, kerosene or diesel is much safer and provides a stronger endurance to the aircraft. However, using heavy oil piston engines is still relatively difficult to develop. Because aviation heavy oil has poor fluidity, poor spray performance, and is not easy to ignite compared to aviation gasoline. Special optimization of the engine is needed to effectively use aviation heavy fuel.
The U.S. military is really pushing the use of heavy fuel for piston engines in small aircraft, because they proposed a fuel monolithic policy in the 1980s. Considering that different military equipment uses different fuels, it brings certain difficulties to the storage and transportation of military fuel. If the piston engine can use diesel, it can significantly reduce management costs and improve work efficiency. With the promotion of the US military, piston engines that can burn heavy oil have been quickly improved and gradually become popular. The US military has successfully assembled piston kerosene engines on several drones such as "Hunter", "Warrior", and "Grey Eagle".
As a latecomer, China also has a practical need for heavy-liquid aircraft engines. It is not only conducive to solving the above difficulties, but also helps domestic drones to board the ship, because from a safety perspective, gasoline cannot board the ship. In this regard, there are also constant good news in the past two years. Recently, the "Rainbow 4" drone used the "Skylark" heavy oil aircraft engine developed by Anhui Hangrui Power, realizing the domestic production of the drone heavy oil engine. Recently, the carrier-based unmanned helicopter has also achieved the localization of heavy oil aviation engines, and the engine is also produced by Hangrui Power .
3. Aviation heavy oil is an inevitable trend in the future
Although we use gasoline in our lives more occasions than diesel, and more occasions than kerosene. However, the gasoline used by drones is not ordinary gasoline, but special aviation gasoline. The quality of aviation gasoline is higher than that of automobiles and is not universal. At present, there are very few domestic companies that produce aviation gasoline, and a large part of it needs to be imported. This undoubtedly increases the cost of aviation gasoline use. Compared with aviation gasoline, aviation diesel and kerosene have certain price advantages.
In addition, as mentioned earlier, the use of aviation gasoline increases fuel transportation and storage costs. The use of aerodynamics can reduce oil varieties and reduce storage and transportation costs. At the same time, the use of aviation heavy oil can solve the pain point of gasoline drones not being able to board the ship, allowing carrier-based drones to give full play to their strategic advantages.
It is precisely because of the many advantages of heavy oil that many of the world's advanced military drone have been upgraded and transformed by heavy oil, and the battery life parameters have been significantly improved.
Like the American "Grey Eagle" MQ-1C fixed-wing drone, the initial version of 2004 used 100 horsepower gasoline engine and 15 hours of flight time; it was upgraded to a 135 horsepower heavy oil engine in 2019, with a range of 30 hours, which was directly doubled; it was upgraded again in 2021, using 200 horsepower Lycoming DEL120 heavy oil engine, which further improved the battery life to 42 hours.
For example, Israeli "Hermes" Hermes fixed-wing drone, the initial version of 2010 used a gasoline engine with a battery life of 30 hours; it is reported that it was also upgraded to a heavy oil engine in 2022, with a battery life of 40 hours.
There are also some drones that skip the gasoline engine and directly use heavy oil engines as power. For example, for the French "VSR700" unmanned helicopter, the power directly selects the heavy oil engine; for the Austrian "S-300" unmanned helicopter, the power directly selects the heavy oil engine. It can be seen that heavy oil engines are the development trend of military drones.
After the military use gradually became popular, the civilian field has gradually become popular, and more and more drones have begun to use heavy oil as fuel. With this trend, drones using aviation gasoline have become less and less advantageous, and may even be marginalized.
, in a word, aviation heavy oil in the field of drones will become the main choice in the future.
