Since 1982, my country has been negotiating with Israel on the introduction of the Monster-3 red line guided missile . After continuous negotiations between the two parties, a production license was finally reached and a full set of production technology was introduced.
Subsequently, Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense officially ordered the transformation of J7, and the improved design was completed in 1984.
After the transformation was completed, our country decided to use the self-developed J-7 to test-fire the Weishe-3 air-to-air missile. Countless people expressed great confidence in this. On the day of the
test launch, everything was ready. The experienced test pilot walked into the J-7 cabin, and then drove the fighter plane up from the northwest desert and rose to the designated location according to the predetermined route.
Subsequently, the test pilot locked on the target as quickly as possible and fired the Monster Snake-3 missile, but at this moment, the J-7 actually experienced an " mid-air parking " accident.
What is even more puzzling is that 's "air parking" was not an accident, and it happened repeatedly in the next few test firings.
Based on this, Israel also ridiculed our country: Your fighter planes cannot fight this missile !
Why did the J-7 experience a "mid-air parking" failure? How does our military respond to this problem?
01 Introducing the Monster Snake-3 missile
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, China's relations with Western countries improved significantly. At the same time, China also realized the huge gap in air force weapons with other countries.
In this case, it is not enough for to blindly build behind closed doors. After careful consideration, China decided to introduce relevant weapons and equipment from abroad.
At that time, although China and Western countries were in a rare honeymoon period, it was still somewhat difficult to obtain more advanced weapons development technology from the latter.
Among them, only Israel has shown willingness to trade .
In addition, in 1982, the Israeli Air Force defeated the Syrian Air Force with an absolute advantage, which undoubtedly impressed all countries.
In this battle, the Israeli Air Force used a air-to-air missile called Monster Snake-3. The Monster Snake-3 air-to-air missile was modified by the Israeli Rafael company on the basis of the Dragonfly 2 missile.
is a high-mobility short-range combat missile, which was suitable for China's needs at that time.
As a result, China began to contact Israel, and finally purchased the Monster Snake-3 air-to-air missiles at a unit price of .127 million , a total of 3,000 pieces, and introduced a full set of production lines and technologies.
It can be seen that China has spent a huge amount of money, but unexpectedly, the subsequent improvements are not as expected.
After the introduction of the Monster Snake-3 air-to-air missile, China began the development of the missile and the improvement of domestic models. At that time, the most commonly used J-7 fighter in our country was the main fighter type in our country. .
Therefore, our country definitely hopes to load this missile onto the J-7. However, due to the relatively light size of the J-7, it cannot carry a missile that is too heavy.
In this case, we had to modify the pylon of the J-7 fighter jet.
02 The twists and turns of the test launch
After some research, the day finally came for the test launch of the Monster Snake-3 missile. A group of experts expressed great confidence in this.
In order to ensure nothing goes wrong, we have also screened out many test pilots with rich experience and handed them the glorious and arduous task of the first test flight.
After everything was ready, the test pilot walked into the J-7 cockpit, ascended into the air according to the predetermined route and reached the designated location. After receiving the launch signal, the test pilot locked the target and quickly fired the Weishe-3 air-to-air missile.
It went smoothly at first, but at this moment , the J-7 suddenly experienced a violent tremor, and then the engine failed and stopped at high altitude.
You must know that if you hesitate for a moment at this time, you will face the risk of crashing . Fortunately, the test pilot has a strong psychological quality. When he saw the situation, he responded quickly and tried his best to restart the engine. Only then did the engine resume working, and finally returned to the ground without any danger.
In order to find out whether the "air parking" failure was an accident, another test pilot then flew the J-7 into the air again and launched the Weishe-3 air-to-air missile in the above method.
As expected, , the J-7 "parked in the air" again, and the test pilot also experienced a thrilling experience and returned to the ground with difficulty.
This is enough to show that The J-7 must have had a certain problem during the launch of the Monster Snake-3 missile , but what exactly is this problem? No one knows.
Even the Israeli experts present shook their heads and said: Your fighter planes cannot hit such missiles!
If the problem of "air parking" cannot be solved, then the batch of missiles that we spent a lot of money to purchase from Israel, as well as the complete set of technical production lines, etc. will all be in vain.
In order to find out the cause of the failure as soon as possible, the test pilots conducted tests one after another regardless of the danger, but the results were the same, and the "air stop" situation always existed.
This left experts scratching their heads. At this moment, a test pilot stepped forward and claimed that he wanted to give it a try.
This test pilot is called Lei Qiang. At this time, he is just a test pilot student . He is watching and learning from the sidelines. However, seeing his seniors returning disappointed one by one, Lei Qiang feels very unhappy. The heart is ready to find out.
But after he proposed to fly the J-7, his superiors did not agree.
You must know that even experienced veterans have a hard time dealing with the "mid-air parking" failure, let alone students. If there is any accident due to this, it will undoubtedly be even more heartbreaking.
But Lei Qiang was unwilling to give up and repeatedly insisted on giving it a try. Seeing that he was so persistent, his superiors finally agreed to his request and made an exception to allow him to fly a fighter jet .
Everyone looked at the 20-year-old boy in front of them, and to be honest, they didn't have much hope for him.
Lei Qiang didn't care. He made preparations first, got into the cockpit after getting ready, and then successfully arrived at the designated location.
According to the instructions, Lei Qiang carefully pressed the launch button, and then stared at the strange snake-3 missile that had been launched. At the same time, many people on the ground also watched with bated breath.
After a brief silence, the ground commander only heard Lei Qiang's voice coming from the receiver. He said that the launch was successful and that there was no so-called "air parking" failure.
After hearing this, everyone couldn't believe it for a moment. In order to confirm again that this was not an accident, the commander quickly asked Lei Qiang to launch two Weishe-3 missiles one after another.
Just like the first time, Lei Qiang successfully launched the missile, and it went smoothly from beginning to end.
This made everyone look at Lei Qiang with admiration. He was still a student and he actually easily solved this world problem . What method did Lei Qiang use to avoid the "air parking"?
After Lei Qiang landed, experts began to study his driving style.
After repeated comparisons with the flight methods of other test pilots, everyone finally discovered that it turned out that after Lei Qiang launched the Monster Snake-3 missile, he usually looked out the window first to confirm the launch of the missile with his own eyes .
Other experienced test pilots will follow their flying habits. will press the nose of the aircraft immediately after launch, which will cause the engine to inhale a large amount of missile smoke.
Therefore, , the J-7 is prone to "parking in the air" failure.
It was precisely the one to two seconds that Lei Qiang spent after launching the missile and looking out, which actually prevented the engine from inhaling a large amount of smoke and dust, and also avoided the phenomenon of "stopping in the air".
The reason why Lei Qiang did this was originally due to his lack of proficiency in flight operations, but now it was a mistake and helped us solve a big problem.
Later, the superior leaders promoted Lei Qiang's method among the team. would not adjust the aircraft's posture within two seconds after launching the missile, and then correct the aircraft's posture after two seconds.
According to this method, the "air parking" problem of J-7 has been well solved. The strange snake-3 missiles that our army spent huge sums of money to introduce were not in vain, and were subsequently put into large-scale use. middle. Although
seems to be a simple two-second pause, it is actually extremely important. changed the history that the Monster Snake-3 missile could not be loaded on the light fighter , and laid the foundation for the subsequent development of the Thunderbolt 8 missile by our army. A solid foundation.
03 Lei Qiang’s test flight career
It was this J-7 test launch that made Lei Qiang realize that no matter how good a test pilot is, he may become an unqualified test pilot.
So, from then on, Lei Qiang worked harder to learn about aircraft and asked questions if he didn’t understand. After a few years, Lei Qiang became proficient in various data, indicators and other issues of the aircraft, which was beyond the reach of other test pilots. master.
When the test flight limit of a certain type of fighter aircraft was reached, it took off and landed for 16 consecutive times. No test pilot could meet the requirements, which made the manufacturer very anxious.
At this moment, it was Lei Qiang's turn to take a test flight. He calmly sat in the cockpit, and then flew out with all the data in just one rise and fall, which made everyone present admire him.
Since then, Lei Qiang has become famous and has become the favorite of many manufacturers.
Perhaps many people think that Lei Qiang is a born pilot and is rewarded by God, but in fact Lei Qiang has put in a lot of effort for this.
Since the day he entered the flight test team, there has been no holiday. Even during his rest time, Lei Qiang used it all to learn flight-related knowledge.
The excellence in people's eyes is just a result of Lei Qiang's hard work. The test flight of
is undoubtedly a contest with the god of death, in which the ultimate data of the aircraft is obtained, and the authoritative data provided by the factory for finalizing the aircraft is obtained.
Therefore, in 's decades of test flight, Lei Qiang had a close brush with death countless times, creating miracles for test flight history again and again.
In 2005, Lei Qiang was 48 years old and had reached the maximum age of a fighter test pilot. Upon seeing this, many airlines approached Lei Qiang and invited him to join the army with large sums of money.
Lei Qiang resolutely refused and applied to his superiors to extend his flying years until he was 50 years old.
Lei Qiang has been flying airplanes all his life, but in the end he was just a captain. This may seem unworthy to many people, but for Lei Qiang, it is extremely fulfilling.
Because flight testing is an industry he loves, he is willing to devote all his blood to it!
Today, our country's air power is growing so fast and powerful, and it has a lot to do with test pilots like Lei Qiang, who play an important role in it.
pays tribute to these blue sky warriors!
Reference materials:
Special attention "The Flying General of the Nine Heavens - A Record of J-10 Chief Test Pilot Lei Qiang"
CNKI "The Journey of Chasing the Light - A Personal Account of the Improvement Process of the J-7 Series"
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