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Not behind! China's sixth-generation aircraft program has designed 8 models, 4 of which have completed low-altitude test flights
2020-09-26
Recently, the sudden appearance of the sixth-generation fighters of the superpower caused an uproar. Judging from public information, this sixth-generation aircraft is a "penetrating fighter" with a flying wing layout, focusing on full-frequency stealth performance, flying faster and having a longer range. At present, there is no recognized technical standard for the sixth-generation aircraft in the world, so it is very doubtful how powerful this sixth-generation aircraft is suddenly appearing. Moreover, even if the so-called sixth-generation machine verification machine appears, there is still a long way to go before it is actually put into use. As the sixth-generation aircraft may have huge technical advantages, military fans have begun to worry whether the progress of the domestic-made sixth-generation aircraft will be too slow. In fact, in accordance with the convention of "production generation, trial production generation, pre-research generation and exploration generation", the development of China's sixth-generation aircraft has already begun, and it may be more powerful.
According to reports, as early as 2019, the "Future Aircraft Collaborative Innovation Center" of Northwestern Polytechnical University, a top domestic aerospace university, made it clear that it had come up with eight sixth-generation aircraft design schemes and conducted low-altitude flight technology verification for the four schemes. And formed an important influence in the country. The publicity board issued by the university pointed out that this industry-university-research model has cultivated a large number of leading talents for the Chinese aviation industry, including the J-20 chief engineer, chief designer and field commander. The dean is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, absolutely not It's a joke.
What the sixth-generation opportunity in China looks like is still a mystery, but we can still see a general direction of efforts from the papers published by the J-20 chief engineer and related verification technologies developed by the country. A paper published by the J-20 chief engineer believes that the next generation of fighter jets will pay more attention to information superiority and adopt a large number of artificial intelligence technologies to make fighter control easier; it has broadband and wide-spectrum stealth performance and can penetrate modern air defense systems; The laser weapon near-defense weapon system has the ability to defend against terminal hard killers; the sixth-generation aircraft will focus on air combat beyond visual range, further highlighting the importance of information perception capabilities, and can form an information advantage for existing fighters. The article pointed out that the next-generation fighter jets have greater range, ammunition carrying capacity, and flight speed, which may blur the boundaries between fighters and bombers, requiring penetration and attack operations to be completed in high-risk environments. Therefore, China's sixth-generation aircraft may not meet any clear standards, or it may be a penetrating air superiority fighter.
It can be seen that "penetrating air superiority fighters" may be the common endeavour of all major countries, but the technical content is graded. Although the sixth-generation aircraft being developed by the superpowers has better stealth performance and long range, it does not have a particularly huge technological advancement compared to the fifth-generation aircraft. On the contrary, China recently announced that it has successfully developed a combined power engine that allows people to see the future development direction of China's sixth-generation aircraft-a hypersonic stealth fighter that can freely enter and exit the space and atmosphere.
If China's sixth-generation aircraft is a "penetrating air-control fighter" equipped with combined-engine maneuvering, its most powerful feature is that it can freely enter and exit the atmosphere to perform operations, flying at speeds exceeding Mach 6, and having a large combat radius. Fighters with hypersonic flight capabilities will cause existing missile weapons to become invalid due to their slow speed. Combined with broadband stealth performance, they can be undetectable by the existing air defense network and prevent air defense missiles from being effectively blocked. They are capable of performing dimensionality reduction attacks on fifth-generation aircraft. Ability to carry out important target strike missions deep behind enemy lines.
When will China's sixth-generation opportunities appear? The aviation industry said in an article on September 15: "We will achieve the strategic goal of contemporaneous rivalry and leading innovation by 2025-2035." In other words, China's sixth-generation aircraft has the combat capability to compete with the world's most advanced similar models. , And will be unveiled in 2035 at the latest. The J-20 Deputy Chief Commander also stated on the program that the sixth-generation aircraft will come out before 2035. It will be the same as the J-20 with some trade-offs and prominence, and will not be exactly the same as foreign fighters.
Judging from various information, the development of China's sixth-generation aircraft is not behind, but will complete the development task at its own pace. The superpower has only built a test and verification aircraft with a flying wing layout, while a Chinese university has conducted low-altitude flight verification for four sixth-generation aircraft programs. China has also taken the lead in the development of the combined engine required for the sixth-generation aircraft, indicating that the progress of the project is not behind. In comparison, the sixth-generation aircraft of the superpower looks more like a strategic flicker, and China has the opportunity to overtake corners in the future.
