[Explore Time]Why did Su-27 collide with MQ9? F16 becomes unmanned fighter | Su-27 | F-16 | UAV

A Russian Su-27 fighter jet roars over the Black Sea, flanked by an American MQ-9 Reaper drone. On March 14, the U.S. MQ-9 UAV routinely carried out reconnaissance in international waters near Crimea. Russia dispatched two Su-27 fighter jets to intercept it. One of the planes continued to pour fuel on the UAV. It eventually collided with the drone, damaging the propeller pusher on the rear of the MQ-9. The U.S. chose to send the drone directly into the ocean.

The MQ-9 Reaper, also known as the Reaper UAV, is an advanced integrated UAV developed by the United States in the 21st century. It can both reconnaissance and strike targets. The first drone flew in February 2001, and there are currently more than 300 MQ-9 drones in operation in the United States. The MQ-9 has six sets of pylons, the heaviest of which can carry 680 kilograms of bombs. It can carry various bombs and missiles, and can even carry air-to-air Sidewinder missiles. When encountering the Su-27 this time, it is very likely that the MQ-9 did not carry the Sidewinder missile.

The price of the MQ-9 UAV is very expensive. An aircraft costs 30 million U.S. dollars, which is basically the same price as the Su-27. The endurance of the MQ-9 is 30 hours when performing reconnaissance missions and only 23 hours when performing strike missions. The MQ-9 has a combat radius of 1,850 kilometers, allowing it to take off from a NATO base in Romania to monitor the Black Sea and the Crimea region for a long time.

In terms of volume, the MQ-9 has a very large wingspan, which can reach 20 meters, and its length is about ten meters. But the Su-27 is longer, about 22 meters, with a wingspan of 14.7 meters and a higher height of 5.93 meters. In front of Su-27, the figure of MQ-9 looks like a little brother. More importantly, the MQ-9 is an all-in-one drone for investigation and attack, but it has no combat capability and its speed is very slow, that is, subsonic. MQ-9 uses a turboprop engine with a maximum speed of only 480 kilometers per hour.

This speed can only be said to be a classic car in the aircraft industry, and the maximum speed of the Su-27 can reach more than four times it. So the collision between the Su-27 and the MQ-9 UAV is completely bullying. If it is replaced by American F-16 and F-15, would you dare to do this? If F-22 and F-35 are really coming, the Su-27 will have to go around.

Why did Su-27 dare to hit MQ-9

The biggest achievement of the Reaper drone was the killing of Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Holy City Brigade in Iraq a few years ago. On January 3, 2020, Soleimani got off the plane at Baghdad Airport in Iraq and was preparing to leave the airport by car. But the Americans got the information early on that there is an MQ-9 Reaper drone cruising at an altitude of 9,000 meters, and can see everything on the ground clearly. When Soleimani’s vehicle passed the airport road, the commander of the US military was thousands of miles away. After confirming the target, the operator pressed the launch button, and the MQ-9 fired two Hellfire missiles to hit the vehicle. Soleimani was on the spot died. Since then, everyone in the world knows the name of the MQ-9 Reaper drone. Taiwan also purchased four MQ-9 drones from the United States in 2021.

What is the purpose of MQ-9 appearing on the coast of the Black Sea this time?

MQ-9 UAV, in addition to its strong strike capability, it actually has a good detection capability. For example, if equipped with the AN/AAS-52 wide-spectrum photoelectric sensor, the MQ-9 can obtain visible light and infrared images of the target. If equipped with AN/APY-8 multi-mode synthetic aperture radar, it has the ability to detect moving targets on the ground and monitor the sea in wide area. MQ-9 can also be equipped with the “Gorgon Gaze” wide-area monitoring system, covering an area of ​​up to 100 square kilometers.

If the system consists of 368 5-megapixel cameras, it can generate an image of about 1.8 billion pixels. The system will shoot the target area at a speed of 12 frames per second. This time the MQ-9 appeared near Crimea, obviously not with missiles, but with a camera to see Russia’s military base in Crimea.

In the past few years, the United States has built a very powerful reconnaissance capability. There are satellites flying in space, MQ-9, Global Hawk, etc. flying overhead. In addition, there are various large early warning aircraft and electronic reconnaissance aircraft. It can be said that in this Ukrainian war, Russia’s movements were clearly seen by the Americans. But Russia does not have such capabilities. We introduced a program before. Russia currently flies only 7 spy satellites, 5 optical imaging satellites, and 2 synthetic aperture radar satellites. Because of Russia’s lack of optical technology, drones like Oran still use Japanese cameras.

In this Ukrainian war, Russia was beaten up by the Americans. Although the Americans did not actually participate in the war and did not send a single soldier, the information they provided was extremely accurate. They could find out where the Russian military base was, where the headquarters was, and where the ammunition depot was, and the weapons they provided were very advanced. It can be said that where to hit. Russia is like fighting a master in an invisibility cloak, you can’t see him, but he can see you. It is understandable that the Russian Air Force is suffocating.

So this time I borrowed the drone, trying to give the United States a disgrace, and you don’t go to Crimea to spy on me in the future. In addition, I also want to collect some information through the wreckage of MQ-9, and see if I can learn some technology, because Turkey closed the Bosporus Strait, and the US fleet cannot enter the Black Sea, so it cannot be salvaged . However, US Secretary of Defense Austin recently stated that the United States will continue to carry out reconnaissance missions along the Black Sea coast as usual.

The combination of artificial intelligence and fighter jets is the direction of future drones

The MQ-9 UAV does not represent the future direction of UAV development, because it is not really unmanned. The crew of the MQ-9 UAV is actually three people, including the pilot, the sensor operator and the mission intelligence coordinator. Some people may think, it is a drone, how can there be people? A drone means that there is no one on board. But all three are sitting at a U.S. Air Force base, remotely piloting drones.

The flight operation of MQ-9 generally has two sets of teams. The take-off and landing of the drone must be near the base, because of the signal transmission delay. Before the emergence of Starlink, the transmission delay of ordinary satellites was about 0.5 seconds. Such a delay has little effect on air combat, but may have a fatal impact on takeoff and landing. And another team sits in the command center in the United States, and takes over after the plane takes off, remotely controlling the plane, collecting information and images.

Since the MQ-9 UAV is not really unmanned, what is the future direction of development?

Just in 2022, Lockheed Martin converted an American F-16D into a drone and flew it into the sky for testing. This aircraft is called X62-A. In fact, it will conduct a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California in December 2022, and it will fly autonomously for 17 hours, completely controlled by artificial intelligence. However, there are still pilots on the plane, which are mainly used to intervene in emergency situations.

“I can fly the ‘X-62A’ twice a day,” said Chris Cotting, director of studies at the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, which owns the X-62. “If I want to change anything, I just have to Go to the plane and change it, and then the plane itself acts as its own ground simulator. That way I can change the software very quickly.”

The United States is currently carrying out two programs at the same time, the Air Combat Evolution (ACE) of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Autonomous Air Combat Operations (AACO) project of the US Air Force Research Laboratory. Both programs are using the X-62 as a test platform at the same time, and the focus of the testing is different. As of Dec. 16, the ACE program had flown about eight sorties on the X-62, while the AACO program had flown about six.

This test flight has accelerated the American artillery’s air combat evolution plan by one year, which is mainly used to prove that fighter jets and artificial intelligence have the ability to fight autonomously. Artificial intelligence combined with fighter jets is the future direction of development.

The combination of F-16 and artificial intelligence becomes an unmanned fighter

The United States actually developed artificial intelligence very early. As early as 2020, it held an Alpha air combat competition. In total, eight technology companies have developed AI-operated planes that compete in flight simulators. The final winner competes with the ace pilot of the United States. You may not have imagined that the artificial intelligence won a 5-0 score and defeated the American pilot. The fighting process of AlphaGo is very exciting. All the videos are online. I specially made a special program, which we will bring to you next week.

The United States is the most advanced in applying artificial intelligence to the military field. At the end of last year, OpenAI released ChatGPT, and the latest GPT4.0 was released. Its functions are more powerful. You can even make it a simple website. I’ve been amazed to see how fast artificial intelligence is developing. If this continues, many friends who write codes, and even myself may face unemployment.

The United States‘ leading technology in artificial intelligence will soon be integrated into military products. Now that the F-16 has been integrated with artificial intelligence, it can become an unmanned fighter. This time in the sky over the Black Sea, Russia’s Su-27 is bullying MQ-9, what’s your ability? , and you will never be able to defeat it in close combat. American pilots and artificial intelligence had 5 duels, all of which failed. No matter how good the aerodynamic layout of the Su-27 is, it will not be an opponent of the American UAV F-16 whether it is close combat or beyond visual range combat.

According to the development speed of artificial intelligence in the past two years, it is also possible for the United States to turn all the F-16s in active service into unmanned fighter jets in a few years. By that time, the technology generation gap between Russia and the United States will not be just a generation gap. Bully MQ-9 now, watch out for F-16 to clean you up later. The development of UAVs in the United States can be expected in the future.

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Produced by the program team of “Exploring Time”

Responsible Editor: Li Hao#