Under the background of high-intensity confrontation in modern and future naval battles, stealth carrier-based fighter jets are the inevitable choice for the carrier-based aviation force of the aircraft carrier of a powerful naval power.
This morning, the naming ceremony for the launching of my country’s third aircraft carrier was held.
According to a CCTV news report, my country’s third aircraft carrier was named “Fujian Ship of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy”, with the hull number “18”. The Fujian ship is the first catapult-type aircraft carrier designed and built by my country completely. After the launch of my country’s third aircraft carrier, mooring tests and navigation tests will be carried out as planned.
With the upsurge of discussion about the “third child” of Chinese aircraft carriers, as a new type of aircraft carrier, what kind of carrier-based aircraft it will carry has also become a hot topic of discussion. With the emergence of stealth carrier-based aircraft, active US aircraft carriers and new-generation aircraft carriers have begun to carry stealth carrier-based aircraft to further enhance the aircraft carrier’s offensive and defensive capabilities. China has successfully developed the J-20 stealth fighter jet, and the FC-31 stealth fighter jet has already completed its maiden flight. The public has been expecting China’s stealth carrier-based fighter jets to appear on domestic aircraft carriers.
Why equip stealth carrier-based fighter jets?
Under the background of high-intensity confrontation in modern and future naval battles, stealth carrier-based fighter jets are the inevitable choice for the carrier-based aviation force of the aircraft carrier of a powerful naval power.
The rapid development of the world‘s carrier-based air defense systems makes it more and more difficult for aircraft carrier-based aviation units to seize air supremacy at sea. The new generation of carrier-based integrated regional air defense systems represented by the American “Aegis” system, Russia’s “Gold Coated Rubber-Bobble” system and China’s “Sea Star” system all use high-performance four-sided phased arrays. The radar configuration, with a highly information-based and automated fire control system and data link system as the core, organically combines the air defense and anti-missile weapons of a single ship or even the entire fleet into a complete air defense and anti-missile system, which is effective in intercepting incoming fighters from the air. been multiplied.
In addition, the full service of a new generation of medium and long-range ship-to-air missile systems also poses new challenges to carrier-based fighter jets. The new medium and long-range ship-to-air missiles, including the American “Standard”-6 and China’s “Hongqi”-9B, generally have a maximum range of more than 150 kilometers, or even more than 200 kilometers, and they all use active radar seekers. The autonomous terminal guidance mode has been realized, and the ability to deal with multiple targets is stronger, and the probability of interception is also higher.
In this case, the battlefield survivability of non-stealth carrier-based fighters such as the F/A-18E/F “Super Hornet”, “Rafale” M and Su-33 is greatly reduced. Then, only a new generation of stealth carrier-based fighters with complete stealth capability can greatly reduce the detection distance and response time of the carrier-based air defense system, and at the same time, can more effectively deal with the interception threat of various types of ship-to-air missiles.
Stealth carrier-based aircraft will further enhance the aircraft carrier’s offensive and defensive capabilities.
For the aircraft carrier air force, there is also a very important part of the combat airspace on land. According to the requirements of all-area operations, the aircraft carrier should also send carrier-based fighter jets to the enemy’s inland hinterland to attack the enemy’s important facilities and targets and support friendly operations. When necessary, carrier-based aviation units must also compete for air supremacy with land-based fighters of the enemy air force. Therefore, when the enemy has a strong ground-based air defense system and may even be equipped with ground-based stealth fighter jets, our carrier-based aviation units must also be equipped with stealth carrier-based fighter jets in batches to be able to fight against them.
Military powers have developed stealth carrier-based aircraft
With the development of stealth technology, in the late 1980s, the US Navy began to plan the development of the next generation of carrier-based fighter jets. Among them, the U.S. Navy plans to develop and purchase a heavy carrier-based fighter jet and a heavy-duty carrier-based attack aircraft to replace the F-14 “Tomcat” and A-6 “Invader” that are approaching the service period respectively. In addition to requiring the two types of carrier-based fighters to have better combat performance, the U.S. Navy especially emphasizes that they must have a complete stealth design. In this way, in the envisaged confrontation with the Soviet Navy and even the Soviet Air Force, the US Navy will have a more obvious technological generation advantage.
As a result, the development of the US Navy’s stealth carrier-based fighter aircraft began. In 1988, a new generation of heavy stealth carrier-based attack aircraft was first developed, because the U.S. Navy had more urgent needs for the replacement of the A-6 “Invader”. Under the joint efforts of the two aviation giants, General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas, the A-12 “Avenger” II heavy stealth carrier-based attack aircraft, which was once stunning in the world, was born. The aircraft adopts a two-seat and two-engine design. The fuselage has a complete large delta flying wing layout, no vertical tail, and trapezoidal air intakes are located on both sides of the cockpit. The stealth effect is very good.
However, the A-12 attack aircraft project was ultimately aborted.
Later, after the U.S. Air Force ATF program determined the Lockheed team’s YF-22 to win, the U.S. Navy also plans to develop its own next-generation Navy Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF) based on it. However, according to the requirements of the US Navy, the NATF stealth carrier-based fighter should adopt the same variable-sweep wing and tandem two-seat design as the F-14 “Tomcat”.
If all goes well, from the mid-1990s, the NATF-22 heavy stealth carrier fighter and the A-12 Avenger II heavy stealth carrier will appear on the deck of the U.S. Navy’s “Nimitz” class supercarrier. The full stealth combination of attack aircraft partners, the US Navy carrier aviation force will also enter the stealth era ahead of schedule. However, with the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Navy has no more powerful enemies on the ocean, and naturally lost the need to replace the stealth carrier-based fighters with powerful but extremely expensive performance. After 1991, the U.S. Navy cancelled these two plans. . Later, when the U.S. Department of Defense officially established the JSF project in 1995, the U.S. Navy was able to ride with the U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps to develop stealth carrier-based fighter jets again.
Today, the world‘s official batch of stealth carrier-based fighter jets are the US F-35B and F-35C. Among them, the F-35B is not only equipped with the US Marine Corps, but also purchased in batches by the United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, South Korea, Singapore and other countries, while the users who purchase the F-35C are currently only the US Navy and the Marine Corps.
In fact, these two stealth carrier-based fighters are the product of many compromises in technology and design, and inevitably have many inherent flaws. For example, F-35B, as the world‘s first supersonic stealth vertical/short take-off and landing carrier-based fighter, the huge lift fan set at the rear of its cockpit can only play its role during take-off and landing, and in other flight states It’s dead weight. Moreover, the lift fan itself also occupies the very limited body space of the F-35B, making the aircraft inferior to A and C in many important technical indicators. In order to be able to withstand the high-temperature and high-speed airflow ejected from the main nozzle when the aircraft lands vertically, aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships must also set up special high-temperature-resistant landing areas, which puts forward higher requirements for pilots’ operating skills.
For the F-35C, its inherent defects are even more obvious, that is, because the length of the fuselage is too short, and the single-engine design is adopted, the installation position of the tail hook of the aircraft is not ideal. This has led to a very high probability of failure of the tail hook to catch the arresting cable when the F-35C is landing. So far, Lockheed Martin has not completely solved this problem. Therefore, we can also understand why the F-35C is the last of the three models in service.
In addition to the United States, there are currently at least two countries in the world planning to develop stealth carrier-based fighter jets, namely France and Russia. Both countries are planning to build a new large aircraft carrier, and France’s PA-NG aircraft carrier has officially started in 2021. Then, as the standard configuration of a new generation of aircraft carriers, France and Russia are also preparing to develop stealth carrier-based fighters for them. Since the number of stealth carrier-based fighters required by the two countries is not large, it is not worthy of special research and development, so they have adopted the method of “one aircraft and two types”, that is, on the basis of land-based stealth fighters, the development of stealth carrier-based fighters .
Among them, France plans to use the FCAS sixth-generation fighter jointly developed by the three European countries as a template to develop a new stealth carrier-based fighter named SCAF, which is expected to be put into service in 2038. Russia originally planned to develop a carrier-based version on the basis of the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter, instead of the relatively backward Su-33, and together with the MiG-29K, it would serve as the main carrier-based aircraft of a new generation of large aircraft carriers. However, in view of the current situation of the Russian shipbuilding industry, after numerous imaginary drawings and models were publicly exhibited, not only the final design plan could not be determined, but the start date was still far away. In addition, Russia is not satisfied with the overall performance of the Su-57, and the annual orders are only in single digits, so the development prospects of Russia’s future stealth carrier-based fighters are very uncertain.
Source of this article: The Paper, original title: “Technology | Combat Multiplier, New Aircraft Carrier Calls for Stealth Carrier-Based Fighter”, the original text has been deleted.
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