Chapter 1083 I am big but light
Although Didier Casore was aware of possible problems at the first opportunity.
But almost at the same time, he had already started to make amends in his heart -
The requirements for flight quality of early warning aircraft are not as high as those of business jets.
As for military products, concessions can be made in many areas.
Slower speed?
It''s not a big problem. Anyway, the early warning aircraft hovers on the edge of the battlefield most of the time. Only the process of rushing to the mission area requires speed.
Moreover, the Falcon 8Z is an aircraft with a cruising speed close to Mach 0.9. Combined with this straight-shaped antenna, which has very small resistance at first glance, it is faster than a propeller or a platform such as the ERJ145, and it can go far enough.
The aerodynamic noise is louder...it''s not a big problem.
War is not a vacation, it just passes through patience.
If it doesn''t work, the operator can just hand out noise-canceling headphones.
The maneuverability and serviceability are not very good...
It’s okay, military aircraft pilots and ground crew can both practice!
As for operating costs and the like, that''s not a problem.
The reason for this kind of thinking is not entirely because he himself advocated cooperation with China from the beginning, and now he would lose face if he failed to achieve success.
Technically speaking, the design and production of the Falcon 8Z''s airframe structure are completely completed by Dassault, which is a part that can be 100% controlled.
Compared with the érieye balance beam or Falcon conformal array solutions that bring huge additional risks in terms of aerodynamics and operation, although the design proposed by Liu Yongquan also has risks, if you really want to solve it simply and crudely, you can also solve it in a simple and crude way. At the expense of a slight loss of flight quality, we only start from the level of structural reinforcement.
Calculating everything inside and out, the part that Dassault can control in its own hands can actually increase a lot.
Although Casore himself is the head of the aerodynamics department, he is also the senior leader in charge of the Falcon 8Z project. Therefore, he has already begun to figure out how to provide adequate supplements to the body at the lowest possible cost. Too strong.
Of course, for this kind of engineering matter, qualitative thinking alone is definitely not enough.
To reinforce, you must at least have a specific reinforcement goal.
Therefore, after Liu Yongquan briefly introduced the system called "highlight", Casore took advantage of an opportunity and asked directly:
"Dr. Liu, what is the approximate weight range of the entire antenna group system you provided?"
The specific mass distribution of the equipment can definitely be calculated after the detailed design is completed.
But a simple total system weight indicator is not an important data.
Kasore asked this, just to make a preliminary judgment on the difficulty of the follow-up work.
That’s why I’m talking about scope.
However, the completion of this radar system called "Gaoming" far exceeds Kasore''s imagination.
Therefore, Liu Yongquan immediately gave a specific number:
"About 1.2 tons. Of course, it needs to be adjusted according to the characteristics of the aircraft platform, but the fluctuation will not exceed 5%."
Faced with this answer, Casore''s first reaction was...
Bewildered for a moment.
In fact, for early warning aircraft, the radar antenna itself only accounts for a small part of the external load.
For example, the entire antenna group of the E2C early warning aircraft weighs two tons, but the Yagi antenna of the AN/ASP145 radar is only about 770 kilograms.
The rest are the radome, radar support frame, rotating mechanism, and of course the data transmission system.
Generally speaking, active phased array radar has a large number of T/R components, so the antenna itself weighs more than traditional mechanical scanning radar.
For example, the antenna weight of Erieye System''s PS890 radar reaches 900 kilograms.
Although there is no complex rotating system, the cooling system and signal and power supply cables that are more complex than mechanical scanning antennas in turn add a lot of weight.
As a result, the external load of the entire machine still reached about 1.3 tons.
The straight-shaped antenna in front of him, although it further reduces the weight of the support system, is almost one-third larger than the PS890 in size.
Calculating this, the antenna itself must weigh about 1.2 tons.
The whole system is more in line with normal results when it is around 1.8 tons.
Therefore, Kasore thought that he did not ask clearly at first.
So he added another sentence:
"I''m not referring to the weight of a single antenna, but the entire external radar group, including the radome and other servo mechanisms..." Unexpectedly, Liu Yongquan nodded directly:
"What I''m talking about is the weight of the entire external load, which is around 1.2 tons, and will not exceed 1.3 tons at most."
"In addition, the size shown in the picture is the one with the best performance among our series of solutions. If the user does not have a particularly high pursuit of detection distance, then the external load can be further reduced to around 900kg. Of course, the antenna The size will be reduced accordingly to about 8 meters.”
“…”
This result, which was so good that it was almost unreal, made the venue suddenly quiet.
All that was left was the breathing of a dozen people and the whine of the projection equipment dissipating heat.
As for Kasore himself, his mind was in a mess, and he even didn''t know what to think.
The maximum payload of the Falcon 8Z when designed is 1850kg. If all external equipment adds up to only 1.2 tons, then as long as the number of operators and in-plane equipment is slightly controlled, the entire mission load can be limited to the commercial load. Within the load capacity.
There is no need to bother with structural reinforcements at all.
As for 900 kilograms...that can almost be installed directly on a Falcon 6Z that is two sizes smaller.
Not only that, it can even allow AWACS and business jets to achieve most of their production on the same line. It only requires a few more steps in the final assembly process, and there is no need to go through the process again after leaving the factory.
Although these details are inconspicuous, they do not seem to have any impact on performance, but they can greatly reduce costs and shorten delivery cycles.
For users who are in urgent need of spot goods, the appeal is undoubtedly extremely high.
Moreover, there is another non-technical advantage -
In a short period of time, the only one that can compete with the Falcon 8Z platform early warning aircraft is the Gulfstream G550+ Falcon, jointly developed by Elta Electronic Industries and General Dynamics.
Find David Guo to buy an early warning aircraft.
And I still buy futures...
If there were no competitors, that might be it.
After all, the situation of the Ring Project is quite special, and it is inevitable that everyone will take some chances.
But if there is a competing product that is obviously French, has similar or even better performance, and is almost ready-made.
Then most users may have to weigh it.
The only problem is…
How is this done?
It can''t be that this pole is just an external antenna, and even the radome and cooling system are omitted, right?
Fortunately, Kasore still had the most basic sense of reason at this time, so he didn''t ask such a outrageous question.
But in a daze, he still blurted out:
"Is the radar solution you provided... really an active phased array?"
Compared with active phased array radar (AESA), which requires a separate T/R component for each radiator, passive phased array radar (PESA) has only one central transmitter and one receiver, so a single In terms of the weight of the antenna itself, it is generally much smaller than an AESA of the same size...strictly speaking, of the same area.
In previous communications between the two parties, the term used has always been the somewhat ambiguous "electronic scanning radar."
Therefore, it cannot be said that it is completely unreasonable for Kasore to have this idea.
But it made Liu Yongquan on the opposite side laugh.
However, he was not an expert in the field of electronic technology, and Guo Lin was still in Jinling at this time, so he left the right of interpretation to Fan Jimin, a project deputy from the Electronic Technology Group next to him.
The latter was a little nervous at this moment, but after all, it was a serious question raised by a foreign partner, so he still answered solemnly:
"On this point, our radar system is indeed an active phased array, and this will be reflected in our cooperation agreement."
At this point, perhaps because he was worried that he was not convincing enough, he paused and added:
"Actually, we have not systematically developed passive phased array radar. Please rest assured, Mr. Casore..."
Although AESA is undoubtedly more advanced than PESA, in the technology tree, the two are actually in a parallel relationship with the same prerequisite technology, rather than a sequential relationship.
Having said this, Casore could only think that the Chinese had some special skills in the AESA field.
After lowering his head and writing down a few key points in his notebook, he thought he had calmed down and signaled to Liu Yongquan that he could proceed to the next stage of the meeting.
However, Kasore would soon find out.
Lightness is just the most insignificant advantage of this radar...
(End of chapter)