Ba Tielong dragon fighter staged the Chinese version of the "radar war" behind the twists and turns
2020 at 16:46 on February 10 Sina military Author: Northland defense
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Source: North Defense
A few days ago, "Jane's Defense Weekly" published a report on the latest progress of the China-Pakistan FC-1 "Jiaolong" / JF-17 "Thunder and Lightning" fighter project, including the "Jiaolong" latest improved "Jiaolong" Block III Information, it is reported that the first prototype of the "Baolong" Block III has made its first flight in Chengdu on December 17, 2019, and the second prototype will also be put into trial in May this year.
The report disclosed for the first time that the "Baolong" Block III finally selected the KLJ-7A of the 14th China Electric Power Research Institute in Nanjing as its airborne active phased array fire control radar, which is the core of all aircraft upgrades. The author of the report is a British journalist who has a close relationship with the Pakistan Air Force, so the report is very credible. What kind of radar is used by the "Baolong" Block III can be described as twists and turns. Today, the CN military station (WeChat ID: Sinomilitary) tells the story behind this.
△ "Baolong" Block III has made its first flight at the end of 2019, but the first prototype does not seem to have a radar installed
The use of an airborne active phased array fire control radar for the "Baolong" Block III was determined early in the project's inception. The only uncertainty is which radar to choose. China Electric Power Research Institute 14 and AVIC 607 both Provide their own airborne active radar products to participate in the bidding. The strength of both units is good, and related products have also served in the Chinese Air Force by a certain order of magnitude.
According to public information, the minibus was a radar model that was determined at the last moment, which also made this "radar war" protracted. The two units have their own advantages, and they are still trying their best to compete for this hundreds of orders and high profits.
△ The 14th KLJ-7A airborne active phased array fire control radar was exhibited for the first time in 2016. This is the first time that a domestic airborne active radar was exhibited.
Although this "radar war" was launched between two Chinese military industrial enterprises, the meaning behind it was not ordinary. Behind this "radar war" can be called the epitome of Chinese military occupation of high-end military electronic technology. This can be seen from From two perspectives:
First, although China is the main weapon supplier of minibuses, China's provision of weapons to minibuses is by no means "what do you buy?" Almost any weapon, especially the main battle weapon export minibus, is more or less Few are participating in competition with countries such as Europe and Russia. At the beginning of the development of the "Jiaolong" fighter, the minibus wanted to equip the "Jiaolong" with a European fire control radar. Only when the 14th agency took the action did the minibus say "I don't want to."
From the beginning to the end, the "radar war" surrounding the "Brontoon" Block III was not played by European manufacturers. High-performance airborne active radar is at the peak of military electronics technology. The absence of European manufacturers in the "radar war" Although it cannot be said that China has surpassed Europe in this field, with the continuous expansion of scientific research investment and use scale, related technologies It will be sooner or later that the field will show its strength.
△ U.S. Version of the "radar war" was finally won by APG-83. Its manufacturer Northrop Grumman was also the development unit of F-22 and F-35, but APG-83 is clearly a compromise product for the export and upgrade market
Second, this "radar war" also proved that the overall level of China's military electronics technology has reached a very high level. At present, only three countries in the world, China, the United States, and Russia, have more than two companies with the ability to develop airborne active radars. However, Russian products have not been put into service, so the current high-speed propulsion on airborne active radar lanes must be China and the United States.
Interestingly, a similar "radar war" was also played in the United States 8 years ago. At that time, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon in the United States were competing for South Korea, Singapore and other countries and regions for F-16 upgrade orders (with clear use Demand for active radars (more than 300 aircraft), launched APG-83 and APG-84 airborne active radars, and started protracted competition. Northrop ’s APG-83 finally laughed to the end. However, APG-84 also received upgrade orders for the U.S. Marine F-18 in 2019.
The "radar war" between China and the United States is quite similar. The companies in the two countries have developed related technologies to a certain degree, and after meeting the domestic demand for fifth-generation and fourth-generation and half-fighter aircraft, they will gradually evolve. Products are launched to the international market, and the list size is not small. It can be said that since the relevant technology has obtained export licenses, it is no longer a sensitive technology for this country. Exporting it can not only enhance its influence in the international market (even geopolitics), but also be very beneficial to the long-term healthy development of the company itself. helpful.
△ Pakistan's "Jiaolong" was photographed carrying the Perak-15 missile, but if there is no active fire control radar, the long-range advantage of this missile will not be exerted
The "radar war" surrounding the "Baolong" Block III was all Chinese companies, and everyone was naturally "easy and happy" to watch. But for the companies in the bureau, how dare they be sloppy in the face of these hundreds of millions of orders? From the comparison of the strengths of the two companies, as the birthplace of China's radar industry and the industry's "Big Mac", the 14 companies have monopolized the fire of all aircraft of the J-10, J-11B, J-15, and J-20. With the development of radar control, the overall strength is naturally superior.
At the 2016 Zhuhai Air Show, the KLJ-7A became the first airborne active phased array radar on display in China to become the focus of the audience. The "radar war" may have begun since then.
If the 607 is to launch a similar product to the 14 KLJ-7A to compete for "equal and stable", the result may have long lost its suspense. The 607 institute has a unique approach for this. In 2017, it was announced that it had successfully developed the world's first airborne air-cooled two-dimensional active phased array fire control radar LKF-601E, and achieved significant breakthroughs after flight test verification. With the appearance of LKF-601E, the competition has undergone subtle changes. In the eyes of the outside world, the competition of product models has become a "technology line dispute" to a certain extent.
△ Institute 607 launched the air-cooled LKF-601E airborne active radar in time to show its resilience and technical strength, but it is still a glorious defeat
The so-called air cooling is a cooling method for aircraft radar systems. Active phased array radar has good performance, but also has high power, and requires better cooling methods. This is what all "old-fashioned" aircraft must upgrade to active radar. One difficulty. Although the "Nine Dragons" Block III adopts a new design, it is difficult to fundamentally change the original structure because of its small size. Therefore, its upgrade is similar to the "in-situ upgrade" of F-16 aircraft. Airframe structure or wiring changes must not even change the status of the aircraft's only air-cooled interface and its cooling distribution.
And high-performance active phased array radar often adopts liquid cooling method to take away the heat of the antenna (aircraft liquid is introduced into the radar system for cyclic cooling), which has the best heat dissipation effect. However, the structure of the complete liquid-cooled system is also complicated. It is very difficult to directly use the "old-fashioned" aircraft and fighters with limited airframes.
The American (F-16V) method is a compromise method, that is, the radar antenna is still liquid-cooled and reused. The original air-cooled channel cools the coolant to achieve heat dissipation. The advantage of F-16 in doing so is to maximize the weight and volume of the liquid-cooled conversion unit inside the radar, and to keep the antenna structure in line with "conventional radars" such as F-22 and F-35 to the maximum extent. There are mature designs to achieve serial and general development. It is generally believed that KLJ-7A adopted a similar technical route at least early.
△ F-20, F-35 and other new aircraft use on-board radar using liquid cooling technology, because they represent the latest technology in their country, the relevant technology will inevitably be used on other models. Air-cooled models are not conducive to serialization and general development
The air-cooled design used by the LKF-601E is the third technical path other than liquid-cooled, liquid-cooled / air-cooled mixing, that is, by optimizing the antenna's heat conduction performance, directly using the cooling wind that comes with the aircraft to dissipate heat. This design used to be It has also been used in helicopter-borne radar. The 607 institute first used it in airborne active phased array radar is indeed the first. T
he advantage of using air-cooled design for airborne active radar is that the structure is relatively simple and does not take up too much resources of the aircraft, but three disadvantages are also very prominent: one is that the radar power is severely restricted; the other is that the antenna array is difficult to uniformly dissipate heat; three It is not conducive to the serialization and general development of mainstream products.
If it is a new type of heavy and medium-sized fighter aircraft, air cooling technology can be said to have absolutely no way out, but it has quite a lot to do on the light "Jiaolong". The reason is that the radar used by the fighter requires trade-offs in terms of structure, technology and performance. The "Longlong" itself has limited aircraft resources. Even if it uses active phased array radar, it can only be a compromise product. In the case that there is not much power that can be "wasted", if the "Longlong" uses air-cooled active radar, it can also achieve the purpose of simplifying the aircraft design.
△ The KLJ-7A radar tested on the Yun-7 should not be better than the 607 of the AVIC Group.
The 607 is obviously aiming at this opportunity, decisively grabbing the "jackpot" of the air-cooled radar (the KLJ-7A also had a similar scheme at the beginning), so that the "radar war" became more intense. From this, it is not difficult to see the outstanding resilience and technical vision of 607, and of course, it also has the technical strength to solve the problem of air cooling technology.
It is just that the strength of 607's opponents is too strong.
At the Zhuhai Air Show in 2018, 14 companies further demonstrated the "wide-angle solution" of KLJ-7A. The characteristics are fully absorbed and quickly transformed into actual products. This kind of action has no effect even at the international level. In addition to strong technical strength, public information shows that the 14 schools and minibuses are also very close. The country ’s land-based and The space-based early warning system was organized by 14 companies, and the 14 companies also provided minibuses with the KLJ-7 aircraft fire-control radar production line used in the early batches of the "Liaolong". Therefore, it is not surprising that KLJ-7A can finally win.
△ The KLJ-7A radar wide-angle solution exhibited in Zhuhai where 14 is located combines the advantages of products from Europe, Russia and other countries in one
It is worth noting that at the Zhuhai Air Show in 2018, 14 companies pointed out that the KLJ-7A can also be air-cooled and has related solutions. The "Jane's" report just pointed out that KLJ-7A wins with air-cooled technology! Someone asked the original author whether this was a typo, but the author replied that the solution provided by KLJ-7A to the minibus did include two technical forms, liquid cooling and air cooling. Well, this may be a very dramatic result. After setting off a "technical dispute", the LKF-601E was eventually "anti-killed" by the more powerful KLJ-7A with the same technology.
Taken together, the Chinese version of the "radar war" is not inferior to the American version a few years ago in terms of technical level and intensity. In addition to the results, the overall improvement of many Chinese military companies in the field of electronic technology is even more gratifying ...
https://translate.google.com/transl...,15700021,15700186,15700190,15700259,15700271
TAKEAWAYS:
1. This proves that KLJ-7A indeed comes in two modes as far as cooling mechanism is concerned.
2. There are three cooling techniques of AESA; i. Pure liquid cooling ii. liquid+air cooling mixed iii. pure air cooling
3. What Institute 607 was trying to do was adopt 3rd technique.
4. KLJ-7A most probably is going to use 2nd technique. (this is what I got from this report.)
5. Pure Air Cooling, at least so far, has 3 major disadvantages; Low Range of Radar, Not able to cool the entire antenna uniformly, low probability of serial production as tech needs to be matured.