Great warships

Ah San, Hansa Naval Air Base, Goa.

This is the most important naval aviation base in Asan, and the MiG-29K imported from Da Mao is temporarily deployed at the airport here.

That's right, it was planned to be deployed temporarily at the beginning. No one thought that something would happen to the Chaoriwang, so these MiG-29Ks did not have the conditions for shipboard and could only be deployed on land.

In order to train these MiG-29K fighters, Ah San specially installed a "land simulation platform ski jump deck" on the shore-based test facility (SBTF) in this base, and used this to carry out the take-off test of the carrier-based aircraft. At the same time, special Fresnel landing aid mirrors and arresting wires were installed not far away for the training of carrier-based aircraft pilots. Although this base cannot move and cannot simulate the shaking of the deck, it is also better than pilots. It is much more convenient to go directly to the ship for training.

Although the Chaoriwang is abolished, the naval carrier-based aviation personnel here still maintain about [-] hours of training every year, and are ready to station at any time on the aircraft carrier Blue Sky Guardian they built themselves, although this aircraft carrier does not know what it wants They can only enter the army when the time comes, and they have to prepare in advance.

And today, they ushered in a new development opportunity.

The US Super Hornet carrier-based aircraft will come to them for testing, and if they pass the test, they will be purchased in large quantities.

Super Hornet, the main carrier-based aircraft of the US Navy!Once this aircraft joins the Asan Navy, they will become the strongest navy in the world!

The Asan Marines are very happy.

Since Sunil was still returning at sea with the aircraft carrier formation, only the commander of the base, Luke, greeted the American group as the supreme officer.

The first thing that landed was a business jet, and a group of Americans came down from it. The leader was a man in his 50s, with a suit and leather shoes, a high nose bridge and blue eyes. He held out his hand: "It's a great honor to be here. It's Kenneth, from Boeing."

The Super Hornet project had been a tough one, and it was originally a competition for the U.S. light fighter program, which lost out, with the F-16 winning the bid.

Afterwards, the design team could only take the navy route, and wanted to open up the navy market. The navy just had a headache for the cost-effectiveness of the Tomcat fighter, so it entered the navy sequence as an alternative model.

Although it is a third-generation aircraft with side wings and fly-by-wire flight control, its design is still very conservative, and it is even a static and stable aircraft. It was not until the Super Hornet that the static stability was relaxed. .

At the same time, when it comes to the Super Hornet, it has also evolved from a medium-sized aircraft to a heavy-duty aircraft: the maximum take-off weight exceeds 25 tons.

At the same time, its research and development units are also very complicated, including Northrop, McDonnell Douglas, and Boeing. After these years of mergers, the Super Hornet project has officially become a project of Boeing.

At this time, Kenneth is looking forward to it very much. After all, the Hornet's export is not good, and it is incomparable with General Dynamics' F-16 fighter jets. They want to open up more markets. Fortunately, in the field of carrier-based aircraft, they have almost no competition. of those.

"Welcome, Mr. Kenneth, our base here is about to welcome the second carrier-based aircraft that takes off and lands conventionally." Luke was very excited: "The fighter is still behind, right? Would you like to take a look at our base first? "

This business jet came first, and the Super Hornet flew behind, and it took about half an hour.

"Of course." Kenneth said: "Our Super Hornet is powerful. We can fly the movements that the MiG-29K can fly, and we can fly the movements that the MiG-29K can't fly."

At this moment, the roar of the plane sounded, and they raised their heads and watched a MiG-29K flying unsteadily towards the simulated landing area.

The MiG-29K and the Hornet have many similarities. They both have a layout of two engines and two vertical tails, with side strips. The thrust of the engine is similar, but the air intake method is different.

Everyone looked over, the flight state of the MiG-29K was not very stable, it adjusted back and forth several times, but still failed to land successfully, gave up at a place one meter above the simulated landing area, and then resumed. fly.

"The MiG-29K is an improved land-based fighter, and it is difficult to land." Kenneth said: "Our Super Hornet is different. It was a carrier-based aircraft when it was born, so its landing It will be very simple." Luke's eyes lit up: "Then after your Super Hornet flies, can it land directly with a carrier-based aircraft?"

Kenneth's heart skipped a beat, no, the cowhide is overblown!
The landing of the carrier-based aircraft is not easy, and various accidents may be encountered at any time. Therefore, in unfamiliar situations, it is safest for them to use conventional landings, but they have already blown their heads just now. If they do not agree now, then Aren't you shy?
He thought for a while, then nodded: "Of course, our Super Hornet can successfully land at an unfamiliar airport with a carrier-based aircraft. Even if your Fresnel light box is broken, it doesn't matter. Some have an automatic landing system."

"Automatic landing?" Ah San and the bumpkins all opened their eyes wide.

"Of course, we have a set of AN/SPN-46 systems on our business jets, which can be installed within half an hour. At that time, we can cooperate with our Super Hornet carrier-based aircraft for fully automatic landing. Now you want to Install it?"

"Yes, yes!"

Entering the jet era, landing of carrier-based aircraft is becoming more and more difficult, and accidents are also high. At this time, some people are thinking: Can technology be used to reduce the difficulty, and develop a fully automatic landing system, so that carrier-based aircraft easier to land?
The U.S. military has a real need, and began to develop a fully automatic landing system in 48, and finally entered the practical stage in the 70s.It uses an instrument landing system, the radar is AN/SPN-10, and it is installed on the CVA-59 Flatters aircraft carrier and the F-4 carrier-based aircraft; but the accuracy is still not high enough, the longitudinal accuracy of the landing is plus or minus 30 meters, and the lateral accuracy Plus or minus nine meters, lateral accuracy plus or minus three meters, this kind of precision can't guarantee a safe landing at all, it is still mainly manual.

After the 70s, the AN/SPN-42 radar was developed, and the accuracy data was reduced to half of the original. The carrier-based aircraft can finally use the semi-automatic landing method, and use this system to guide it at long distances. A perfect glide line can be obtained, and it will not be manually taken over until the landing. This system is installed on the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier (CV-67) to continue testing.

After 85, the United States developed a new generation of fully automatic landing system, and used the Hornet to verify the performance of fully automatic ship landing guidance. Just recently, the Yankees completed it at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. The world's first fully computer-controlled short take-off and landing maneuver to achieve fully automatic landing.

They brought this automatic landing system, not only to help pilots land in unfamiliar places, but also to sell this system to Ah San. Help, Ah San should like it.

Seeing the expressions of the Assams at this time, Kenneth was very satisfied, and immediately asked his subordinates to install it. With this system, even if the Super Hornet landed with a carrier-based aircraft, there would be no problem.

The MiG-29K that hadn't landed just now landed on the runway next to it in a conventional way. After landing, it was sweating profusely. After hearing that there is an automatic landing technology here, it immediately ran over. Even the flight suit Didn't have time to take it off.

"Sir, are you the one who failed to land just now?" Kenneth looked at the pilot and asked.

"It's me. I have operated the plane according to the instructions of the Fresnel lens, but I don't know why, but it just can't come down." The pilot Sinha was very helpless.

"Your technology is very good. It's not your problem that you can't land, but the problem of the plane. Da Mao's technology is too backward. We flew a two-seater plane. You can go up to experience our plane in the future. said Kenneth.

It is not easy to train carrier-based pilots, so if there is no accident, Ah San's first batch of Super Hornet pilots must have been converted from MiG-29K, and now Kenneth has started to fool them.

"Really? That would be wonderful."

"However, it is still difficult for you to change the flight. After all, there are no instruments in our cockpit, all of them are liquid crystal displays, and our head-up display is also larger, which can display a lot of data." Kenneth continued. Alarmist talk, but showing off.

What's so good about Lao Maozi's plane?It is still a watch shop now, and there is only one display screen at most, and the head-up display is also an ordinary refraction head-up display, which is very small.

American fighter jets are different. They are equipped with tall liquid crystal displays and glass cockpits. The head-up display is also a diffraction head-up display. It has a large area and can display a variety of data. The data of this fully automatic landing system is also on the head-up display. to show.

"Glass cockpits are a trend, and we all like them," Sinha said, nodding.

Soon, there was a roar in the distant sky.

Accompanied by a MiG-29K, a Super Hornet spread its wings and flew over. The two planes flew together, and it was easy to see that the Super Hornet was going to be bigger. The side strips that come out extend all the way backwards, with a large area, and you can even see white smoke appearing on the side strips. The humidity of the seaside is high, and it is pulled out under such circumstances, which makes people feel emotional.

Under the side strips, on both sides of the belly, the rectangular air intakes look more beautiful, much better than the original circular air intakes, and it is not a complete rectangle, but more similar to a parallelogram, which is similar to the stealth aircraft. The breath is the same.

Looking back, although there are also double vertical tails, the vertical tails are flared, which is much more beautiful than the vertical vertical tails of the MiG-29K.

From the appearance alone, they are very satisfied.

There is longing in Sinha's eyes, will he be able to fly this kind of fighter in the future?That's great!

"Everyone, our fighters will fly around your base and then land on a ship. Since the pilots are tired from the long-distance flight, there will be no flight demonstrations. Anyway, this aircraft will be tested here. , there is plenty of time to show everyone, the super cobra action of the Su-27 can be realized on our aircraft."

At the Farnborough Air Show, the Su-27’s Super Cobra action surprised the world and left a deep impression on everyone. When talking about this fighter, everyone would say: The maneuverability is really strong, but unfortunately it was dragged down by the radar , Lao Maozi's electronic system is too backward!

In fact, many third-generation aircraft can do this kind of maneuver. When it was still YF17, this aircraft once pulled the angle of attack to 105 degrees and kept it for 20 seconds. This is 27 years earlier than the Su-14.

Although the U.S. Navy is yelling at the big bug and returning my tomcat, in fact, the performance of the Super Hornet is still remarkable.

At this time, for the Asan Navy, there is nothing to say. They raised their heads and looked at the Super Hornet flying in the sky. No matter how beautiful it looked, they imagined the scene of flying this kind of aircraft in the future. Already heartbroken.

The two planes circled the sky, and then the Super Hornet entered the landing pattern.

"We have a video recorder in the cockpit, and everyone can watch the video after landing. When the plane flies over, the pilot does not need to do anything, and completely leaves the control of the plane to our automatic landing system, especially at night, when the visibility is severe. In the event of a decline, this system will increase a lot of security.”

Ah San sounded very good, but in fact, their aircraft carrier did not have night combat capabilities at all. It was okay to take off, but it was not so easy to land at night, and it might crash.

Even in the United States, not all pilots have the ability to land at night. The use of this system now makes it easier for carrier-based aircraft to land at night. Of course, everyone is happy to hear it.

"Yeah, this system is great, we will introduce two sets in the future." Luck said.

While speaking, the fighter plane was getting closer and closer, the landing gear and landing hook had been released, and the glide line was impeccable.

The big guy stood on the side of the landing area, watching the plane gradually approaching, and listening to the roar of the engine, his mood became more and more excited.

Sinha looked at the main landing gear, can the L-shaped structure withstand it?
"We know that the MiG-23 uses a kneeling landing gear. We didn't expect that the most advanced carrier-based aircraft in the United States also uses this kind of landing gear. Can it withstand the impact of landing?" Sinha couldn't help asking .

"Of course." Kenneth said: "We know that ordinary fighter jets use strut-type landing gear. This kind of rocker landing gear has been developed, using special alloy steel more advanced than 300M alloy steel, which can fully withstand the descent rate of 7.8 meters per second, and this can also increase the wheel spacing to 3.11 meters, which greatly increases the weight of the landing gear. ship's stability."

The Super Hornet's landing gear is special, it bends backwards like a human leg kneeling down. This kind of landing gear is said to be not strong, but the Yankees rely on advanced material technology to make this kind of landing gear. Very strong.More than any previous landing gear.

At this time, the Super Hornet continued to descend with a steady posture, and it had crashed into the runway perfectly without making any large-angle adjustments. All the carrier-based aircraft landed so aggressively. Sinha looked at the Seeing the kneeling landing gear collide violently with the ground, he felt a twinge in his heart.

But, it doesn't matter, I didn't hear a cracking sound, and I didn't see the fuselage deflection. The plane continued to fly forward steadily. Stopped the second arresting wire.

Pretty!

Seeing the perfect landing operation of this plane in front of him, Sinha admired it very much. Although he has flown hundreds of sorties, the success rate of landing is less than one-tenth. All kinds of accidents, this time he saw the American fighter plane landing so easily, as a colleague, he admired it very much.

Luke was also very satisfied: "Yes, this aircraft is more suitable for an aircraft carrier!"

At this time, the Super Hornet that had already hooked up the arresting cable continued to slide forward, pulling the arresting cable forward continuously, forming a triangular structure. As the arresting cable was stretched, the speed of the aircraft was also constantly increasing. Lower, lower again.

Perfect, very perfect!
crunch...

When the small sound sounded, no one paid attention. After all, the ears were filled with the roar of the engine, but the pilot, Sinha, heard it. There was a loud bang, and then the arm-thick arresting cable broke into two pieces, and the port instantly turned into a broom. At this moment, the entire arresting cable started to walk up and down the ground like a snake.

The blocking cable is broken!
"Hide!" Sinha yelled loudly.

In an instant, everyone became chaotic.

Kenneth stood there, eyes full of disbelief, what a low-level mistake, how could the blocking cable break?Before he could react, there was chaos around him, and then, there was a light sound like a whip being whipped on a person, pop, snap, snap!

No one can escape!

The blocking cable was like a sweeping leg, sweeping under the audience, and after the first sound passed, there was a scream.

Ah, ah!
Kenneth also felt a terrible force in his legs, and then his whole body fell down, and his calf was in sharp pain.

Snapped!
A severed leg fell beside him, and he was very surprised. He lowered his head to look. Fortunately, the calf hadn't left his body, but both feet had been twisted to one side, comminuted fracture!
Thanks to the buffering provided by those Asan beside him, who forcibly blocked the sweeping force of the blocking cable with his body, he kept his intact legs. Spent half of my life in a wheelchair.

When the American Super Hornet landed at the Asangoa Hansa Naval Air Force Base, it pulled the blocking cable and broke all the legs of the 38 people who were visiting and landing!When the tragedy spread to the formation at sea, Sunil was stunned.

Senior officials of the base and several unlucky pilots became disabled in a daze, and seven or eight Americans were also injured!