Brazil KC-390 Transportation/Fueling Machine——

The samba eagle dancing

　　Recently, the Brazilian Air Force released a set of high-definition pictures of the KC-390 transport/refueler, which once again attracted attention from the outside world. On September 4 last year, the Anapolis Air Force Base in Brazil held a grand ceremony to receive the first KC-390 transport/refueler developed by Embraer. This marks that after 10 years of R&D and test flight, the model has finally reached a mature stage. Since then, the aircraft has triggered a new round of discussion on the future development of military transport/refueling aircraft.

Leverage

Dislocation competition strategy has spawned new composite models

　　The combat radius is one of the important indicators to measure the combat capability of fighters and even the Air Force. The aerial refueling machine can make the oil receiving machine increase the range and extend the battery life, so it has the reputation of "air power multiplier" and "air long arm".

　　At present, there are many types of fuel tankers in active use in various countries, and the oil load ranges from more than 30 tons to more than 150 tons. At present, the oil load of mainstream models is between 90 tons and 110 tons, such as IL-78, A330MRTT, KC-46A tanker, etc. These are all large-scale strategic tankers above mid-range.

　　The KC-390 developed by Embraer is a medium-sized, twin-engine turbofan multi-purpose military tactical transport/refueling machine. In 2005, based on years of experience in the development of civil aviation regional airliners, Embraer began a research and demonstration of the development of military transport aircraft and received support from the Brazilian military. In 2006, after various analysis, the company came up with the original idea, positioning this transport aircraft at a load of about 20 tons, and invited South African Daniel to participate in the development of this type of aircraft. The weight of the aircraft was comparable to the US C-130, which was a very popular tactical transport aircraft at the time. At the 7th Latin American Aviation and Defence Exhibition held in 2009, the Brazilian Air Force officially signed a contract with the company, and changed the project name to KC-390 Transportation/Refueler.

　　The reason why the Brazilian Air Force matches this model is that it is related to Embraer’s successful development of various models and rich experience, such as the “Pioneer”, “Super Toucan”, and air surveillance and remote sensing aircraft. On the other hand, the retrofit function of the C-130 imported from the United States is relatively simple. For example, the modified KC-130J tactical tanker does not have the cargo function.

　　As a result, Embraer began to target the operational needs of the Brazilian Air Force and built this new type of transport/fuel tanker to a high standard. During the development process, Embraer frequently borrowed not only the assistance of Boeing of the United States, but also countries such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Portugal also announced to join the project, undertake part of the manufacturing work and commit to purchase, making KC-390 an international Cooperation projects.

　　Embraer’s strategy of leveraging and dislocation competition has enabled KC-390 to absorb the technology of many Western aviation powers and successfully avoided direct competition with mainstream aircraft of many famous airlines.

　　At present, KC-390 has begun to carry out aerial refueling tests, and has cooperated with the Brazilian Air Force and the Army to complete the test subjects such as dragging and dropping air refueling tubes under low-altitude and low-speed, high-altitude and high-speed flight conditions.

Flawless

Innovatively designed multi-purpose tactical transport/tanker

　　KC-390 was designed as a multi-tasking platform during the development phase. In addition to refueling in the air, it can also perform tasks such as military supplies and transport and delivery of combat personnel. On the aircraft, the equipment kit involved in the mission can be installed within 3 hours and has a variety of civilian functions.

　　As a tactical transport aircraft, KC-390's cost-effectiveness ratio is quite high. The aircraft is equipped with two turbofan engines, with a maximum cruising speed of 870 km/h, a practical ceiling of more than 10,000 meters, a range of about 2800 kilometers under full load, and a range of more than 6000 kilometers with no load.

　　It has a maximum centralized payload of 26 tons, a maximum distributed payload of 23 tons, and can load up to 37.4 tons of fuel. From this set of data alone, it exceeds the KC-130J tanker.

　　In addition, the KC-390 has a spacious cargo compartment, which can transport 80 fully armed personnel or 66 paratroopers, as well as a disassembled Black Hawk helicopter or 7 standard military pallets. When performing medical rescue tasks, it can accommodate 74 stretchers and 8 medical personnel, and has corresponding power and oxygen supply facilities.

　　For cost reduction and project risk considerations, KC-390 has used as many civil designs as possible such as the wings, tail, fly-by-wire flight control system, and vitrified cockpit of the E-190 jet regional passenger aircraft, which requires base-level maintenance. Low cost and low maintenance and operation costs.

　　The design concept of KC-390 is relatively new. It enlarges the cross-section of the fuselage and cargo compartment, and can load larger and larger quantities of cargo. In the cargo compartment, the function of the cargo compartment can be quickly changed by adjusting the retractable bottom roller. After installing a removable fuel tank inside the cabin and installing a cone-sleeve aerial refueling pod under the wing, it can be quickly converted into an aerial refueling machine, which can refuel the helicopter in a low-altitude and low-speed flight state, and can also fly at high altitude and high speed Refuel the fighter in this state.

　　On KC-390, pilots can control the aircraft by touch, and the cockpit is compatible with night vision goggles. The aircraft can be equipped with self-defense kits, including radar warning receiver, laser warning receiver, missile proximity warning system and directional infrared interference turret. At the same time, 14 jammer launchers can be installed on the fuselage and armor protection is provided for key parts.

　　Of course, KC-390 also has shortcomings. First, the refueling capacity is relatively insufficient. It is acceptable to refuel small aircraft, helicopters, and medium-light fighters, but it is slightly insufficient to refuel heavy fighters, long-range aircraft, front-line support aircraft, and military transport aircraft. The second is that the engine is not adaptable. The KC-390 is equipped with a turbofan engine and has a faster speed, which is a bit mismatched with the speed of the helicopter coming to refuel, and the design position of the engine is lower from the ground. There is a greater risk of the engine sucking foreign objects on the ground. The third is a simple way to refuel. KC-390 has only two hose refueling points, one less than mainstream hose refueling machines such as Il-78. In addition, it does not have the hard tube refueling capability.

　　Therefore, it is more suitable for the national army with narrow mission scope, limited military threats, and no need to transport a large number of personnel and equipment.

face to the future

Reflect the future development trend of fuel tanker

　　As the so-called "see the sun in a drop of water", the trendy and dancing KC-390 also reflects the general trend of the world's transportation/refueler research and development in the future, that is, toward diversified uses, integrated platform design, and combat environment adaptability. Good, better refueling capacity and other directions.

　　Develop in the direction of taking into account the communication network nodes. In the information warfare, the transport/fuel tanker has shown a tendency to act as a node of the communication network. For example, the US Air Force requires the KC-X new-generation tanker to have network information nodes, radio radiation detection and positioning functions, and it can perform information perception, information relay, and information processing to provide timely information support for friendly aircraft.

　　Develop towards multi-purpose integrated design. At present, with the acceleration of the modernization of air force weapons and equipment of various countries, most countries generally adopt a multi-purpose integrated design in the selection of transportation/refueling aircraft, that is, different mission requirements, different combat radii, With different indicators such as duty time, the load capacity and the cargo tank cross-sectional size are carefully designed to achieve the purpose of "one machine with multiple uses". For example, multi-purpose aircraft such as KC-46A requires a larger refueling radius and a longer emptying time in terms of refueling; the cargo tank interception size will also consider the size of large equipment required by the country and major customers.

　　To adapt to the complex battlefield environment. One is the ability to fly in intensive formations. According to the needs of future large-scale fleets to implement refueling in the air, the refueling aircraft must be equipped with position maintenance equipment, etc., in order to ensure that multiple aircraft complete the instrument flight formation under zero visibility conditions, thereby ensuring air refueling at night and under low visibility environmental conditions Flight safety. The second is to have airborne self-defense capabilities. In order to improve the survival rate in future wars, the effective enhancement of airborne self-defense capabilities by tankers will become one of the trends. This includes not only the ability to resist light weapons and anti-aircraft attacks, to discover and resist infrared-guided missiles, but also to include night vision combat and Anti-electromagnetic pulse capability, etc. The third is to have stealth and high-speed capabilities. In combat, the tanker will inevitably become the key target of attack. Therefore, research and development and installation of stealth tankers adapted to future high-risk environments will become a major trend. At present, some countries have begun to improve the stealth performance and high-speed performance of the tanker, and have formulated future-oriented development plans. It is expected that a new generation of tankers with stealth, high speed, long-range, and multi-functions will be put into use around 2035.

　　To develop in a multi-functional fast and efficient direction. At present, the new generation of fuel dispensers already have multi-point simultaneous refueling and single-point high-flow refueling capabilities, and many refuelers have both soft and hard refueling capabilities. According to the needs of multi-type formation refueling in the future, the future tanker will not only meet the needs of small and medium-sized fighters and helicopters at low speed and small fuel volume, but also meet the high-speed and large fuel consumption of heavy fighters, bombers, transport aircraft, and large support aircraft The need for aircraft refueling meets the requirements of the diversity of oil aircraft in joint operations of multiple services.

　　In short, the construction and use of transportation/refueling aircraft is not only closely related to the industrial level of the country where the aircraft platform is developed, but also closely related to the needs of each country and the future combat direction, combat mission, combat environment and main combat opponents.

　　For countries with little external strategic pressure, newly developed or newly purchased tactical transport/fuel tankers with advanced performance are the key points; for powerful countries or emerging powers, the focus is on the development of large-scale multi-purpose transport/fuel tankers with more than two engines. , Its tactical tanker is often derived from the upgrading of existing mature models.

　　With the rapid development of unmanned control technology and intelligent technology, in the future, not only will there be more conventional conventional multi-purpose transportation/refueling machines with more advanced performance, but also unmanned and intelligent transportation/refueling machines.