Various new technologies are armed to the teeth, the British "Storm" takes the lead in the sixth generation fighter

In the future, the "Storm" fighter will rely on its powerful network-centric warfare capabilities and be capable of manned/unmanned piloting. It can not only charge forward like ordinary fighter jets, but also serve as a network node for air command tasks.

　　Our reporter Zhang Qiang

　　The amount of data processed per second is comparable to the Internet traffic of a city. The amount of data collected and processed by the new radar system equipped with the British sixth-generation aircraft "Storm" is 10,000 times that of the existing radar system!

　　Recently, an article about "Storm" fighter jets published on the website of British BAE Systems has earned enough attention.

This article also revealed some other equally important information-"Storm" fighter jets will also use "wearable cockpit", at the same time, based on the "wearable cockpit" optimized weapon system, a series of situational awareness, data management, The research and development, verification, and demonstration of more than 60 technical projects in multiple technical fields such as autonomous systems are in progress, which will comprehensively enhance the various combat capabilities of Storm.

　　So, what is the performance of the British sixth-generation "Storm"?

What does the information disclosed this time mean?

How should we examine this future fighter?

　　Variable cycle engine technology is an important support

　　"In general, the research on the key technologies that support the British sixth-generation "Storm" is advancing. It should be said that the advancement of its research and development is relatively fast and relatively smooth." According to foreign media revealed The latest information, military expert Wenchang judged.

　　In July 2018, the United Kingdom displayed a high-profile full-scale model of the "Storm" fighter at the Farnborough International Air Show. It also announced that it would invest 2 billion pounds to develop this fighter from 2018 to 2025, and it is expected to be as early as 2035. service.

　　Wenchang introduced that the full-scale model of "Storm" displayed in 2018 basically showed the aerodynamic layout of "Storm" and its future development direction to the public, and there should be no disruptive changes.

　　The reporter learned that the current basic understanding of the sixth-generation aircraft in the academic community can be summarized as the "six super", that is, ultra-flat shape, supersonic cruise, ultra-conventional maneuver, ultra-long-range strike, ultra-dimensional IoT, and ultra-domain control.

These six dimensions can basically summarize the design ideas of the current and even the future six generations of machines.

　　"At present, the British'Storm' is basically designed in accordance with these six dimensions." Wenchang said, "'Storm' is designed for manned driving, but retains the option of evolving to unmanned driving. This is in line with the development of the sixth-generation aircraft in the United States. Consistent. "Storm" adopts wing-body fusion design technology to improve the lift-to-drag ratio and stealth capability of the aircraft. In terms of supporting weapons, the United Kingdom intends to equip "Storm" with laser weapons and hypersonic weapons, which will bring future air combat Revolutionary impact. The "Storm" airborne electronic equipment is more integrated, using augmented/virtual reality technology to replace traditional cockpit display equipment."

　　At the same time, the British Luo Luo company is also developing a new engine for the "Storm".

Luo Luo company developed the F136 variable-cycle engine for the American F-35 fighter, but it was not selected by the F-35. It is believed that the F136 variable-cycle engine technology will be applied to the "Storm" fighter.

Variable-cycle engines have good performance in subsonic, transonic and supersonic flight conditions. They are more advanced and have higher fuel efficiency. They can allow fighter jets to cruise at supersonic speed for a longer period of time and significantly expand aircraft range and combat radius.

　　"There is no doubt that the application of variable cycle engine technology will be an important support technology for the'Storm' to become the sixth-generation aircraft." Wenchang said.

　　Will be a network-centric fighter

　　"From all aspects of the information revealed after the air show in 2018, the British "Storm" feels like a fighter with a higher performance than the fifth-generation aircraft. Technically it is more like the concept of the fifth-generation aircraft. The breakthrough on the basis is relatively conservative, or the “Storm” at that time feels like a fifth-generation and a half fighter.” Wenchang said, “But two years later, we re-examined the design concept of “Storm” and found that it was more It is like a sixth-generation aircraft developed on the basis of the F-35 fighter jet with excellent performance and many breakthroughs in the field of traditional technology."

　　Compared with the sixth-generation aircraft technology of the United States, the technology of the "Storm" fighter is more traditional. The technology research and development of the sixth-generation aircraft of the United States has made new combat concepts such as joint global operations, mosaic warfare, distributed killing, combat cloud, and system clusters popular. I understand, but the development of the "Storm" fighter does not involve these new combat concepts.

Wen Chang said that the military needs of a country directly determine the route of its equipment development. The F-35 is the world’s first fighter designed with the concept of network-centric warfare, and “Storm” seems to be drawing on the concept of F-35 combat application. In the above, the sixth-generation aircraft developed by integrating "loyal wingmen" and "swarm operations" and other operational concepts can be said to be a network-centric fighter.

　　"In the future, relying on its powerful network-centric warfare capabilities, Stormwind can conduct manned/unmanned operations and command drone swarms to fight against loyal wingmen. It can not only charge forward like ordinary fighter jets, but also serve as a network. The node is responsible for air command tasks, such as providing data support for the rear long-range precision strike weapons and directing them to conduct long-range precision strikes." Wenchang said.

　　In particular, "Storm" will install a super radar system called "Multifunctional Radio Frequency System".

This is also a heavy piece of information disclosed by foreign media this time.

　　The "multifunctional radio frequency system" integrates active phased array radar monitoring capabilities, electronic warfare capabilities, and certain communication capabilities. The volume is only one-tenth of the existing radar, and the accuracy is four times that.

The amount of data that this radar can collect and process per second is equivalent to the Internet traffic of the entire city of Edinburgh, UK.

Then, the powerful signal processor will use the radar data to draw battlefield images for the pilots and display battlefield information such as friendly equipment, enemy fighters, ground targets, and air defense systems.

　　At the same time, the "Storm" fighter is still conducting flight tests of the "wearable cockpit" technology concept.

It is said that the "wearable cockpit" can directly project the physical controls in the current aircraft cockpit onto the pilot's augmented/virtual reality helmet display, and quickly realize task configuration based on the displayed content.

　　Represents the future development direction of cockpit display system

　　In general, among the information revealed this time, the most noteworthy is the "multifunctional radio frequency system."

It is a new type of radar system, the amount of battlefield situation data that can be collected and processed per second is 10,000 times that of the existing system.

　　"This is very amazing! There are two possibilities. One is that the British side has exaggerated in its publicity. Because traditional computer technology has not yet undergone disruptive changes, the amount of data processed at the same time exceeds 10,000 times the current amount. The above is almost impossible to achieve through traditional technology. Second, the United Kingdom has made breakthroughs in computing power and adopted quantum computing. The United Kingdom has invested a lot in the field of quantum computing and established a special research institution. If there is no quantum computing It’s hard to imagine a computer’s computing power that will achieve a 10,000-fold increase in the size of a smaller computer.” Wenchang said.

　　Also to consider is the "wearable cockpit".

This means that "Storm" has little or no traditional instrument design. The so-called head-up displays and lower displays on modern fighter jets will no longer exist as entities. Everything will be replaced by augmented/virtual reality technology. The pilot's driving efficiency and the aircraft's combat effectiveness are greatly improved, and the pilot's driving burden is greatly reduced.

"First is to reduce the weight of the aircraft, second is to improve the safety of driving, and finally to greatly improve the situational awareness of the pilots and enhance the combat effectiveness. This will bring about a disruptive change and represents the future cockpit display system. Wen Chang said that foreign media articles show that “Storm” will also be equipped with assistive technologies such as artificial intelligence co-pilots, which require strong computing power to support. If the information disclosed is true, you can guess that the UK may be Substantial breakthroughs have been made in related technical fields, and have reached the stage of practicality and engineering.

　　"Therefore, given the empowerment of many new technologies, how much the future combat capability of the British six-generation aircraft will be improved, we should reposition, re-understand and re-think." Wenchang said.