The Chinese carrier-borne early warning aircraft, is it near?

Official media releases the latest progress, experts interpret application scenarios

　　[Global Times Special Correspondent Li Qiang, Global Times Correspondent Liu Yang] According to a CCTV program report on the 20th, the domestically-made new fixed-wing carrier-based early warning aircraft had a successful test flight not long ago.

So, what are the difficulties in the development of fixed-wing early warning aircraft, and what role does it play in the combat effectiveness of aircraft carrier battle groups?

Compared with the early warning helicopter, what advantage does it have, can it take off on an aircraft carrier with a skid deck?

What is the difficulty in developing a shipborne fixed-wing early warning aircraft

　　In this CCTV program, a fuzzy photo of a new type of fixed-wing carrier-based early warning aircraft circulated on the Internet was released, and it was interpreted by the guests on the spot.

From the appearance point of view, the aircraft uses a twin-engine turboprop engine, an upper single-wing, backpack-type disc radome.

　　A military expert told the Global Times reporter on the 22nd that the development of fixed-wing early warning aircraft is more difficult than land-based early warning aircraft.

The design of carrier-based early warning aircraft requires high levels of aircraft platform first, and must meet the requirements for take-off and landing on board.

Carrier aircraft have high requirements for the structural strength of the platform, and the landing gear and structural strength must be strengthened.

In addition, carrier-based aircraft must have good low-speed take-off and landing performance.

When an airplane takes off from a deck with a short distance, whether it uses a catapult or a ski jump to take off, it requires the lowest possible ground clearance speed. In order to reduce the impact of the landing, the landing speed must also be reduced.

This requires the use of high-efficiency lift devices for the wings.

At the same time, the aircraft platform should be optimized for the layout of the radar.

Judging from the fuzzy photos released by CCTV, the latest fixed-wing carrier-based early warning aircraft platform for the latest test flight has been designed specifically.

　　In addition, because the take-off weight and overall dimensions of the carrier-based early warning aircraft are greatly restricted, it is required to install high-performance radars, communication equipment and electronic warfare systems with long detection distances in the smallest possible space. This requires that the early warning radars are relatively small. The size and the high degree of automation, while meeting the detection distance, must also solve the problems of power supply and heat dissipation.

The aircraft carrier on the early warning aircraft is an inevitable choice

　　The aircraft carrier has a large active phased array radar, and the escort fleet also has a large number of air detection equipment.

At the same time, China’s Liaoning and Shandong ships are also equipped with early warning helicopters. Why do we have to use fixed-wing early warning aircraft?

A Chinese military expert interviewed by a reporter from the "Global Times" said that although the current carrier radar has high power and long detection range, this radar cannot always be used as the detection core of the entire fleet, because in many cases, in order to prevent reconnaissance, Try to keep the radio silent.

At the same time, the aircraft carrier is at the center of the fleet. If the carrier-based radar is used for air detection, it is best to use a forward ship and set up an air defense guard to extend the detection range as much as possible.

In addition, carrier-based radars, including air-to-air radars for escort ships, have high power and long detection range, but they have limited ability to detect low-altitude and ultra-low-altitude targets.

Especially for ultra-low altitude targets, limited by the curvature of the earth, the detection range of the shipborne radar is only tens of kilometers, so the warning time will be greatly reduced.

Therefore, some countries are equipped with early warning helicopters, mainly for blind detection of ultra-low altitude targets.

However, limited by the flight altitude, its own range, and the mass and size of the payload that can be carried, the detection range of the early warning helicopter to low-altitude targets is still limited.

　　Experts believe that an important purpose of carrier-based aircraft is to strike at sea and land targets.

This requires carrier-based aircraft to travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometers, and only fixed-wing early warning aircraft can meet the air situation support and command and dispatch tasks at this distance.

The future early warning aircraft must also have strong anti-stealth capabilities. These tasks are difficult for early warning helicopters to complete. The development of fixed-wing carrier-based aircraft is an inevitable choice.

Can the carrier-borne early warning aircraft skid and take off

　　The official media’s program answered questions from netizens about whether the fixed-wing carrier-based early warning aircraft can take off on aircraft carriers that use skid-jump decks. The guests participating in the program thought it could not. The reason was that the fixed-wing carrier-based early warning aircraft with turboprop engines did not have enough thrust-to-weight ratio , US E-2 series early warning aircraft only take off on large deck aircraft carriers that use catapults.

　　However, experts interviewed by the Global Times believe that it is not entirely impossible.

Whether you can take off with a ski jump or take off autonomously on the deck depends on two things. In addition to looking at the engine power, it also depends on the wings.

The carrier-based aircraft of World War II had few airborne equipment and relatively low wing load. In addition, they were mostly fighters and attack aircraft, and their power-to-weight ratio was relatively large, and they could even take off autonomously.

Based on various favorable and unfavorable factors, it is not impossible for a fixed-wing early warning aircraft to take off with a skid jump. The United States used the E-2C for ski jump takeoff tests.

Northrop Grumman of the United States also sold the E-2C early warning aircraft to the Indian Navy in 2005.

The company’s assessment with the U.S. Navy concluded that it is possible to take off from the ski jump deck of the Indian Navy’s aircraft carrier with appropriate modifications without a catapult.

But then the Indian Navy discovered that this would reduce the E-2C's endurance from 5 hours to 1 hour.

It can be said that, from a technical point of view, if the wing lift coefficient of the carrier-borne early warning aircraft is relatively high, the power weight is relatively large, and the length of the deck take-off section is appropriately extended, it is not impossible to perform a ski jump. .

Of course, if a country has both a skid-jump-deck aircraft carrier and an aircraft carrier with a catapult, it can be grouped and used, and there is no need to demand that the carrier-based early warning aircraft take off on the ski-jump deck.