Chapter 453
: After the collision, our research team gained a deeper understanding of electronic warfare technology through in-depth discussion and study of EP-3, and domestic technology has made a big step forward.
In 2003, the KJ-2000, an early warning aircraft independently developed by our country, successfully completed its test flight.
The reason why it was so fast is entirely due to the efforts of our research and development team in the past few years.
Whether it is an electronic reconnaissance aircraft or an early warning aircraft, the real core technology lies in the collection and transmission of signals, that is, in the transmission and receiving modules.
As early as 1993, our research and development team advocated spending a lot of effort on the research of receiving and transmitting modules.
Active phased array radar was the most advanced concept at the time, but it was still in a conceptual stage. At that time, the world's first early warning aircraft using active phased array radar was the Israeli Falcon, although it was still very immature at the time and could only scan 260 degrees, with a large blind spot.
However, our R&D team happened to have a technical solution to solve this problem. So, after China negotiated with Israel, Israel sent a technical team to Beijing to discuss with us.
At the meeting, Professor Wang from our R&D team proposed our technical solution, using the Il-76 as the carrier aircraft and the world's largest back-mounted antenna. By raising the radar antenna and reducing the obstruction of the aircraft tail to the beam, 360-degree all-round coverage can be achieved.
As soon as this technology was proposed, it shocked the technical team of Israel, who believed that we were qualified to work with them to research and develop the third-choice Falcon AWACS.
However, the Israeli authorities were not frank enough. They wanted to make money from our country and get our technical solutions for free, so they dragged their feet on the talks for two years until 1996 when the cooperation plan was finalized.
At that time, the contract stipulated that the money for the Falcon AWACS jointly developed by China and Israel would be paid by China, and the core receiving and sending components would be produced by China.
After the contract was signed, many people did not understand why we had to work for them when we had paid.
But in fact, the more work we did, the greater the advantage we would get. If we learned how to make all the core components, even if there were any accidents in the subsequent cooperation, we could still produce our own AWACS.
The entire R&D team is well aware of this, so they all work extra hard and rush to do everything. During the cooperation period, the Israeli research team was very satisfied with us and loved to come here on business trips.
In addition to the R&D team, other aspects of the country are also working hard. In economic cooperation, many patriotic companies have participated.
The Su family also tried every means to win the task of processing antenna covers and transceiver component shells for Israel. This is a business with huge investment, little output, and stable losses. However, for the prosperity of the motherland, everything is worth it.
With the joint efforts of various people, we are basically involved in the entire production process. This is just a backup plan we prepared to prevent accidents.
Fortunately, we are prepared.
In April and May 2000, when the aircraft was about to be built, Israel secretly sold the Falcon AWACS developed by China and Israel to the Arab countries at a price of 1.38 billion US dollars. Then it proposed to terminate the contract with China. No matter how China negotiated, it was useless. We only lost less than 400 million US dollars.
Fortunately, we have a backup plan. We have learned the technology of core components and the production of accessories. We are not afraid of you if you shamelessly tear up the contract. At most, we will spend some time to develop a new one ourselves.
So, in December of the same year, the KJ-2000 project was officially established.
Later, we learned new things from EP-3. After more than two years of hard work, the KJ-2000 finally succeeded in its test flight in 2003.
Seeing that we have built our own AWACS, Xiao Yizi started to do evil things again. He bought a group of navy soldiers on the Internet to whitewash them. He said that the reason why we can have our own AWACS is because they gave us the technology for free. The contract was torn up at the beginning, but it was only due to the pressure from the United States.
At that time, the Internet was in a state of barbaric production. With the guidance of people with ulterior motives, ordinary people showed great kindness to Xiao Yizi, and they were almost grateful.
It's really a whore and a saint. This operation is really disgusting.
However, our research and development team ignored these. After the successful test flight of KJ-2000, they continued to the next step of research.
The carrier aircraft of KJ-2000 is the Russian Il-76, and our country has only 4 of them. China has a vast territory, and four early warning aircraft are definitely not enough. In addition, there are more than 50 early warning aircraft of the same type in the United States, so we must find a way to build more.
Therefore, the research and development team set their sights on the domestically produced Y-8 transport aircraft. Although the Y-8 is not as good as the Il-76, it is an aircraft independently produced by China. In the event of a war, at least it can be fully domestically produced, so there is no need to worry about a war of attrition.
However, the maximum take-off weight of the Il-76 is 190 tons, and the effective load reaches 50 tons. The maximum take-off weight of the Y-8 is 60 tons, and the effective load is only 20 tons. It is basically impossible to move the active phased array radar on the KJ-2000 to the Y-8 platform, so we can only start the design from scratch, and then the KJ-200 was born.
Even in such a difficult situation, our R&D team only took a few years to come up with a balance beam strategy. In October 2005, the KJ-200 successfully completed its test flight and was delivered to the troops in January 2006.
However, because the aircraft adopted a balance beam strategy, it had a large radar blind spot and could not search in all directions. In addition, due to limited space, it could not accommodate so many control terminals, resulting in the KJ-200's command capability being far weaker than that of the KJ-2000.
Our patriotic and dedicated R&D team always wanted to improve these problems as soon as possible, so as not to let our military lag behind others in terms of weapons and equipment.
As a result, the bad news that shocked the whole country occurred.
In June 2006, in order to improve the shortcomings of the KJ-200 and upgrade its technology, the front-line research team of China's early warning aircraft boarded a KJ-200 for a test flight. Unfortunately, it crashed and all died.
This was the biggest loss in China's aerospace industry, resulting in a near-complete shortage of electronic warfare personnel in China, which took several years to recover.