The use of pods for electromagnetic offensive and defensive operations brings benefits not only to greatly reduce the trouble in designing the two-seat J-18 electronic warfare aircraft, but also to achieve modular design and integrate combat functions with different combat objectives.

As we all know, the main target of electronic warfare aircraft is radar, and radar is divided into different bands according to different operational needs, for example, long-wave radar is used for ground air combat command and even land alert; The medium-band radar is the key alert in the theater of operations, or the air search of regional air defense missiles (Patriot, Red Wine, S300); And if you want to talk about short-wave radar, that thing is an airborne fire control radar used on fighter jets.

In short, radars in different bands will have different roles according to their respective detection distances and accuracy, and in order to achieve comprehensive coverage interference of radars in these different bands, it is not only necessary to be able to distinguish the enemy's radar bands, but also to have strong countermeasure capabilities.

In order to achieve interference with these three types of relatively simple radar spectrum, even the US imperialist's EA-18G uses three large pods to install jamming equipment, each pod is almost the size of an auxiliary fuel tank, and each pod correspondingly also deals with a radar with a general band range, which is the reason why it achieves full-range interference.

This method of dividing the pod function by the band as a range to achieve confrontation is a very interesting scheme, and if you think about it carefully, you will find that in a combat mission, is it really necessary to have full-band jamming?

In every battle, the flight mission is prepared in advance, and to attack the enemy's anti-aircraft missile positions on the ground, you are rarely required to attack the enemy's fighter jets, and that is the work of other teammates. That is to say. At this time, it is enough to be able to suppress the enemy's medium-band radar, and the other two pods used to suppress the enemy's short-wave and long-wave can still be at the base.

When the fighter groups of the two sides are engaged in air-to-air combat, it is also possible to have one or two fighters carry short-wave radar jammers to carry out electromagnetic suppression of the enemy's short-wave radar in the airspace of the engagement, so that the local airborne radar cannot work. Think about how you can jam the enemy's airborne radar when the two teams are fighting. Then the enemy will become a blind being, and he will also be slaughtered by others.

This is the reason why the EA-18G of the last US imperialist was able to blow up the F-22, although it must be admitted that the phased array radar of the F-22 has some good electronic warfare capabilities, but that is only an additional function, and it is a little short of a specialized electronic warfare aircraft.

"Therefore, we hope that when designing the electronic jamming pod, we must try to classify the interference electromagnetic equipment of different bands in one pod, and can realize the separate operation between each pod, as long as this can be achieved. Our electronic retrofitting is a sure success. ”

The electromagnetic interference performance of the full frequency band is definitely not good, not to say that it will not be used in combat, but it is certain that it will not be used in most of the time, and even if you know the enemy's radar frequency band, it is only the first step, and then the electronic attack is the real big thing, and you can't suppress the enemy radar, how can you talk about attack?

A pod of the US imperialist can achieve an overwhelming attack on a wide range of bands, and the reason for the excellent performance of the annoying pod used by the EA-18G is excellent. With electronic components more than 20 years later, this can be done in a smaller volume. But the current republic cannot do it.

But as mentioned earlier, there is no need to achieve full-spectrum suppression in general tasks, such as launching an attack on the enemy's air defense radar, as long as you feel that the power of a medium-band pod is not enough, that's good, there is no problem at all. It is enough for you to replace the other two long-wave and short-wave jamming pods with medium-wave jamming pods.

The three jamming pods were put together to win by quantity, if you want to say this feeling, who knows who uses it, anyway, in the Iraq war that year, the US imperialists released a total of 24 F-4Gs. How strong is the prestige of these guys? It is only known that as soon as the US imperialist army at that time called for the F-4G, Iraq's ground-based radar was immediately shut down.

"According to the range of radar wavelengths to design different electromagnetic interference pods, this way should be worth a try, 29 can do this requirement, but how to achieve the integration of J-18 between these different electronic jamming equipment, although the electronic warfare aircraft does not need to be specially designed fuselage, but many aspects still need to have some special fuselage improvements."

For example, another combat function of electronic warfare aircraft: listening to and destroying enemy radio communications, also requires special equipment to support, and this set of equipment is also not small. According to the design of the US imperialists, this set of equipment is directly installed at the six-barreled cannon in the nose of the F-18.

And here in the J-18, it happened to be replaced with a built-in airborne laser aiming and infrared navigation system, but now it seems to be!

"Others, such as radio monitoring and jamming systems, can be installed in the nose of the nose where laser aiming and infrared navigation systems were originally installed, anyway, there is no need to install this set of equipment on the two-seat combat training aircraft, after all, the range of the two-seat fighter is too short, and the ground attack is a little insufficient, but it is better to directly use it to install more useful radio monitoring equipment."

Cancel this set of equipment on the two-seater fighter, this is a point determined by the J-18 design team very early, if you want to carry out the teaching task of accurate ground attack, you can also achieve it by plugging the external precision aiming pod, anyway, there is no need to install too many guided bombs when carrying out the teaching task, and there is no problem with two less hardpoints.

As for how to achieve a precise attack when the enemy's ground radar is attacking, this is even simpler, to deal with the radar guided bomb, it is best to use anti-radiation bombs, and then take 10,000 steps back, there is no laser targeting system that can use the form of a pod, or a teammate who accompanies the attack, anyway, everything is not a problem.

Seeing that in order to achieve a strong electronic warfare capability, the Southwest Science and Industry has even canceled the airborne laser aiming and infrared navigation system that the J-18 relies on most on the two-seater J-18, which makes people have to be moved, and the 29th Institute has no reason not to cooperate with the development of this electronic warfare equipment.

"Since this is the case, what can we say more about the 29th Institute, as long as the Southwest Science and Industry can be trusted, and the army has this need, of course, the most important point is that we 29 can get the funds, and we will definitely go all out to do a good job in the development of the electronic warfare system, and we will definitely strive to turn the two-seat J-18 into an excellent multi-purpose fighter."

That's right, according to the plan of the two sides, the two-seat J-18 fighter is not only used to achieve the professional teaching task of the J-18 pilot, but also has a strong electronic warfare capability.

The behavior of the U.S. imperialists' F18 training aircraft is a training aircraft and an electronic warfare aircraft is an electronic warfare aircraft is very shameful, and one multi-purpose aircraft is the real king, anyway, the J-18 has a jewel pillar avionics system, and it is not a matter to quickly realize the conversion of different combat missions.

After all, the use of this electronic warfare aircraft is sometimes quite limited, and the money of the US imperialists is not as abundant as it was during the Cold War.

But as soon as the J-18 electronic warfare / trainer aircraft of Southwest Science and Industry came out, it would be different from the US imperialism. Dare to ask which air division did not have a few two-seat trainer aircraft when it was equipped with single-seat combat aircraft? At that time, where there are J-18 trainers, there will be J-18 electronic warfare aircraft, anyway, the most important part of the electronic warfare equipment is in the form of a pod, and when not in use, it is good to remove it and put it aside. (To be continued.) )