But on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. aviation industry is a different scene, originally the last face in May 92 to officially start the F-18E/F Super Hornet project, in this plane is actually disappeared without a trace, although Yang Hui does not know when the Super Hornet was officially established, but also knows that this is the United States in the A-12 and NATF project not long after the start of the start.

So at this time, the A-12 and NATF have been dismounted, why hasn't the United States heard that the F-18E/F fighter is going to be approved? All of this made people feel a little weird, and this feeling had been going on with Yang Hui for several months, so he specifically asked the company's Aviation Industry Intelligence Research Institute in the imperial capital to pay attention to collecting the movements of the new generation of fighter jets of the US Navy.

It was under such circumstances that after the J-18 had just rolled off the assembly line of the first static test aircraft, the intelligence personnel who rushed back from the United States overnight came to the southwest headquarters of AVIC in Guiyang and exchanged face-to-face with Yang Hui about the movements of the US Navy's next-generation fighter jet.

Yang Hui, who had just rushed back from the test area, saw the middle-aged man sitting in the office room, walked over and shook hands first, and then couldn't wait to ask: "It seems that there is the latest news this time, so please tell me what the situation is this time, what is the US Navy's next-generation fighter being engaged in?" ”

I also know that General Manager Yang has been concerned about this project for a long time, and the answer at this time must be the first to say the answer: "F-14E/F, this time the US Navy's new generation carrier-based fighter project is based on the original F-14 fighter redesign, and has made great improvements, the US Navy will call it the Super Tomcat fighter." ”

After hearing the news, the first feeling in Yang Hui's head was that this time the play was off, the butterfly wings were too fierce, although the Republic side was one step ahead of the Super Hornet ****, it is expected that the complete version of the J-18 can compete with the F-18E/F of the US imperialists, but I never expected that the US imperialists would not play F-18 now.

This Nima is simply going to kill people, and it actually affected the U.S. Navy to change the F-14. The guy pulled it out and continued to change the magic, you must know that this guy was already quite awesome, and the last face of the United States Emperor himself cut off this road, and now, now, actually

What Yang Hui didn't know was that because Northrop had participated in the early development of the J-18 before, after returning to the United States, he must have honestly revealed some of the information they knew to the U.S. military, in this case, in fact, as early as the breakup between China and the United States, the U.S. military completely abandoned McDonnell Douglas Hornet 2000 (that is, the predecessor of the F-18E/F) project.

It is really the US imperialism that it knows that McDonnell Douglas Hornet 2000 is technically not much better than the J-18, and now the J-18 has been developed in the Pacific Ocean and the opposite side for a long time, if it continues to use the Hornet 2000 program as a new generation of fighters, I am afraid that the US imperialist navy itself will be embarrassed, and the time will definitely be like a tide to find the father!

Then, in this case, the other main carrier-based fighter of the US Navy, the F-14, has entered the eyes of the old man, compared to the medium-sized fighter body of the F-18, the F-14 is a proper heavy fighter, and the huge airframe space can fully meet the multi-purpose combat mission after modification (for details, please refer to the F-14D bomb cat in the ground attack in the Iraq War).

The F-14 originally had a strong anti-air interception combat capability, and the flight performance of the slightly winged far exceeded the two ends of the flight envelope of the fixed-wing aircraft, which is not the kind of flat straight wing of the F-18 that can be compared with it, at least the F-18 no matter how it is changed to a Super Hornet, it is impossible to have the supersonic interception capability of the F-14.

Anyway, no matter how you look at it, on the basis of the F-14 to improve a new generation of carrier-based fighters, this is not the F-18 improved version can be compared with the performance, if you really want to talk about the shortcomings, I think it should be on the basis of the F-14 to improve the super Tomcat in terms of cost, logistics and maintenance must be weaker, want to land an aircraft carrier with ammunition like F-18E / F, the new F-14 Super Tomcat may also be difficult to do.

But in any case, after the US imperialists now do not have the two key projects of A-12 and NATF, and at the same time do not want to be laughed at by their fathers, then to choose a new carrier-based multi-role fighter, it can only be the Super Tomcat program, and there is no other way.

"F-14E/F Super Tomcat fighter? It's a bit of a surprising choice, is there a rendering of Grumman's Super Tomcat fighter, or a three-view view, I want to see what kind of fighter it is. ”

After Yang Hui made a request, another photo was handed over immediately. After taking this thin photo, I finally saw what the super tomcat project looked like this time.

After reading it, Yang Hui probably understood: "It seems that there are a lot of changes, let's talk about some public news about this aircraft, it seems that it not only increases the ground attack ability, but also has a new upgrade in close combat, but it is this huge big side wing, I can feel a little scared just by looking at it, I can only say that Grumman is really radical enough." ”

In fact, the photo Yang Hui saw was nothing else, it was the ASF-14 "Advanced Strike Fighter-14" scheme that Grumman faced with the F-18F/F in the ring, which is a newly manufactured and highly evolved F-14, which is a real "super Tomcat".

"The new Super Tomcat fighter project, which we have worked with before, participated in Northrop, who brought the large side strip wing technology and used it on the F-14, unlike our J-18 fighter, the large side strip wing on the Super Tomcat is very thick, it is a place to load fuel, and can greatly improve the low speed control performance of the Super Tomcat. According to Grumman, even if flying at ultra-low altitude with the maximum sweep angle, it can still have good control, and if it is in the case of a small sweep angle, the flight performance can reach the same level as the Hornet 2000. ”

What else can be said, in fact, this is all tolerable, not angry that Northrop used the big side wing technology on the super Tomcat, Yang Hui knew that even without Northrop, the last Grumman still used the big side wing technology in the ASF-14 project, which is unavoidable.

And when Yang Hui nodded and said that these news were understood, the improvement of the Super Tomcat in aerodynamics was also in this place, and it can be seen that this is not any different from the previous ASF-14 in terms of aerodynamics, so it is not too surprising.

But then when talking about the power system of the Super Tomcat, Yang Hui could only cry without tears, because what he heard was: "In terms of the power system, the Super Tomcat fighter will use two GE based on the latest modification of the F-110 engine, a F110-GE-134 engine with a thrust of 151.3 kN, which will also enable the new Super Tomcat fighter to achieve the same supersonic cruise as the F-22 when performing anti-air interception combat missions." ”

Listen, this Nima's Super Tomcat fighter is about to achieve supersonic cruise, this is only a third-generation aircraft and a half aircraft improved from the third-generation aircraft, and it can also achieve supersonic cruise.

This is much better than the Typhoon fighter's half-baked supersonic cruise, and even more powerful than the F-35 fighter's transonic 1.4 Mach cruise, after all, it can be called a supersonic cruise aircraft, which requires the engine to reach at least Mach 1.5 without afterburner.

151.3 kN, which is already up to 15 tons of thrust, and the Russian F-117 engine that has been rumored to be used on the J-20 is probably this thrust level, and it was at that time, and the republic still can't get the F-117 engine.

In a word, the GE-110-134 engine with a high of 151.3 kN can definitely be used as the power of the fifth-generation aircraft, and the current Super Tomcat fighter should use this engine, and it seems to be feasible to achieve supersonic cruise in the volley combat mode with a large sweep angle.

However, Yang Hui remembers that the previous ASF-14 seemed to only plan to use a GE-110-129 engine with a thrust of 12 tons, and then it would be able to reach a supersonic cruise speed of Mach 1.3, but I had never heard of a 15-ton big guy!

However, I heard that the Grumman side at that time had planned to install the F-119 engine on the ASF-14, and it was said that the guy could push the Super Tomcat to surpass the F-22 in supersonic cruise, which would even make the Super Tomcat more restricted by aerodynamic heating than structure (more than Mach 2) in terms of super-cruising top speed.

But fortunately, the U.S. Imperial Navy is not so thoughtful, it is just equipped with an engine that is just close to 15 tons, not the F-119, probably because the F-14 was used on the F-110 engine, and this may be considered a blessing in misfortune!

Yang Hui in a wry smile shook his head, this new super Tomcat fighter is already a little too surprising, I really don't know if there will be any more moths in this plane

The next moment, the time to test Yang Hui's heart came, and he only heard one sentence: "Not only that, after having 15 thrust, this engine will also have a vector thrust function, anyway, on the whole, the United States is planning to support GM to develop a quasi-fourth-generation engine when GM loses the opportunity to be a fourth-generation engine power provider, which will ensure healthy competition between the two engine companies in the United States." (To be continued.) )