Air refueling, is a way to significantly increase the combat radius of fighters, as early as the era of propeller aircraft, there have been experiments, one aircraft throws out the oil pipe, the pilot of another aircraft catches the oil pipe, and then you can refuel, pure manual operation, quite primitive.

And up to now, the air refueling technology has been very mature, there are two main ways in the world, one is the hose, that is, the air tanker releases a hose, the end of the hose has a conical sleeve, in front of the nose of the refueling machine, there is a refueling tube, which can be fixed or telescopic, the pilot needs to use his superb technology, just like Zhang Fei wears an embroidery needle, to stuff his refueling port into the conical sleeve, docking is successful, automatic pressurization, you can accept fuel.

This is also the most widely used form in the world, called hose refueling, in the process of refueling, the refueling pipe is constantly fluttering, like a kite string, will be disturbed by the air flow.

At the tail of the tanker, there is a special refueler, operating a hard refueling pipe stretched out by the refueling machine, and then plugged into the refueling port on the back of the refueling machine.

This kind of refueling method does not require the pilot's superb skills, whether it is successful mainly depends on the level of the refueler, at the same time, because it is a hard pipe, relatively thick, the speed of internal fuel flow is quite fast, and the air refueling operation is more efficient, but so far, only the United States Air Force uses this method, and the technical difficulty is very great.

Now, Qin Feng has proposed that in order to modernize the Air Force, he needs to have air refueling technology.

In fact, the newly developed No. 10 project, when it was designed, needed to have the ability to refuel in the air, which could extend the combat radius, improve the time of fighters in the air, and increase the utilization rate of aircraft.

Therefore, if this technology can be matured now, it is equivalent to reserving technology for Project No. 10.

Qin Feng put it forward, now we can start this project, from this war we can see that in the future battlefield, we need the logistics support of air tankers!

"But we don't have anything right now." Hearing Qin Feng's words, the leader of the test flight institute spoke, yes, this kind of technology is needed in China, but the real problem is that there is nothing.

What to do if there is no in-flight refueling technology, no tankers, no refueling machines, nothing?

"Imported from abroad, of course." Qin Feng said: "We imported their Mk32 refueling pod technology from the United Kingdom, and on this basis, we developed our own refueling pod. ”

Now, the door to the West is open, but if you look to the past, cooperation with the UK is the best option.

A lot of things were imported from the UK, from the original Spey engine to the later modification of the J-7M, and a lot of equipment in the Air Force came from the UK.

In terms of the army, the 105 mm gun, which is most needed for tanks, was also imported from the United Kingdom, and it can be said that Britain is the one that cooperates with China the most.

There is also a lot of cooperation in France, such as Dolphin helicopters and so on, but there is a big problem with French equipment, that is, it is expensive! Especially now that the negotiations on Mirage 2000 have broken down, everyone is holding their breath, and it is impossible to get it from France.

On the German side, Germany is on the front line, taking off to fight wars and the like, there is little need for air tankers, and there are not even suitable air refueling corridors.

Qin Feng has studied these air refueling technologies, and the British FRL company has the most advanced air refueling technology in the UK, and the Mk32 refueling pod they produce is widely used in many kinds of air refueling aircraft, and it is the best to introduce it from them.

Hearing Qin Feng's suggestion, the leader of the test flight institute nodded: "Yes, this refueling pod can be solved by introduction, but air tankers and refueling aircraft are also problems." ”

Who will be the air tanker?

In the Western world, passenger aircraft are generally used to act, passenger aircraft already have a high fuel load, if you add a few additional fuel tanks in the lower layer of the passenger aircraft, then the fuel is even more abundant, such as the most important KC-10 air tanker in the United States, the number of fuel carried has reached 161 tons! One flight is enough to refuel a brigade.

However, there is no domestic, the domestically developed Yun-10 has been completely dismounted, although there are a large number of passenger aircraft in civil aviation, but those are civilian and cannot be used as military aircraft.

"With Yun Eight." At this moment, someone spoke: "Our Yun-8, which can carry twenty tons of fuel, can be used as an air tanker!" ”

Yun-8 is currently the only transport aircraft that can come up with a hand in China, this kind of transport aircraft is the An-12 transport aircraft of the Soviets, as a medium-sized transport aircraft, with a self-weight of 35 tons, a fuel carrying capacity of more than 20 tons, and a maximum payload of 20 tons.

If two more fuel tanks are put in its cargo compartment and also used to transport fuel, then there will be 40 tons of fuel reserves, and now the domestic aircraft, the fuel tanks are very small, even if it is the Jian-8, it is already the largest fighter in China, and it is only four tons of internal oil, which can meet the fuel needs of two four-plane formations.

Advanced electronic technology, everyone is anxious and useless, but if you want to talk about air refueling technology, after hard work, you can still have it, so everyone discussed it enthusiastically again, in the military aircraft, only the Yun-8 is the most suitable!

On the surface, this proposal is the best, the Yun-8 is large, has a high fuel load, and can be completely domestically produced, will not be restricted, and can be mass-produced at any time as long as the Air Force needs it.

However, Qin Feng knew that this kind of aircraft was not the most suitable, because, in addition to these advantages, it also had one of the biggest disadvantages, it used a turboprop engine and had a slow flight speed!

Turboprop engine, behind is a turbine engine, but not by jet propulsion, but by the front to drive the propeller forward, so that it has a good low-altitude performance, is the first choice of some transport aircraft, and even some heavy transport aircraft will use propeller propulsion, take-off and landing is also very convenient, but what, the propeller will produce resistance, so the speed of this aircraft is not high.

Look at the main tankers in the world, they are all jets, because to refuel fighters, the speed cannot be too slow, there are also transport aircraft of C-130 modification, but this kind of transport aircraft, that is to refuel helicopters in the air!