With the first flight of the F-20, the test flight of the F-20 is unfolding intensively.

Four prototypes will fly into the sky almost every day to test whether the data of various surnames meets the requirements.

At the same time, in order to repeat the brilliance of the F-5 and achieve sales results that blossomed everywhere again, mass production was quickly launched. Northrop has taken a series of extraordinary measures to set up a Production Development Center (PDC). Centralized personnel for the design, production and assembly of the F-20. At the same time, they used more "hard" tools to facilitate the transfer to mass production.

Since the F-20 was originally developed according to the F-5, the aerodynamic layout of the test flight is not the focus, after the wind tunnel test, the F-20 does not have the defects in aerodynamics and flight control at this time, therefore, the subsequent installation of the fire control system verification machine, is the focus.

The AN/APG-67 radar, developed by General Motors, was not installed for test flights until 1983, but orders from Iraq greatly stimulated them, as early as the first flight of the F-20, this radar was already installed on the C-54 technical demonstrator, and on the fourth prototype, the lead block for the counterweight had been taken and replaced with this radar, which was connected to the 1553B data bus.

Although it is said that when it is exported, it is necessary to open the weapon interface, in fact, it is very simple, because at this time, all US military aircraft are developed in accordance with the common 1553B data bus.

Before the 60s of the 20th century, there was no standard common data channel for aircraft on-board electronic systems, and a large number of cables were often required to connect individual electronic equipment units. In the beginning, it was not a problem, but as the on-board electronic systems continued to become more complex, the cables used for this communication method would take up a lot of space and weight, and the definition and testing of the transmission lines would be more complex and expensive. And it can't be universal.

To solve this problem, the United States developed a standard signal multiplexing system, and in 1973 published the MIL-STD-1553 standard. In 1973, the 1553B multiplexing data bus became the technology that will be adopted by military aircraft in the future, which is a centralized time-division serial bus with the characteristics of distributed processing, centralized control and real-time response.

This is like a telephone, there are many wires in the cable of the telephone line, and each time you call, you will use different phone lines between different users, resulting in a huge communication line, but after using the same TCP/IP protocol, you can contact the world with only one network cable.

Therefore, it is much less difficult to open the weapons interface to Iraq, only need to open the internal code of the weapon control in it, and it is much less difficult to mount the C801 missile on the Mirage F1 and the Matra 530 missile on the F-20, because they all have the same bus standard.

The C801 needs to modify its control software, and this workload is not the same.

The team of experts led by Liang Lao has been at Basra Air Base in Iraq, and together with the team led by Joseph, they have overcome the technical difficulties of mounting the C801 on the Mirage F1.

And the team led by Tu Jida was also specially allowed to gather in front of a Phantom F1 with the rest of the people.

The advanced cockpit equipment, powerful radar and fire control system, and the friendliness of the man-machine interface have all opened the eyes of these people, especially when they found that when maintaining the engine, four ground crews can lift the engine down within an hour, with the help of special tools, which is an eye-opener for them.

At home, if you sit in a well and watch the sky, you don't see that it turns out that foreign military aircraft have developed to this extent.

And what they learned from the pilots that when fighting with the Iranian military aircraft, they tried not to get into a fight, but outside the line of sight, and used radar-guided medium-range Matra-530 missiles to solve the battle, which was even more refreshing to them.

All this makes them feel that the proud J-7 in their hands actually has a lot of room for improvement, especially the idea that His Excellency Cusay said: redesign the front fuselage, make room, install radar, and let the J-7 gain medium-range combat capability!

After such improvements, it will definitely be welcomed in the international market.

At the same time, they are also looking forward to what the F-20s of Northrop that Iraq imports from the United States will look like.

For some reason, His Excellency Qusay of Iraq is very friendly to their group, and if he were a delegation from any other country, he would never let the most advanced fighters of his own country get close.

However, His Excellency Qusay personally promised that when the F-20 arrived, they could be allowed to visit!

All of these made Tu Jida, who led the team, sincerely grateful to Cusai.

In fact, when he went to Europe a few years ago, Tu Jida already felt the changes in the combat style brought about by the advanced fire control of foreign fighters, but when he arrived in Iraq, he really felt what the air force of an advanced country should look like.

The use of medium-range shells for off-line-of-sight air combat will definitely be a major style in the future!

However, until now, the most advanced one built by China itself, that is, the J-8, also has only close-range air combat capabilities, and the nose of the J-8 is the same as that of the J-7, which is also nose intake, and they are improving.

If Chengfei can obtain Iraq's investment and develop a new type of J-7 fighter, it will definitely be a sharp sword in the sky over the motherland!

Tu Jida has secretly made up his mind that after he returns, he must do his best to get his superiors to approve this proposal of His Excellency Qusay, and Iraq will pay for it, and Cheng Fei will develop the technology together.

Afraid of Iraq to invest in technology? You know, Iraq even bought the production line of the F-20, and technologically, they are much more advanced than their own.

None of the Chinese delegation to Iraq was willing to give up the opportunity, and they spent all night at the Basra Air Base studying seriously.

Moreover, they feel more and more that Iraq's air force, in fact, is not as weak as the outside world says, but has a bold style and is skilled, which is clearly an elite division, even in the face of the powerful Tomcat fighters of the Iranians, they can still give it a go.

Remembering that border conflict three years ago, when the Army was fighting bravely, where was the Air Force? And here they already feel that in the future war, the Air Force is definitely the protagonist!

"I think that our fighters must be equipped with this kind of sophisticated customary navigation, whether it is autonomous navigation or ground bombing, it is very important to have a customary navigation device, but unfortunately, this thing is too sophisticated, and the people here will not let us take it apart." A voice said.

Tu Jida looked up, it was the stupid boy who proposed to watch the F-20 at the last meeting: "Xiao Dangsheng, what are you talking about?" ”

"I mean—" He was about to speak, when suddenly, he was disturbed by a loud roar overhead.

This roar... Xiao Dangsheng suddenly became vigilant, it was not a turbojet engine, but a turbofan engine!

Until now, the Iraqi Air Force still did not have fighters equipped with turbofan engines, unless... Xiao Dangsheng put down the instrument in his hand and ran outside the hangar.

"This stupid boy." Tu Jida shook his head, this stupid boy is actually the person he values the most, in the avionics system, he has a deep attainment, and he can understand it at all.

Suddenly, he noticed that the other people in the hangar were also running outside the hangar, as if there was some activity.

"Tu Lao, the new fighter of the Iraqi Air Force, the F-20 has arrived, let's go and see." One person said.

Tu Jida looked up and saw that it was Liang Lao.

F-20 arrived? This is the first time I've seen an American-made aircraft! Tu Jida was also moved, no wonder Xiao Dangsheng ran so fast just now.

As soon as I got out of the hangar, I saw the plane that was landing at the end of the runway.

With its pointed nose and huge vertical tail, it looks like an F-5 fighter jet that is one size bigger.

Sure enough, it was the Iraqi F-20.

As soon as the rear wheels of the fighter plane touched the ground, the parachute was released, and they were used to seeing this, and the Iraqi fighter planes had very short take-off and glide distances, and they also saw some doorways from them.

At this time, on both sides of the runway, there were already two more rows of soldiers standing guard, and their group of people from China could only watch from a distance.

However, this did not affect the enthusiasm of everyone, who cheered as if it were their own.

Zhang Feng stood at the end of the runway, he didn't expect that the fighter plane would come back so soon, it was like a dream, and in the future, he would no longer have to worry about the lack of advanced fighters on his side.

There are four in total, this is four low-speed pre-production models of Northrop, the so-called low-speed pre-production type, that is, there may be a small number of defects, so pre-production first, wait until the flight time, there are no problems, and then transfer to official production.

Moreover, at this time, General Dynamics only realized the preliminary function of the radar, and among the main anti-aircraft functions, the method of tracking edge scanning is also defective, and the ground attack capability is not yet available.

That is, these four fighters currently have only limited anti-aircraft capabilities.

However, everything is temporary, and when the next batch of aircraft arrives, these four aircraft can be upgraded.

Batch production is also a common practice in the production of international military aircraft.

The range of the fighters was not enough, so they were not flown directly from the United States, but transported in C-130 transport aircraft. And because Iraq was still in the midst of a war with Iran at this time, in order to avoid damage, it was first airlifted to Riyadh, then assembled its wings and flew to the Basra Military Region.

The spare parts, as well as the maintenance personnel sent by Iraq to study, and the technical assistance personnel sent by Northrop were all changed to vehicles in Riyadh, which arrived a day later.

After the first two planes landed, they slowly glided towards the tarmac, and the cockpit canopy was opened, not Iraq's own pilots, but two foreigners.

Darel stood in the cockpit, took off his helmet, and wanted to shout his words to the crowd below: "Hello, myfriends!" ”

Before he could speak, he heard another loud roar overhead.

A wave of air came over him, ruining his blonde hairstyle.

“**you！ mra！ Darel scolded, and as a result, the camera below caught this expression on his face.

The second batch of two F-20s also began to land.

(To be continued)