US Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney has been busy lately, not only does he have a lot of daily defense affairs and understands the research and development of new equipment, but he also often attends some important seminars in China, and these seminars basically have one point, that is, how China and the United States should coexist after the fall of their common enemy, the Soviet Union.

Some think-tank scholars immediately put forward the concept of a "new Cold War", after all, China is still a red country, a country ruled by an "undemocratic" CP, which is inconsistent with the universal values of the United States, and seems to be as keen on exporting revolution as the Soviet Union, but in a more subtle way.

However, some experts and scholars believe that China is now in a fairly good relationship with the United States, and the Gulf War has brought the two countries closer to each other, and has also confirmed that China is willing to act in accordance with US rules in the saddle for the United States. It is no longer stupid to describe that a great power has just been brought down and so quickly pushed a great power that is still its friend into an opposing position.

Obviously, no politician with brains would position China as an enemy of the United States all at once, which is unscientific and unhealthy. Although there is a multifaceted competitive relationship between China and the United States, especially in the past two years, Chinese companies have taken over the limelight from Japanese companies and have begun to challenge the economic interests of the United States in many industries. However, there is no direct life-and-death contradiction between China and the United States, and the United States and the Soviet Union are vying for hegemony because both big men want to be the bosses. The current situation is that China honestly sits in the audience and watches how the Americans dance. Can the United States still jump off the stage and beat up the audience for no reason?

Although China competes with the United States, it has not publicly declared that it has any ambitions for world hegemony, and it has repeatedly pandered to the American position, which has led some people to think that China is not a cause for concern, but only a relatively large ally compared to European countries.

However, more pragmatic strategists do not believe that at least China has the potential to confront the United States, so whether a new Cold War pattern of Sino-US confrontation emerges depends on whether China has the will to do so. And the matter of willingness is actually something that some people decide by patting their heads. Therefore, letting China continue to grow stronger is definitely not a safe thing.

The situation at this time is similar to the situation in another plane twenty years later, and even slightly eased, but the undercurrent surging under the mesa is not inferior.

With the imminent abdication of George H.W. Bush, Cheney, a loyal cadre, will also be laid off, but he will also stand at the bottom of the post. At this time, he was meeting with personnel from the Air Force Research Laboratory to follow up on the progress of the development of Air Force and Navy aircraft.

"Lockheed has been awarded the contract, and we have identified the F-22 as a new generation fighter in the Air Force."

Cheney interrupted him and asked, "What I want to know is, can the F-22 compete with the J-11 Black Hawk fighter that China has already developed and may officially enter service in the next three to five years?" ”

"Obviously, in the process of developing the next generation of fighters, many of our concepts are very similar to those of the Chinese," the official said. We all agree with the concepts of stealth, supersonic cruise, and super-maneuverability, and the Chinese also believe that the new fighter needs to have more powerful over-the-horizon air combat capabilities and situational awareness. We speculate that China's J-11 fighters will focus more on maneuverability and air superiority, and the pursuit of stealth and supersonic cruise may be weaker.

I say this because the design of the Chinese fighter adopts a canard layout and a swept wing, which is bound to facilitate the reflection of radar waves, but such an aerodynamic layout has extraordinary benefits for the fighter's maneuvering at subsonic and transonic speeds. In addition, the design of the magazines of Chinese fighters is actually not very good, and it is extremely cramped, so it is unlikely that it can carry too many types of ground-to-ground weapons. From this point of view, the J-11 Black Hawk should be a heavy fighter specially manufactured by China for air combat. ”

The official took a breath and explained: "Our F-22 adopts a more advanced design, which can basically be determined to be one level ahead of the J-11 in stealth, and the stronger power also gives our fighters excellent maneuverability, I think even if it is against the J-11, it will not fall behind." What's more, we also designed a small-diameter bomb for the F-22 to give it the ability to carry out a penetration attack. ”

Cheney asked with interest: "Have you made an assessment, if the stealth fighters are stealthy to each other, then it is difficult for them to detect each other within over-the-horizon, and when they are discovered, they are basically about to enter the visual range, so will the future air combat return from over-the-horizon back to dogfighting?" ”

The official could only say: "We are still arguing about this, and we don't have a definite answer yet." ”

Cheney nodded, no longer dwelling on this issue, he asked again: "The NATF plan on the navy's side is sure that it will not be suspended, although the Soviet Union is gone, but the presence of the Chinese Navy at sea, especially in the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean, has made some admirals very unhappy, so the Navy hopes to follow up on the plan of the new fighter and create a fighter that can effectively and effectively suppress the opponent, but they seem to think that the F-22N version is not feasible, right?" ”

"Yes, the Navy has made a careful assessment that the minimum flight speed of the F-22N is too high, which is very unfavorable for the landing operation. In addition, the aircraft has been structurally strengthened for boarding, adding a landing hook and strengthening the landing gear, etc., and has also modified the variable sweep wing, but its weight will be 30% higher than that of the land-based version, which is obviously not acceptable to the Navy. The Navy itself is more inclined to overhaul the F-14D, carry out stealth modification and new internal design, and Grumman has obtained the design drawings and demonstrations of China Shenfei on the stealth Tomcat from China through some shady means, if we can develop it ourselves on this basis, we will take a lot of detours and increase the possibility of success. "In the face of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, officials don't have to hide it, they just make it clear.

Grumman gave the F-14 production license to Shen Fei, but in fact, the two sides continued to carry out various cooperation on the F-14 project, by chance, several Grumman engineers found a large number of drawings and related materials in Shen Fei's research room, these drawings and materials are all to demonstrate Shen Fei's new generation of super stealth carrier-based aircraft, the value is huge, these engineers immediately took pictures of these materials, and then secretly brought back to the United States.

In fact, if Shen Fei's people didn't want them to see it, they would definitely not see it, and as for why Shen Fei wanted to expose these things, he would have to ask Qi Yiming.

In another plane, Cheney is known to many Tomcat fans as the "Tomcat Terminator" and is used to hate him. It was because of Cheney's agitation that the Tomcat was discontinued early and eventually withdrew from active service. However, here, Cheney did not think that the Soviet Union had fallen, and the United States would rest easy, and he believed that China's threat to the United States might be greater than that of the Soviet Union, so he did not dare to easily terminate any weapons research plans.

During the Gulf War, the Americans clearly recognized a problem: In the development and research of some military equipment, the Chinese were ahead of the Americans. If Cheney is arrogant and thinks that the United States is ahead and no one else can catch up, then it is okay to toss. However, Cheney himself knows that if he gives up like this, it may create a bigger gap and make the United States lose its advantage.

"Is it AF-XX? Well, the Navy itself is funded, since they think it is appropriate, then let's do it, if all the conditions are ripe, maybe the progress will not be slower than the F-22. ”

AF-XX is the two-seat version of the fifth-generation stealth carrier-based aircraft of the US Navy, and the prototype is naturally a Tomcat, but from the appearance point of view, except for the design of the variable sweep wing, the others have basically nothing to do with the F-14 Tomcat. The AF-XX has a relatively "fat" body, because the U.S. Navy wants it to have both air combat and strike capabilities, and needs to make it more bomb-loaded. Compared to the F-22, the AF-XX has a slightly shorter nose, but this does not affect its radar, as it will use a smaller, but more efficient phased array radar.

The wing-body fusion and closed variable swept wing makes it able to ensure stealth in the cruising state, the tail is somewhat similar to the F-22, which is relatively large and angled vertical tail, and the engine uses General Electric's F120 engine, which also uses a binary vector nozzle, and the nozzle is also modified by the tail heat source.

The AF-XX is larger than the F-22, and the most striking thing is its relatively deep and wide magazine, and the Navy even hopes to develop an air-launched anti-ship missile that can accommodate it.

Because the design drawings and many parameters were stolen directly from Shen Fei, Grumman made some designs that he understood, and the production of prototypes was actually a matter of the Navy allocating money for money. As for the various electronic equipment and systems inside, they can be used in parallel with the F-22, which will also be able to control some costs.

The U.S. Navy is now more inclined to use the AF-XX as the YF-24 to conduct a prototype trial production and then see if there is a head. Thanks to the Chinese, in order to make this fifth-generation aircraft fly, the Chinese have thought of a lot of methods, such as a large number of composite materials to reduce weight, the fuselage using lifting bodies, and new flight control to make up for it, the Americans get the treasure after getting it, and evaluate that according to the Chinese's thinking, this aircraft will definitely be built.

Grumman's engineers also felt that although the Chinese first designed the aircraft, their accumulation was far less abundant than that of their American counterparts, and China did not have a decent aircraft carrier to help them validate the new fighter, and it would take a lot of time to train F-14 carrier-based pilots. It is estimated that by the time China has almost figured out how to play the aircraft carrier, the YF-24 has removed the Y word and officially entered active service.