Seeing the project verification machine with similar appearance and many different details, Long Yun naturally rose a strong curiosity in his heart, even if the fighter in front of him was not the expected "project T-50", such a new model that looks very different from the Su-27S, what is the situation?

Regarding the overall impression of the "deeply improved" model in front of him, Koneshev's observation of Long Yun nodded yes to the side.

"Yes, Comrade Rezenov, about the overall improvement of the Su-27, this is how we think of it."

Although he did not talk much at the beginning of the greetings, when he really discussed technical issues, Koneshev's thinking became more active and his words became more fluent, and he concisely and clearly explained to Viktor Rezenov the general understanding of the Sukhoi Design Bureau of the Su-27 fighter, as well as the strategy of in-depth improvement on this basis.

Sergei Koneshev's introduction made Long Yun nod his head frequently, and he stood on the high hangar walkway and looked down, and had more expectations for the improved Su-27 that was still in the prototype state in front of him.

Yes, listening to the words of the chief designer of the project, isn't it in line with the observation and understanding in the real world?

Regarding the Su-27, this twin-engine heavy fighter that appeared in the eighties of the last century and was widely spread around the world with the collapse of the Soviet Union, because China has imported multiple batches of Su-27SK/UBK from the Soviet Union / Russia, and later achieved localization with the J-11A model, and on this basis carried out a large number of derivative designs, Long Yun, as a military fan and aviation competition pilot, is naturally quite familiar with it.

Looking back at the history of those years, it was the only third-generation fighter of the Chinese Air Force for a considerable period of time. At the same time, it was also before the domestic J-10 "Raptor" entered service. The only main fighter capable of confronting the third-generation aircraft of neighboring countries head-on. There are many comments and analyses from folk enthusiasts to professionals, and the conclusions obtained are also varied.

Based on Long Yun's vague recollections, these analytical comments with different perspectives and different starting points have a strange argumentation process, and the number of citations and evidence is also from many sources, and of course, the final conclusions are even more different.

Among these mixed voices, the opinions from the real users of the Su-27 series fighters, that is, the Air Force, are actually the most irrefutable and convincing; However, this opinion. It is conceivable that it is impossible to make it public, and the so-called "conclusions" obtained can only be different opinions based on a few words and video materials in the media, and everyone interprets them from their own perspective.

Such a situation, after the frequent replacement of traditional fighters and the birth of assault aircraft, the aviation competition industry has risen rapidly, including the Su-27 fighter, a large number of third-generation fighters have entered the civilian population, and most of the relevant information has been declassified. The debaters, who had been divided on different sides, gradually came to a general consensus - in fact, this so-called "consensus" was to be expected. In the three generations of heavy fighter families, including the F-15, F-14, Su-27 and MiG-31, if you exclude the factors that aircraft designers are powerless such as electronic systems, then the actual combat performance of these models is similar, or in other words, none of them can achieve obvious performance advantages.

This point of view was lingering in Long Yun's mind at this time, and he interjected a sentence or two from time to time about the performance analysis of the Su-27S/P model described by Koneshev, and quite agreed with the statement of this thin man.

What exactly is the performance of the Su-27S, as a twin-engine heavy fighter, and is there room for significant improvement?

From the perspective of pilots, this problem can be said to one, two, three, but only know the performance of the good and bad, but not clear behind the reasons, the so-called improvement is naturally impossible to talk about; In this regard, Sergei Koneshev's analysis is very concise and clear, and he probably believes that the aviation lieutenant general in front of him has a limited understanding of the Su-27, and it is very simple to elaborate:

“…… Yes, there were a lot of problems with the development of the 'project T-10S'.

First, limited by the manufacturing level at that time, and the need to reduce weight, the structural strength of the fuselage could only be slightly insufficient, which in turn caused the flight envelope to be limited; Second, the weight and volume of electronic equipment and weapon systems that can be installed exceed the limit, and the size of the designed body is too large. Thirdly, uh, Comrade Rezenov, this is not something that can be solved in our bureau, the performance of the supporting electronic equipment, including the N001 radar, is not ideal, and ultimately it also affects the overall combat effectiveness of the model. ”

"Well, then, that's exactly what happened."

The use of the Su-27S in the front-line troops has also been quite long, coupled with the knowledge reserve of the real world, Long Yun naturally knows very well that what Koneshev said is the truth.

In the real world, due to the rapid development of aviation technology, some of the inherent performance shortcomings of these Su-27s have been improved and compensated, while many more design problems have never been solved. Raising his hand and stroking his chin, Long Yun, who was standing next to Koneshev, was thoughtful, and he looked at the improved Su-27 fighter in front of him:

"So, my guess...... Within the 'major reform project' you presided over, these shortcomings have been made up for by a certain amount of time, right? ”

"Yes, Comrade Rezenov!

It's an exaggeration, but my design team and I are all about it. ”

Raising his hand, he asked the number one ace in front of him to walk down the stairs and return to the floor of the hangar paved with non-slip resin, Koneshev and Long Yun walked together with the melee fighter and gave him a detailed introduction to the general idea of "deep improvement":

"Well, you can see that the improved Su-27 is not completely departing from the original design, and, of course, there are many aspects of improvement.

First of all, in terms of overall dimensions, the full length of this 01 prototype has been shortened from 21.935 meters of the Su-27S to 20.6 meters: the reduction of the overall length, on the one hand, is to repair the front fuselage around the N001 radar system, "Speaking of which, the designer raised his finger and pointed to the long nose of the light yellow fighter, although it does not look obvious, if you look closely, you can still find that the size of the nose is reduced to a certain extent compared to the Su-27S, "On the other hand, the rear fuselage has been redesigned, The air intake tract has been improved to move the engine suspension position forward appropriately. Well, Comrade Lieutenant General, on the basis of our current level of manufacturing technology, this design alone can reduce the weight of the body by about a thousand kilograms. ”

"A thousand kilograms? It's remarkable, but if you shorten the intake tract this way,"

Hearing Koneshev say "lose one ton of weight", as a pilot, he naturally knew very well what this meant, Long Yun walked to the side of the wing body fusion part of the fighter plane, and observed the redesigned air intake, "Can you still ensure the working condition of the engine?" If I'm not mistaken, once the air intake is shortened, it will affect the operation of the engine at high speed, which means that it will affect the top speed of the fighter. ”

"That's right, you're right, this influence is still there;

However, for the 'deep improvement' project, after the team's argument, the requirements for extreme speed have been appropriately relaxed. ”

Agreeing with Viktor's judgment, Koneshev continued, "The so-called 'weight reduction of 1,000 kilograms' does not include the proper strengthening of the body structure, mainly the breaking of the overload limit in the transonic segment, and the corresponding modification of the edge bar curve. In addition, since the full length of the fuselage is shortened, the wingspan is correspondingly reduced to 14.1 meters, and the distance between the front and rear edges is increased to ensure that the wing area is basically unchanged.

Oh, of course it's not all measures, Comrade General, come and see here! ”

Following Koneshev's greeting and walking to the back of the main wing of the fighter, Long Yun quickly understood the designer's introduction point, that is, a detail he had just noticed:

"Are you saying that unlike the entire Su-27 series of fighters, the improved model already has independent flaps and ailerons?"

"Yes, this is important, Comrade General."

Raising his hand to hold his glasses as he spoke, Koneshev felt that it was really easy to communicate with this super ace, "Regarding this, there was no way to design the 'Project T-10S' before, the trapezoidal wing after weight reduction could not withstand the torque of the ailerons, so only a pair of flapers were set up for this purpose.

Frankly speaking, simplifying the design is quite detrimental to the performance of the Su-27 fighter, and it has always been a source of concern for the design team; Now, with the help of the redesign of the wing components and the results of the resonance analysis through computer simulation, we have added complete flaps and ailerons to the fighter, so that the lift gain of the fighter during complex maneuvers can be released, and the roll performance will be greatly improved. ”

After talking about the improved design of the wing, and then moving to the tail of the fighter, which is also the part that was not noticeable from the previous perspective, Koneshev first raised his hand and reminded Viktor that the vertical tail improvement of this prototype is still to appropriately abandon high-speed capabilities and reduce weight and improve flight performance, and the enlarged vertical tail rudder shows that the "deep improvement" model has abandoned the rear speed brake like the Su-27M. Then the two came to the tail of the fighter together, and saw that the two engines with thrust vector nozzles were already in place, Long Yun couldn't recognize what model this was for a while, could it be the 117S in the real world?

"As for the supporting engine, as you can see, this is the project verification model sent by the 'Saturn' side, the AL-31F-M2 with an afterburner thrust of 13.5 tons; this engine, after several random test flights, the performance has basically reached the design index, but the thrust vectoring system has not been tested."

"Thrust thirteen.five...... So, is this set of thrust vectoring integrated with the flight control system of the fighter? (To be continued......)