In fact, from a rational perspective, this arms purchase seems to be more of a pity than a practical one. Saudi Arabia purchased a total of 120 Tornado fighter jets of different models from the British. This type of fighter-bomber slowly withdrew from the mainstream of the world after the 1990s, and the United Kingdom later discontinued its production in the 1990s. Since then, heavy multi-role fighters such as the F-15E and Su-30 have begun to replace traditional fighters such as the F-111, Su-24 and Tornado.
By the way, if Saudi Arabia¡¯s military purchases are rational, they are actually not many, because a Saudi Air Force pilot is equipped with an average of about 3 fighter planes. They fly F-15s at 1,35, and Tornados at 2,46. I¡¯ll be lucky on Sunday. European Typhoon (of course this is impossible, jokingly speaking, even if the plane has an extra pilot, it usually only flies one type of fighter). Unlike China's Air Force and Hainan Airlines, there are two aircraft with three pilots.
Countries in the Middle East have the habit of stocking up on equipment, so they don¡¯t worry about keeping it at home if they don¡¯t need it. Saudi Arabia is a typical example. They can't fly so many planes themselves, so they have to pay to hire minibus pilots to help them fly.
After Zhao Jinsong found out about the deal of the century, he felt it was a pity to let the UK get away with the 43 billion pounds in vain. If properly cultivated, Saudi Arabia can become China's largest stable arms exporter, bring a large amount of foreign exchange to the country's economic development, and at the same time become an ally based in the Middle East in the future.
So from the beginning of the operation, Zhao Jinsong¡¯s idea was not to eat all of the Al Yamaha Agreement, but at least eat half of it. The first tranche of US$7 billion alone is a sky-high contract. Just thinking about it makes people so excited that they can hardly contain themselves.
At this time, Prince Sultan interrupted Zhao Jinsong¡¯s thoughts and started talking about business.
"In terms of role positioning, experts believe that the European Tornado and the Chinese Flying Leopard should be similar, and they are also surprisingly similar in appearance, except that the Tornado is a variable-sweep wing fighter, while the Flying Leopard It is a trapezoidal upper monoplane. Our experts believe through extensive demonstrations that there is still a gap between your country¡¯s Flying Leopard and the European Tornado in terms of body design and power system.¡±
Zhao Jinsong does not want to deny that the Tornado fighter adopts a relatively good variable sweep wing design, which enables it to take into account the performance at high speed and low altitude and low speed, and also gives this fighter aircraft very excellent low-altitude penetration performance. Although the Flying Leopard fighter jet also has the ability to penetrate defenses at low altitudes, its low-altitude flight quality is still lagging behind the strong winds. In Qi Yiming's time and space, Feibao had crashed many times due to entering tail spins at low altitudes. However, the new Leopard that Qi Yiming brought to this space-time PLA is a significantly modified version, with a lot of bolder aerodynamic modifications. Although the appearance can still be seen as a flying leopard at a glance, it already looks a lot more fashionable. , which also improves Feibao's low-altitude performance.
As for the power issue, there is really nothing special to explain. Feibao and Guangfeng use the heart of Rolls-Royce. One is the turbofan-9 Qinling modified from Spey, and the other is Spey¡¯s next-generation RB199. The turbofan-9 has a net weight of more than 1800 kilograms and a thrust-to-weight ratio of only 5.05; the RB199 does not even weigh 1000 kilograms and has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 7.6. This level was already very dazzling in the 1970s. Of course, the turbofan-9, which is almost twice as heavy as the RB199, has a thrust of 91 kilonewtons, which is slightly greater than the 76 kilonewtons of the RB199, but this comparison has no practical significance.
In fact, there is a solution to the power problem, just change the hair. The volume of Spey is even larger than that of the high-thrust engine WS-10A. The WS-10A has a thrust of 132 kN and a thrust-to-weight ratio of 8, which directly upgrades Feibao to heavy-duty. It would also be good to replace it with the WS-13A, which has similar thrust, but the WS-13 weighs 1,100 kilograms, which is almost half the size of the WS-9.
No matter which engine is replaced, the airframe will have to be redesigned significantly. As far as Zhao Jinsong knows, there is indeed a project team working on replacing the WS-13A with the Leopard B, but he doesn't know what the results will be at the moment.
Zhao Jinsong naturally cannot admit the above points. There is not much benefit in doing business too honestly, so he chose another way - highlighting his own advantages and comparing the weaknesses of his competitors.
"Your Excellency, as you can see, in this conflict on the Korean Peninsula, our Flying Leopard fighter jets played a very good role in battlefield interdiction and air support. In fact, we have already verified this in the border conflict with Vietnam. The role of the Flying Leopard fighter planes. Now the Vietnamese can no longer carry out large-scale attacks on the jungle and mountainous areas of our territory, because the Flying Leopards will bomb every bridge and road they need to pass, and raid where their soldiers are gathering.
Essentially, our Flying Leopard and the British Tornado are fighter-bombers operating in two different combat modes. Although our two fighters are very similar in appearance, size, and bomb load, their specific tactical usage is Different. Well, because of the large-scale use of precision-guided weapons and stand-off guided weapons by our military, our fighters usually fly within 40-60 kilometers.??We drop guided bombs in areas that have not yet been covered by enemy anti-aircraft firepower. These weapons can fly dozens of kilometers and accurately hit the opponent. We do not need to fly close to the ground like a strong wind to avoid the enemy's anti-aircraft fire and then fly to the enemy. Throw an iron bomb on your head. I can tell you responsibly that in today's environment of air defense firepower deployment, even if the strong winds can complete their mission and attack the opponent, they will also face considerable battle losses. They do have the opportunity to penetrate the enemy's defense circle, but It is completed under a situation where collateral losses are inevitable. A group of excellent pilots are likely to fall into the enemy's hands, affecting the future combat strength of the Air Force. On the other hand, the pilots of the Flying Leopard can roam freely in the airspace between 3,000 meters and 6,000 meters, throw out bombs and missiles, and then turn around and run away.
Yes, these are two different combat modes, and I am very confident that the method we chose is for the direction of the development of the war. The variable-sweep wing fighter-bomber will soon prove to be outdated. Then it slowly fades out of people's sight, and eventually the throne of ground attack will be given to aircraft platforms with precision strike capabilities like the Flying Leopard.
In addition to precision-guided weapons, what else does our Flying Leopard have? First of all, the level of our Fei Leopard glass cockpit is much better than that of the Storm. The pilots¡¯ flying enjoyment is much better than that of the fighter aircraft developed in the 1960s and 1970s like the Storm. When the pilots face intense and fierce battles, they will be better than all others. It is the strong wind in the instrument cockpit that makes it easier to read combat parameters and less distracting, and the overall combat level is improved. Our Flying Leopard also uses a new data bus (actually 1553B), which is a three-axis dual-redundancy fly-by-wire flight control, which greatly improves the compatibility and reliability of the avionics system.
Our Flying Leopard also has an electronic warfare model, which is commonly known as the Electric Flying Leopard. Feibao, equipped with a set of 4-7 pods, can complete a variety of tasks such as electronic suppression, communication interruption and eavesdropping, and electronic warfare support. I know that the Tornado fighter also has its own electronic warfare and reconnaissance models, but at this time I want to emphasize the systematic and complete capabilities. The electronic warfare system used by the Dianfei Leopard is definitely more comprehensive and outstanding than the Tornado. If possible It's okay to pull out two types of fighter jets and let them fly in the sky to see who can suppress the other.
Last but not least, our Flying Leopard actually only has combat bomber and electric warfare models, and does not have the ADV air defense interception model of the Tornado. But what I want to say is that the Tornado, as a fighter-bomber, is basically the battlefield of IDS. Interception model, and even though the British made a lot of improvements on it and developed the ADV air defense interceptor, it is still compared to the F-15, F-14 equipped by the United States, and the Soviet Su-27 and other fighters. There is a certain gap, and even against medium-sized aircraft MiG-29 and F-16, it may not be an advantage. Frankly speaking, the Flying Leopard is also a fighter-bomber, and its air combat performance is scummy. But our Flying Leopard has the PL-12, a fire-and-forget mid-range interceptor projectile. If we catch the enemy 80 kilometers away, we can kill it. Once the enemy is defeated, there is no need to enter into a close dog fight.
Well, after saying so much, Your Excellency the Prince must have some very basic understanding. What I also want to emphasize is that the selling price of a Tornado is about US$30 million, which is still the price of flying away from the aircraft. If you add weapons systems and other features, it will definitely be a sky-high price in the end. As for the Flying Leopard, a fighter with performance close to that of the Tornado, our flying price is only 24 million. Well, if Saudi Arabia is willing to order in large quantities, we can further offer a discount, and each fighter plane is equipped with a set of mounted weapons. An aircraft will include 2 PL-12 medium-range interceptor bombs, 2 PL-9 infrared combat bombs, 4 500-kilogram level or 8 250-kilogram level Thunder series or Thunder Stone series guided bombs, plus a bonus Two C-705 anti-ship missiles with a range of 160 kilometers and two C-901 anti-radiation missiles. Haha, but a plane equipped with so many weapons is about two to three million US dollars. The more you buy, the more I will give you! "
Prince Sultan was speechless. He actually had more confidence in the Flying Leopard, because judging from the actual situation he had learned about the Vietnam battlefield and the South Korean battlefield, this Chinese fighter-bomber performed well, although it crashed in South Korea. One, but it was not a combat loss and there were no casualties. On the contrary, the damage it caused to the enemy made Prince Sultan and a group of Saudi experts feel amazing.
In terms of pure bomb load, both fighters basically carry nine tons of payload. In actual circumstances, the Tornado with a more reasonable pylon design can carry more. Relatively speaking, Feibao, as the true form of a naval aviation fighter, has more powerful anti-ship assault capabilities than Guangfeng. So each has his own merits.
But at this time, Guangfeng has not yet been equipped with weapons such as Paveway and JDAM, but Feibao has begun to use thunder and thunder stones to strike accurately. For Saudi Arabia, which has precious pilot resources, this ability to attack outside the zone seems to be inferior to The strong wind's better low-altitude penetration performance near the ground is even more valuable.
Now the Chinese have even announced the price of the weapon system at 24 million yuan, which is nearly 10 million yuan cheaper than the unit price of the British Tornado. Although the Saudis are never short of money,??Being able to buy cheap things is also a joyful thing.