Qi Yiming sometimes found that just managing his own three-quarters of an acre of land was already almost non-stop. After the Chinese New Year, he didn't have much time to find his girlfriend to have sex with. Today he went to see the satellite launch, and tomorrow he went to another place. He went to several provinces to visit the factories invested by his subsidiaries, and because so many projects were related to him, almost anything that had any effect had to be looked to for his approval.
Of course, there are some situations that are not really his decision. Asking him to go is polite at most, but it is definitely not good not to go. Qi Yiming still knows what to pay attention to when welcoming people off. Even so, some projects that you focus on should still be given priority.
Liao Province, Shenfei¡¯s test flight ground. Qi Yiming will never miss today's occasion, because this is one of the projects he has devoted the most effort to - the domestic modification and upgrade of the F-14 Tomcat.
After several months of continuous efforts, I don¡¯t know how many overt and covert conflicts there were between project leader Xia Gaohong and Grumman technicians. In short, what appeared in front of Qi Yiming were six new F-14s that had been initially modified. cat.
Grumman engineer Mike Roof excitedly asked Qi Yiming: "We are going to call this new model F-14CN, and its nickname is 'Red Tomcat'. What do you think?"
Qi Yiming smiled reservedly: "Sounds good."
"I think so!"
Xia Gaohong followed up and said: "These six fighters have been tested and finalized. Today we are mainly asking the technical equipment experts of the Naval Aviation to come over for a combat qualification certification. If they think there are no problems, we will go to full power. The subsequent Tomcats have been transformed.¡±
Mycroft also followed up: "After China's transformation is completed, the second part of the contract will be for Grumman to deliver 30 F-14CN fighters of the same specifications to China. Of course, some parts will need to be provided by China. "In fact, among the main systems of the fighter aircraft, the biggest improvement is that the Red Tomcat uses the WS-10A engine, which greatly enhances its power, cruise capability, combat radius and other tactical indicators. In addition, the new AWG-9(V)1, which is improved with China's participation, also requires Chinese companies to provide basic integrated circuits and other components.
In addition, items such as the friend-or-foe identification device must be delivered to China and then assembled by Shen Fei.
Working with Shen Fei on the upgrade plan opened the eyes of Mycroft and other engineers. If they return to Grumman to work on similar projects again, it will definitely be easier.
The US military originally wanted to ask its own pilots to come to China to assist in the flight test, but due to the comprehensive improvement of the glass cockpit, the US military pilots were no different from a rookie who was new to this model, so Qi Yiming chose HNA himself pilots do these jobs.
Today is obviously not the first time the F-14 has been tested here, so everyone's behavior is somewhat indifferent and relaxed. Even a few argument experts who are staring at the fighter planes with notebooks and writing and drawing do not let Shen Fei and Gru The door engineers became nervous.
Although the Navy still attaches great importance to the project, there are many major events during this period, especially the issue of internal military reform, which has made all branches of the military anxious. Therefore, there are not enough people to visit the site. Instead, it seems that Qi Yiming himself is The biggest role.
Xia Gaohong turned his head and explained to Qi Yiming: "The entire combat qualification verification process may take a while, but in order to take care of your presence today, our subject today will be weapons testing, which we have successfully done twice before. This time, today we mainly verify that the fighter jets fired Phoenix simulated bombs and our PL-12 simulated bombs.¡±
This kind of simulated bomb generally does not have a warhead, or it will automatically explode and stop when it hits the target before it hits the target. Naturally, there is no shortage of PL-12 missiles, but the United States was very careful not to provide the first batch of live ammunition Phoenix, but sold Qi Yiming a batch of twenty simulated Phoenix ammunition. The price of Phoenix missiles is also extremely expensive, with a unit price of nearly half a million US dollars. Although the simulated missiles are slightly cheaper, Qi Yiming still feels like he is being ripped off.
The two aircraft participating in the weapons test adopted completely different methods of hanging bombs. The first one carried 6 AIM-54 Phoenix missiles and two AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles. This is also a typical US military air combat layout, but fighters taking off from an aircraft carrier cannot maintain such armament, because with this kind of counterweight, the Tomcat cannot take off from the aircraft carrier at all. Fortunately, this is a ground runway test, and the F-14CN will not become a carrier-based aircraft for a long time.
The other one uses the configuration of domestic weapons, six PL-12 medium-range missiles and two PL-8 combat bombs. Because the PL-12 is much smaller than the Phoenix, it is not only easy to hang on, but also causes much less flight resistance. It can also be seen from the above mounting scheme that it will be almost impossible for the F-14 to be completed by the PLA Army.?For missions other than air combat, this will be a special surprise compared to the versatility of the PLA Air Force models.
When the Tomcat is equipped with HNA, the latter mounting solution will inevitably become more common. From Qi Yiming's own opinion, the AIM-54 Phoenix is ??very good, but he thinks the target attack capability beyond 150 kilometers is dispensable, and the key attack capability of 40-120 kilometers can be covered by the PL-12, so he bought it. It is not necessary to buy a large number of AIM-54s. The Red Tomcat will still mainly use domestic equipment.
The pilots of the two crews climbed into the cockpit respectively. It was obvious that they had done a lot of familiarization work. Like clinker veterans, they operated the fighter aircraft to conduct various inspections, and then taxied onto the runway.
Looking at the obvious August 1 Red Star logo on the vertical tail of the plane, Qi Yiming couldn't contain his excitement. Although he didn't have a better choice than the Tomcat, it was still exciting to see what he had invested so much in finally bearing fruit. I feel very gratified. The paint of the new fighter is still the typical Hainan Airlines silver-gray paint. It is not much different from the original Panda in terms of appearance. The difference may be that the shape of the cockpit cover is slightly different, and the appearance of the engine nozzle is slightly different. There are also some small changes.
After the two fighter planes rushed into the sky accordingly, they started playing in the blue sky like butterflies accompanying flowers. This is actually a semi-actual combat display. The Tomcat, flying at subsonic speeds, adjusts its variable sweep wings to a small sweep angle to obtain better lift and low-altitude and low-speed maneuverability.
Watching the two fighter planes climbing in the air, diving rapidly, circling, rolling and other movements, even though these movements were relatively ordinary and it was not the first time he watched the Tomcat fly, Qi Yi was still amazed. The sound is like intoxication. Because these aircraft will become the vehicles of the PLA and become part of the red force. This was once an unrealistic dream he had when he was a military fan. It finally came true in his hands, which was enough to make him proud of himself.
Then the two aircraft demonstrated the effectiveness of their mounted weapons. Except for one AIM-54 that missed the target at a relatively long distance, the rest of the missiles were judged to have hit. Qi Yiming was even more happy and even a little impressed. Yes, the performance of the AGW-9(V)1 radar assigned to the F-14CN is almost instantaneous to kill all the machine-scanning radars in the active military. It has a detection range of more than 200 kilometers for targets with RCS=5. It is not surprising why Iran actually used it as an early warning aircraft. Of course, considering that the landforms at sea are simpler than those on land, the radar detection probability is lower than that of radars such as APG-63\/70. Of course, this is within a tolerable range.
Qi Yiming immediately made up his mind: "After it is officially equipped with the navy, we will take a Tomcat and send it to the air command department of Dalinol Base, dismantle it and let the base conduct reverse engineering. We must copy the AWG-9." This method is naturally feasible. As long as the base has the production technology and process details, it can copy the equipment well. Of course, there is no detailed information and only a physical product, which may be difficult, but Qi Yiming is convinced that This is not a big deal.
However, he himself is also a little worried about the effectiveness of this matter, because he undoubtedly has a more powerful active phased array radar. The AWG-9 is undoubtedly one of the highest level air-sweeping radars, but he doesn't know where it will go after it is built. Where to install it may become part of the technical reserve. Qi Yiming rubbed the back of his head and remembered that the improved Leopard B was being rapidly tested. Maybe he had developed the AWG-9 and installed it on the Leopard B he was using, which would have good results.
After Xia Gaohong finished the batch of work at hand, Qi Yiming explained: "The Navy will officially start equipping new fighters in April at the earliest. Our modification work is in full swing. It will be around September in the second half of the year or later. All the modifications can be completed in one fighter. Once the technology is finalized, we will send the corresponding parts to Grumman and ask them to start producing our second batch of thirty F-14 fighters.¡±
Zhou Yutong also intervened at the right time: "There is no problem with the first 100 fighters, but Grumman is still hesitant about giving us a production license. When I was communicating with President Billworth the day before yesterday, he vaguely revealed that , I hope we can order another batch of fighters before we can agree to give us the production license.¡±
Qi Yiming frowned so hard that he could pinch a Yangcheng Lake hairy crab to death, and said with some contempt: "They are all greedy and profiteers. There is no difference between Serge Dassault and Bierworth."
Zhou Yutong added: "Another good news is that South Korea has initially asked us whether we can provide them with American-modified FC-1 Xiaolong fighter jets. Although we have approved this project, we have not decided to do so because there are no buyers. It has been delayed, and the subsystem contractor has not yet been determined. Boss, what do you think about using this matter to influence Grumman? "
Qi Yiming's eyes lit up. There is no doubt that Grumman really wants to get a share of the FC-1 international version, but how to deal with it is all Qi Yiming's final decision.If they want to blackmail themselves, Qi Yiming can blackmail them in turn.