China’s test-flying sixth-generation fighter is a bomber?

The recent maiden flight of Chengfei and Shenfei’s Generation 6 fighters has triggered the attention of various media around the world, and even the U.S. Congress has panicked; the U.S. House of Representatives has announced that it has held a question-and-answer session for the Air Force on December 27th, focusing mainly on the areas of budgetary control and new equipment development. This means that the U.S. intends to quickly make a timely response to China’s sixth-generation aircraft, which made its maiden flight on December 26th.

While everyone is celebrating, one question has been raised: is this fighter jet a sixth-generation fighter or a stealth fighter-bomber? To tell you clearly: this airplane is the sixth generation fighter, and the bombing function, is only one of its functions. Because the sixth-generation fighters themselves have a variety of combat functions; in short, the sixth-generation fighters have a variety of mission functions, can be used as air-to-air fighters, can also be used as tactical bombers, and can even be used as drone manipulators, air-to-air fighters, etc., but no matter which function it focuses on, it belongs to the sixth-generation fighters, and this is not a problem, there is no doubt about it.

The first one is the airfoil, for example, the Chengdu 6th-generation plane uses a double-delta airfoil design, where the delta wing at the front of the fuselage is slightly thinner and has a larger swept-back angle, while the rear part of the fuselage has a smaller swept-back angle and a larger unfolded wing area. This means that the aircraft is not simply designed for stealth, but also for high-speed flight and high maneuverability in addition to stealth.

For example, the larger swept-back angle and more pointed nose is designed to pierce the airflow and play a role similar to that of a “surge cone” when flying at supersonic or even hypersonic speeds; while the wider rear wing is mainly used to provide sufficient lift and maneuverability to increase the aircraft’s range, reduce fuel consumption, and improve the load and maneuverability of the aircraft. maneuverability. It is clear that this aircraft was intended for a variety of air combat scenarios, and was not simply a “fighter-bomber”.

The second is the power, for example, the Chengfei 6th generation aircraft, which has been photographed a lot, also has a unique three-engine layout, and what is more interesting is that the three engines are not the same kind of engine. At present, it is very likely that the two engines intake from the side of the fuselage are turbofan engines, which are mainly responsible for flying at low and medium altitudes at ordinary speeds; and the engine that uses the dorsal intake is most likely a ram engine, or a burst engine, which propels the aircraft to achieve flights close to, or even up to, hypersonic speeds at a much higher power efficiency, and is also used for use at high altitudes. 그만큼

The third is the weapon, continue to Chengfei this six generation aircraft as an example, some military fans through and J-20 bomb bay size comparison, roughly concluded that the six generation aircraft abdomen main bomb bay for 7.5 meters long, which means that this main bomb bay, can use cross layout way, stuffed with 4 ~ 6 range 400 km PL-17 ultra-long-range air-to-air missiles. What’s more, this sixth-generation fighter will fly at extremely fast supersonic speeds to approach the target and launch air-to-air missiles to intercept the target at a very long distance, with strong high-altitude, high-speed, long-range interception capabilities. Of course, there are probably some people who would say “this is an interceptor”, but we would like to emphasize that no matter what kind of function it has, it is one of the functions of the 6th generation’s excellent design, not all of its functions.

Of course, the 6th generation fighter will also have great progress in artificial intelligence AI-assisted decision-making, automated flight control, advanced battlefield sensing capabilities, drone control, etc., and will even be able to achieve a “unilateral defeat” of the 5th generation, which is what the 6th generation is supposed to be. Finally, we dare to predict one thing, that is, the new aircraft is roughly called J-36, because it is written on the side of the nose 3600X ……