Recently, the news of Iran's construction of "aircraft carriers" has become the focus of many people's attention, adding flight decks to large container ships, even with angled decks and runways, it is impossible to take off and land manned carrier-based aircraft. In addition to the old F-14, Iran does not have fighters that can take off and land on aircraft carriers, so drones will unsurprisingly become the only option, which means that Iran's "aircraft carrier" is actually a drone carrier.
Iran also built "aircraft carriers"?
Iran's "aircraft carrier" is carrying drones
So far, Iran has produced about 40 different models of UAVs, most of them use piston engines, no matter who gets on the ship, it will bring a huge problem, this motorcycle-like aviation power system, the fuel used is gasoline, and gasoline is flammable and volatile, put on the aircraft carrier is simply a disaster, so they must replace the engine, the use of heavy oil as fuel heavy oil engine becomes the best choice, or even the only option.
Iran's Kaman-22 reconnaissance and combat integrated drone
The piston engine it uses burns gasoline
Say half a day, what exactly is heavy oil? In fact, it is one of the crude oil extracts, which is characterized by large molecular weight and high viscosity. The specific gravity of heavy oil is generally 0.82 to 0.95, the calorific value is 10000~11000 kcal/kg, the composition is mainly hydrocarbons, and it contains some sulfur and trace inorganic compounds, which means that its properties are relatively stable, and storage and transportation are safer than gasoline. With the use of heavy oil engines, it became possible for drones to operate on large military ships such as aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships.
If the drone wants to board the aircraft carrier, it must not use flammable and volatile gasoline in the first place
Not only that, the fuel consumption of aviation heavy oil engines is very low, which can reach 0.23 kg / kWh, which is about 20% lower than the fuel consumption rate of aviation gasoline engines, which brings a huge performance improvement to shipborne UAVs and is more conducive to playing its role on aircraft carriers. We take Iran's Kaman 22 reconnaissance integrated drone as an example, its shape and size are very similar to the American MQ-9 "Reaper" drone, and the mainland's Rainbow 4/5 and Wing Loong 2/3 are also very similar, but because the imitation of a single-stroke piston engine is not powerful, resulting in a range of only 3,000 kilometers, it will fall after being fully armed. The unarmed range of the US MQ-9 Reaper is 5926 kilometers, almost double that of Iranian drones.
Iran's UAV has half the range of the American Reaper
And many countries similar reconnaissance and combat integrated UAV, the range of the United States MQ-9 "Reaper" standards, for example, according to foreign media reports, the mainland rainbow 4 basic type also has a range of only 3500 kilometers. In this case, if the heavy oil engine is replaced, such as the 115-kilowatt aviation heavy oil engine of Hangrui Aviation Power, the range and empty time of the drone can be greatly improved. In fact, the heavy oil version of the Rainbow 4 has successfully made its maiden flight last August, and the cruise has increased from the previous 35 hours to 50 hours, and the Rainbow 5 can even double.
The Rainbow 4 has been replaced with Hangrui's heavy oil engine and successfully achieved its first flight
This is very important, because if it does take off from an aircraft carrier, the number of UAV sorties will be restricted, which requires a single UAV to fly for as long as possible. Some people may think that the range of 3,000 kilometers is far enough, but in fact, for carrier-based UAVs, the speed of forward exit and cruising is slower, and a lot of time is wasted just on the road, and there are not many real uses on the blade, and it would be much better if the range could be doubled.
Carriers on UAVs have high requirements for range
At the same time, the heavy oil engine also has a supercharged working mode, such as the "Skylark" of Hangrui Aviation Power, which adopts a opposed four-cylinder and four-stroke design, with new materials and new processes in exchange for the characteristics of high power-to-weight ratio, low fuel consumption, high altitude and decay reduction, and adopts core technologies such as "high-pressure common rail, turbocharged intercooling, dry lubrication, FADEC system, and full-machine liquid cooling", so that the ceiling of Rainbow 4 is increased from 7200 meters to more than 9000 meters. This design also brings the benefits of 30% to 50% increase in payload capacity.
The lark is in the 110kW class
There are also larger golden eagles
This is very critical, or take the Rainbow 4 as an example, international buyers announced that its mounting data is 4 missiles or bombs with a total weight of 250 to 350 kg, after replacing the heavy oil engine, the outside world speculates that it can be increased to 6, this difference is the same as the MiG-29K and Su-33, for carrier-based aircraft, of course, the more bombs can be hung, the better, and the same is true for carrier-based UAVs.