The role of the Air Force in modern warfare is indispensable, whether it is breaking through the defensive circle, precision strikes, or coordinating with all parties is an extremely important factor.
Not only that, when the Gulf War broke out, the United States initially gave full play to the superiority of its air force, so that all countries in the world understood that the air force and the air force also have different levels.
The concept of judging the level of the air force lies in the level of the fighters piloted in the first generation.
In the evaluation of fighters, the highest level of the Air Force led by the United States is stagnant in the fifth-generation fighters, such as the F-35 it has, Russia's Su-35, and the mainland's J-20 are all fifth-generation fighters.
The fifth-generation fighter has represented the highest level of air force combat effectiveness in today's international community, and both the United States and Russia have announced the opportunity to further develop a new type of fighter, that is, the sixth-generation fighter, a few years ago.
As early as 2013, the United States has passed the NGAD plan for the development of sixth-generation fighters, striving to replace the original fifth-generation fighters by 2030 at the latest, and Russia is not far behind, predicting that the sixth-generation fighter will be tested within 2-3 years after 2020.
But in reality, Russia, which is still constrained by the war, does not seem to have succeeded in achieving this goal, and now, 11 years later, the United States is still hesitant to move forward with the NGAD program.
In recent years, along with the occasional revelations on the mainland, and the model of the White Emperor fighter plane that appeared in the Zhuhai exhibition, all of which have made anxious countries have new speculations.
Sixth-generation fighters, whether to overtake in corners
The so-called sixth-generation fighter is realized in two directions, one is its hypersonic flight speed, and the second is the change of its stealth technology.
For the cognition of the sixth-generation fighter, the perception of the United States and Russia is not exactly the same, but the faintly set standard indicates that the first condition for the sixth-generation fighter must be to meet the standard of hypersonic flight capability, that is, the flight speed reaches Mach 5 and above.
This means that the flight speed of this fighter should be able to exceed five times the speed of sound, completely eliminating the risk of being accurately intercepted and hit by missiles. What is the concept of five times the speed of sound, which is an easy-to-understand representation, is the speed at which it can cross the American continent in half an hour.
This speed can easily tear through the enemy's defensive circle, allowing for full tactical flexibility in air and ground.
But in this way, there will be a consequence, that is, as a victim of flight speed, air force pilots cannot fully withstand the oppression caused by this speed, which leads to this conflict between expectation and reality.
So countries are aware of this when they are studying, and they are also responding differently at the same time.
For the United States, compared with speed and stealth technology, they are undoubtedly more inclined to stealth technology, with iterative stealth technology for the army, air force and navy to achieve a new tactical system layout, and can also use the previous research and development of stealth technology, not more than worth the loss.
For Russia, the sixth-generation fighter is more inclined to the trend of combining flight speed and intelligent connection, and it is not impossible to abandon the pilot when necessary, and it is also a way to achieve a comprehensive integration of the military with long-range intelligent connection.
For example, the next generation of Blackbird in the future is likely to be this high-speed flying aerospace fighter.
And the last one, that is, the sixth-generation fighter of the fifth generation modification that Japan is seeking.
Based on the above two directions of fighters have their own advantages and disadvantages, but what they lack in common is actually the level of air-space combat, based on this, the fifth generation of the way to change has since appeared.
So which kind of continent does it belong to?
There are not many details about the mainland's sixth-generation fighters, but it is foreseeable that the mainland's sixth-generation fighters have begun to be developed, and for the mainland's Zhilian Internet of Things technology, it may be combined with high-speed flight and Zhilian, which is also more inclined to the so-called aerospace fighters.
Not long ago, it was rumored that Tsinghua University had developed a model of an aerospace fighter with a flight speed of up to Mach 8, but it is not known whether it will be adopted, but it can be known that the sixth-generation Chinese fighter that takes the high-speed flight route has been on the same path as the sixth-generation fighter developed by the United States.
Because as early as before, the commander of the US Air Force, General Mike Kelly, once said at the annual Air Force meeting that China must be ahead of China to achieve the development and installation of sixth-generation fighters by 2030 to gain superiority in the air and space.
It is not difficult for smart people to understand that the fundamental reason for this lies in the fact that the mainland and the United States are almost neck and neck on the road of developing sixth-generation fighters.
This means that the mainland's air force, which was still weak 20 years ago, has taken a huge step forward in the international arena and has successfully entered the forefront of the world, and in the future, it may not be impossible to achieve the corner overtaking of the sixth-generation fighter.
Definition of Chinese fighter
On the basis of the process of developing the sixth-generation fighter, foreign forces are paying more attention to the mainland's definition of the sixth-generation fighter, which will directly affect the way and results of the international arms race for the sixth-generation fighter in the future.
After all, we have discussed the similarities and differences of the sixth-generation fighters, and understand that the so-called new fighters will be a brand-new work that subverts the previous generations of fighters.
In fact, it can be seen in the sixth-generation forecast silhouette released by the mainland that we are taking the same high-speed flight fighter route as the United States, Russia and other countries.
However, there are also differences between hypersonic performance, for example, the NGAD in the United States is more inclined to stealth performance, while the F/A-XX is more inclined to improve the range requirements.
When the United States receives the requirements of the navy for its sixth-generation aircraft, it will inevitably fork out a scientific and technological line that is biased towards airborne aircraft; in the final analysis, the requirements for the research and development of the sixth-generation fighter are more interested in the country's realistic bias towards this fighter.
So what will be the requirements for the mainland's sixth-generation fighters?
It is known that after the reorganization of the navy and air force, the mainland has transferred non-aircraft aircraft to the air force, so it is very likely that in the future the mainland will prefer the so-called air force as the mainstay, supplemented by the navy.
And at present, the mainland's Shenfei and Chengfei are working together to develop new models in parallel, so it may not be possible to develop high and low supporting models, so as to achieve the complementarity of the sixth-generation fighter group.
This will be a key contrast between the two countries' research and development of the new generation of fighters, and the complementary nature of the sixth generation fighter determines the importance of their size.
After all, the reason why countries around the world are developing sixth-generation fighters is because of maintenance problems, and the maintenance costs of the F-22 and F-35 in the United States are extremely high due to the lack of engines.
For example, those countries in Europe that can only develop fourth-generation aircraft, even if they buy advanced fifth-generation aircraft models, will eventually be forced to adopt more fourth-generation aircraft to support the façade because of extremely high maintenance costs.
On this basis, it is not difficult for us to imagine how high the maintenance cost of the sixth-generation aircraft will be in the future, and on top of the limited resources, the result of adopting a high and low configuration is likely to alleviate the research and development cost to a certain extent, thus prompting the mainland to form a larger air and space force.
Nowadays, the mainland has made a leap forward in laser weapons, and the latest wind technology is the basic technology to support the mainland's further research and development of sixth-generation fighters, and through the development of the trend of intelligent Internet of Things combined with aerospace fighters, it will only show more surprises in the future.
Even if the mainland is still shrouded in mystery compared with the research and development progress disclosed by other countries, it is not difficult to see according to the United States' prediction of the mainland that in the future, the mainland will not lag behind in the research and development of new concept models, but on the contrary, it will achieve its own advantages in certain fields.
Reference - Xinhua News Agency "A European sixth-generation fighter is expected to make its first flight in 2026"
Reference - Xinhuanet "Russia's Sixth-Generation Fighter is Expected to Make Its First Flight Before 2025"