From the first exposure of the J-20 to the present, 13 years have passed, and with the installation of a new generation of domestic engines, the J-20 has basically become a complete body. The reason why it is said to be basic is because a few years ago, China's J-10 fighter was equipped with a vector engine for a flight show at the air show, and many people believe that the future J-20 will be equipped with a vector engine, and the J-20 without a vector engine cannot be counted as a complete body. #MCN首发激励计划#
At the 2018 Zhuhai Air Show, the most limelight was not the J-20, but the debut of the J-10TVC technology verification aircraft, this modified J-10 is equipped with a domestic vector engine, and performed such as cobra maneuvering, falling leaves and other stall maneuvers at the air show.
At that time, a reporter asked Yang Wei, the chief engineer of J-20, "When will the J-20 be equipped with a vector engine?"
And Yang Wei's answer was, "How do you know that the J-20 is not equipped?"
Yang Wei's words once made many military fans think about it, and they are waiting for the day when the J-20 will be equipped with vector engines. However, since 2018, the J-10TVC equipped with a vector engine has not been unveiled again, and the J-20 has never been equipped with a vector engine.
It wasn't until Yang Wei, the chief designer of the J-20, that he officially revealed during a speech: the J-20 does not plan to install a vector thrust engine, and the so-called maneuver is king, not the way to fight a war in the future.
The words of the chief engineer of the J-20 can be regarded as a complete conclusion on this topic, and the vector engine will not be installed on the J-20 in the future, which also explains why since its debut in 2018, China's vector engine has suddenly disappeared, because it does not conform to the future air combat method.
The so-called vector engine, in layman's terms, means that the engine nozzle can be deflected in different directions, using the thrust that deviates from the flight axis of the aircraft to add additional control torque to the aircraft.
To understand the benefits of a vector engine, you must first understand what is called stalling. Ordinary aircraft rely on the aerodynamic rudder surface installed on the fuselage to control the attitude, such as the horizontal tail and canard to control the pitch angle, the aileron to control the deflection, etc. However, when the angle of attack of the aircraft increases to a certain angle, the airflow on the wing surface will be separated, the airflow will no longer adhere to the wing surface, and the control efficiency of the aerodynamic rudder surface will decrease or even disappear, resulting in the abnormal movement of the aircraft without human control, resulting in the loss of control of the aircraft, and even the death of the aircraft.
Most aircraft, including military aircraft, will have a maximum controllable angle of attack index, when the angle of attack exceeds this indicator, the aircraft is easy to stall. The reason why the Su-27 fighter relied on the "Cobra maneuver" to shock the world was because of this maneuver, the angle of attack of the aircraft would exceed 90 degrees, and other military aircraft would have stalled long ago, but the Su-27 fighter was able to change back independently, which was called a "miracle skill" at that time.
However, the emergence of the vector engine gave the fighter the ability to control the attitude in the event of a stall, because the control torque brought by the vector engine does not depend on the airflow, as long as the engine does not stop working, the vector engine can continue to provide control. Therefore, a fighter equipped with an omnidirectional vector engine can easily change it with vector thrust even if it enters a stall state, so that it can fly many cool overstall maneuvers.
In the 90s of the last century, vector engine technology became a key research project of various military powers, among which the United States was the first to equip the F-22 fighter with a binary vector engine, whose engine nozzle can be deflected up and down in the range of plus or minus 20 degrees. Russia, on the other hand, launched the famous Su-37 fighter, equipped with an omnidirectional vector thrust engine, and quickly became the star of major air shows with its wonderful over-stall maneuver performance.
Of course, earlier there was also a vectored thrust engine for vertical take-off and landing fighters. This vector thrust technology is relatively simple, the nozzle can only be deflected downward, bringing vertical upward thrust to the aircraft, the British Harrier, the Soviet Union's Yak-38, and the United States' F-35B are all using this vector thrust technology, which is currently the most mature vector thrust engine.
The emergence of binary or omnidirectional vector thrust engines has brought the maneuverability of fighters to a new level, and with various "UFO" maneuvers, it is often considered to be able to occupy an absolute advantage in close air combat.
Russia is a typical representative of the vector engine technology to carry forward thoroughly, starting from the Su-37, Russia has launched a number of practical models equipped with vector engines, such as Su-30MKI, Su-30SM, Su-35, MiG-35 and Su-57. However, in addition to Russia, other military powers seem to have abandoned vector engines, although the United States has equipped the F-22 with vector engines, but the technology has not been devolved to F-15, F-16 and other fourth-generation aircraft, and the latest F-35 is only equipped with vector vents for vertical take-off and landing. Although Britain and France and other countries have good aero engine technology, they have not equipped their fighters with the latest vector engines. And China has only verified vector engine technology on the J-10, and the J-20 has now made it clear that it will not be equipped with vector engine technology.
Why do most military powers give up equipping fighter planes with vector engines? Judging from the history of the development of air warfare, the early fighter planes were equipped with machine guns and aerial guns, and if they want to effectively attack enemy planes, they must aim their noses at enemy planes, and when they want to attack enemy troops, they will not be attacked by enemy planes, and the most effective way of attacking is to bite the opponent from the rear; therefore, "grabbing 6 points" has always been the most crucial factor in determining the victory or defeat of the air force; in order to be able to go around the direction of the enemy plane at 6 o'clock, the fighters are desperately trying to improve their maneuverability.
Even after the advent of the early air-to-air missile, because the missile's performance is limited, and the tail is also the most obvious infrared signature of the enemy aircraft, "grabbing six points" is still very important in the missile era. It is not until air combat enters the era of over-the-horizon that "grabbing six points" is no longer the only condition for determining victory or defeat in the air; whoever has a longer radar view and a longer missile range will have an advantage in air combat, but no one dares to guarantee that relying on over-the-horizon attacks will still be able to solve all enemy aircraft, and in order to ensure superiority in close air combat, fighters still have very high requirements for maneuverability.
After entering the 80s and 90s of the last century, after the infrared-guided air-to-air missiles represented by R73 and AIM9L with a large vertical axis launch angle and capable of head-on attack were put into service, close-range air combat did not have to rely on "grabbing 6 points", but who used radar and helmet sights to lock on to the opponent first, and who had a greater chance of winning. As a result, fighter jets began to shift from the past emphasis on constantly circling and gradually biting the enemy's energy maneuver in the direction of 6 o'clock to the pursuit of instantaneous maneuvering with the ability to point at the nose, and fighters with better instantaneous disc capabilities were able to quickly meet the missile launch conditions at the beginning of the air battle, so as to kill the enemy aircraft with one blow, that is, during that time, a large number of fighters such as J-10, Rafale, and Gripen that highlighted the instantaneous disc maneuverability appeared.
The emergence of vector thrust engines can greatly improve the nose pointing ability of fighters, and fighters are no longer bound by the index of maximum controllable angle of attack, and can often point the nose at enemy aircraft at an unbelievable angle. Therefore, in the 90s of the last century, vector engine technology ushered in a golden age.
Russia has pressed all the treasures on vector thrust technology, and equipped all its main fighters with vector thrust engines, hoping to gain an advantage in future air battles. However, the advancement of technology has once again changed the mode of air combat, that is, "over-the-shoulder fire", which is somewhat similar to the return gun. To put it simply, it is a new type of attack method that uses the airborne fire control system to control the air-to-air missile to attack the enemy aircraft behind the tail, and the aircraft no longer needs to point the nose of the aircraft at the target, and it is enough to let the missile turn around and attack the target by itself. Since the third generation of air-to-air missiles, missiles such as the R73 and Thunderbolt-8 have adopted vector control technology, and the missiles can attack enemy aircraft at a very exaggerated angle, which initially meets the conditions for launching over the shoulder.
However, it is not enough for the missile to be able to attack over the shoulder, because the missile needs the carrier aircraft to provide target parameters to know who it should attack, but most of the fighters' sensors are located in front of the fuselage and can only detect frontal targets, and Russia has also tried to install a small radar in the tail vertebrae of the fighter, but the result is still unsuccessful.
It was not until the fifth-generation fighters represented by the F-35 and J-20 entered service that the over-the-shoulder launch became feasible. Because both fighters are equipped with EODAS, or Optoelectronic Distributed Aperture System, which gives the fighter the ability to detect in all directions. And with the entry into service of the fourth-generation air-to-air missiles such as AIM-9X and Thunderbolt-10, the maximum overload of the missile exceeds 50G, and it has fully possessed the ability to quickly turn around after launch, collect the target parameters of the rear enemy aircraft through EODAS, and then integrate them into the fire control system, and then guide the fourth-generation air-to-air missile to attack the rear target.
Therefore, at this time, it is no longer the era of "maneuver is king", and fighters do not need to pursue the 6 o'clock position to bite the enemy plane, nor do they have to make great efforts to point the nose of the aircraft at the target, but to compete with whose detection ability is stronger, whose fire control calculation speed is faster, and whose missile performance is stronger.
In fact, China and the United States have not given up vector thrust technology, but only carried forward the vector thrust technology on air-to-air missiles, not on fighter jets, China and the United States have improved the warhead pointing capability of air-to-air missiles to the extreme, but Russia is still trying to find a way to improve the nose pointing capability of fighter jets to the extreme, not that Russia has no vision, but is limited by its own technical strength is not up to standard.
On the one hand, Russia's air-to-air missile technology cannot keep up with the mainstream, and it is still using improved R73 missiles. In addition, avionics equipment has always been Russia's weakness, you must know that Russia needs to import even diffraction head-up display from France, and it is simply unable to equip its fighter jets with high-performance optical sensors such as EODAS. As a result, Russia can only find ways to improve the nose pointing ability of its fighter jets and equip its fighters with vector engines.
However, China and the United States, relying on the detection advantages brought by optical sensors, the computing advantages brought by high-performance fire control computers, and the attack advantages brought by high-performance missiles, have been able to attack over the shoulder. On the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, the Su-30 and Su-35 equipped with vector engines have been shot down many times, and the so-called overstall maneuver is useless at all.
And the application of vector thrust technology will also add extra weight to the engine, and these extra weight is completely cumbersome in the over-the-horizon air combat environment. And even if the vector thrust technology is mature, the complex transmission structure will also bring hidden dangers, and the Indian Air Force has no less headaches because of the reliability of the vector nozzle.
Of course, this does not mean that vector engine technology is useless for fighters, the fourth-generation fighter lacks omnidirectional detection capabilities, or there is a demand for enhancing the nose pointing ability, so it is not ruled out that China's J-10 and J-16 will be equipped with vector engines in the future. As for the J-20, it was originally born for high speed, and there are not many opportunities for dogfighting, even if it needs to fight, it can launch missiles to carry out an omnidirectional attack on enemy aircraft, and there is no need to use vector engines to perform acrobatics.