At 3:00 a.m. on January 17, 1991, the "Desert Shield" operation against Iraq launched by the United States and other multinational forces had begun for more than two hours.
At this time, on the outskirts of Baghdad, the iraqi capital, a radar station was closely monitoring the sky, and the radar officers and men were even more strictly waiting, and did not dare to relax at all.
Because since the war has started, the US military aircraft will certainly not spare Baghdad as the command center, and the radar will be a powerful barrier for Baghdad.
But what the Iraqi radar soldiers don't know is that in the face of the new US military aircraft, their barrier is completely vulnerable...
The actions of the US military shocked Iraq, shocked the world, and more deeply affected a 25-year-old Chinese radar researcher at the time, Wu Jianqi.
Wu Realized that if an effective radar detection method could not be found, it was likely that China would one day repeat the mistakes of this radar station on the outskirts of Baghdad.
Gulf War
This is not the first time Wu Jianqi has felt such a crisis.
More than a year ago, it was also a late night, in Panama, a small country spanning North and South America, no one was able to sleep peacefully.
The Panamanian Defence Forces are even more on standby, ready to guard against possible enemy attacks. This enemy is none other than the United States, which has always been rampant and domineering.
Panama knows that the United States will definitely use its air force to launch an air strike first, so the officers and men of the radar station do not dare to relax for a moment.
Suddenly, a rapid telephone rang, and the commanding officer of the radar station had just picked up the microphone when a roar came from the opposite side, "What are you eating?!" Are your radars all blind?! American planes have attacked the long-distance telecommunications center building in the city! Baghdad was bombed! I want to hold you accountable for your negligence! ”
Then the phone was hung up. The commander of the radar station, with a cold sweat on his forehead, asked his soldiers, "Have you found any American aircraft?" ”
"Sir, we've been staring at the screen, and the radar hasn't detected any signal from the plane!"
"What a sight to behold!" The city has been hit by air raids, will their planes be invisible? ”
Just when he wanted to ask if the radar had malfunctioned, the radar station was blown into a pile of rubble with the loud sound of several missiles.
The commander was also seriously wounded, and until the last moment of his life, he was still wondering why his radar had not detected the American plane...
F-117
The aircraft that can evade radar detection is the US F-117 stealth aircraft. During the Gulf War, at least 40 F-117s were involved in operations against Iraq.
They have flown more than 1,300 sorties and destroyed more than 1,600 important targets in Iraq and other places at the cost of zero shotdowns and zero damage; they have carried out only 2% of the total number of air strikes on missions, but the results they have achieved account for 40%.
The strength of the U.S. military in the war made Wu Jianqi and his colleagues, as well as other Chinese military researchers engaged in related work, feel an unprecedented shock.
Wu Jianqi himself later commented that the US military's stealth aircraft "combined stealth with precision strikes, setting the tone for modern air power." ”
Wu Jianqi (left)
However, this shock soon turned into a huge sense of crisis. What if one day, this stealth plane that can evade radar also flies over our Chinese head and drops bombs on Chinese soil? This is a huge threat to our national defense and security!
It was probably at this time that, as a military worker dealing with radar, Wu Jianqi secretly made up his mind that one day in the future, he must find a way to detect this kind of stealth aircraft, turn the US military's stealth aircraft into scrap iron, and let them retreat from China's territorial airspace and stay away!
U.S. troops invade Panama
In fact, as early as 1990, the US military in the war against Panama launched in order to compete for a canal, put in 2 F-117 stealth aircraft, but did not attract the world's attention.
At that time, Wu Jianqi, who was in his twenties, had just graduated from the University of Electronic Science and Technology with a master's degree, and with the determination to serve the country, he entered the 38th Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group and devoted himself to China's radar cause.
The pace of life in the Military Industry Research Institute is relatively tense, but scientific research is urgent, so Wu Jianqi did not have any special nervousness at first in addition to completing daily tasks at the 38 Institute.
However, in the 1991 Gulf War, the US F-117 stealth aircraft entered the no-man's land in the face of radar, coupled with the fact that China's radar originally had a certain gap with foreign advanced technology, which could not but arouse Wu Jianqi's great vigilance, and he realized that it was necessary to support a solid and reliable barrier for China's sky.
But for scientific research, subjective motivation is far from enough. People marvel at the superior performance of the American stealth aircraft, but they do not know how to deal with this aircraft, and all the mainstream air defense networks seem to have no way to take stealth aircraft.
This is equivalent to saying that the airspace of other countries is completely open in front of the United States, and as long as the United States is willing, then the Us stealth aircraft can fly over other people's heads at will.
It is often said that where there is a spear, there must be a shield, but where is this shield? Wu Jianqi, who had just entered the radar field, did not make up his mind at this time.
But another war eight years later pointed the way for Mr. Wu and made him vow to find a way to deal with U.S. stealth aircraft no matter what.
F-117 wreckage
At 9 p.m. on March 27, 1999, over Yugoslavia, a U.S. aircraft numbered 82-806 was preparing to return to base after a bombing mission.
Pilot Zelk looked down at the occasionally flaming Yugoslav territory below, proud and confident.
But then a missile from the ground exploded near the fuselage, apparently the other side had spotted the plane's tracks.
Zelk suddenly panicked, "How could their radar spot me?!" No way! This is absolutely impossible! Zelk did not want to believe this fact, but did not want to be hit by a missile, he immediately activated the parachute device, leaving the stealth plane to escape alone.
The plane crashed on the ground, and the Yugoslavs who heard about it found the wreckage.
Schematic of the meter wave radar
Soon, news of the F-117's downfall spread around the world through the evening news. Then there is some data showing that a digitally processed and solid-state upgraded meter-wave radar plays a key role in the process of finding and shooting down US stealth aircraft (Note: radar is divided by wavelength, there are meter-wave radar, decimeter-wave radar, millimeter-wave radar, etc.).
Born in 1935, the meter wave radar is a very old technology, it has the shortcomings of large size, poor recognition ability, easy to be affected by ground interference, etc., so by the 1990s it has become a supplementary means of detection, and the remaining meter wave radar has also been modified and upgraded.
The one in Yugoslavia's hands was sold by Russia after improvement.
B-2
But it was this seemingly obsolete radar that found advanced stealth aircraft. Therefore, many radar experts began to pay new attention to it, and wanted to use the improved mipo radar to deal with stealth fighters, and Wu Jianqi was naturally no exception.
Moreover, as a Chinese radar expert, Wu Jianqi has another reason, that is, the Chinese embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was bombed by 5 missiles of the US military, causing 3 compatriots to die on the spot and dozens of others to be injured.
Such a tragedy and naked military hegemony made Wu Jianqi make a promise in his heart: he must develop an anti-stealth radar! Turn America's stealth planes into a pile of scrap iron!
China's advanced meter-wave radar
Originally, Wu Jianqi had dealt with mipo radar, but in the eyes of many people at home and abroad, mibo radar was equated with simplicity and backwardness, so even if they realized that mibo radar was important for discovering stealth aircraft, they still did not try.
Wu Jianqi insists that as long as it can overcome the shortcomings of traditional mibo radar, it can become the backbone of anti-stealth equipment, which is also a low-cost and quite effective anti-stealth technology path.
So Wu Jianqi and his team members have been immersed in relevant technologies since 1999, but the road that no one has taken is doomed to be a difficult and blank road.
In order to overcome the problem, Wu Jianqi rarely rested for several years, and on all holidays, even including the Spring Festival, he was either in the laboratory or on the testing ground.
In 2003, a test site was set in Chifeng, and at that time Chifeng was making "SARS", Wu Jianqi and his colleagues still did not flinch, he said: "It is useless to be afraid, you must complete the task!" ”
Two years later, Wu Jianqi and 4 colleagues went to the no-man's land in the northwest Gobi to carry out a mission, and as a result, they encountered a car accident in the middle.
The right side of the overturned car pressed down on one of Wu Jianqi's legs, and on the left was a colleague. Wu Jianqi listened to the groaning of his colleagues, completely disregarding the fact that he was also pressed, and immediately said: I don't want this leg, hurry up and save people!
So the crowd found a jack to prop up the left side, and dragged the trapped person out by digging a pit, during which the weight pressed on his leg made Wu Jianqi breathless in pain, but he did not say a word.
However, unfortunately, the colleague who was rescued died because of his injuries, which also became a sad thing that Wu Jianqi was unwilling to mention so far.
From here, we can also see that even if the military researchers do not go to the battlefield with guns, they still have to bleed or even die, so it is not too much to call them soldiers who do not wear military uniforms.
Thanks to the efforts of Wu Jianqi and others, in 2005, the DFB system three-coordinate radar they developed won the first prize of national science and technology, and later the technology and equipment related to it were also commended many times, and some also went out of the country and were highly praised by foreign counterparts.
On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 2015, weapons and equipment based on Wu Jianqi's research and development technology appeared in Tiananmen Square, which means that the results of their team have become the country's heavy weapons.
Nowadays, China's advanced mibo radar has long been put into use, and there have been many discoveries of US military aircraft, whether it is the F22 or F35 of the United States, it is difficult to escape the golden eye of China's mibo radar.
If combined with other effective detection and strike equipment, the discovered US military aircraft is almost equivalent to a pile of scrap iron.
It can be said that Wu Jianqi has successfully fulfilled his original wish. But science has never ended, and to this day, Wu Jianqi and his colleagues, as well as countless "comrades-in-arms" who are fighting on the military-industrial front, are still tirelessly exploring forward and continue to protect the country and her people in obscurity.
Content Source:
Wang Houming, "Wu Jianqi: Creating the "Golden Eye of Fire" to Watch the Blue Sky", Military Industry Talents, No. 9, 2018
Zhang Qiang, "Meter-scale Three-Coordinate Radar: Leaving Stealth Fighters Nowhere to Hide," Invention and Innovation, No. 9, 2017
Wu Jianqi, "Anti-Stealth and The Development of Advanced Meter-Wave Radar", Radar Science and Technology, No. 1, 2015