Chapter 85 Improved Flight Control, Fly-by-Wire System

"Yes, our electronic level is far behind that of the United States. Even the American Sparrow missiles have poor reliability over Vietnam, not to mention our air-to-air missiles," Simonov said.

The Sukhoi Design Bureau's strength lies only in developing aircraft, while missiles are designed by other design bureaus. However, Simonov also knows that their missiles are indeed not as advanced as those of the Americans.

"Especially our semi-active radar missiles, which have a very high target-towing rate. In combat, I would rather use an infrared-seeker missile than a semi-active radar." Andre said, "I really don't know how it was finalized at the time. We are even less capable of shooting down the American Blackbird."

"Then how did you take it down?" Simonov asked.

"Machine guns," Andrei said, "I modified my fighter plane at the Sokolovka base and added two machine gun pods. I used the machine guns to shoot down the Americans."

Machine gun! Using machine guns at three times the speed of sound, Simonov, as an aircraft designer, immediately knew how dangerous and crazy this was. It can be said that if he was not careful, his life would be in danger. At the same time, he also had a good impression of this fearless pilot in front of him.

In fact, when Simonov first received the EP-3 aircraft and learned that it was taken down by his own pilots through ramming tactics, he was already very satisfied with Andrei. He also asked his superiors to transfer Andrei to the Sukhoi Design Bureau to be a test pilot, but his superiors did not agree.

"It seems that the MiG-25 is indeed a sturdy fighter," Simonov said. "The vibration of the machine gun is quite huge at three times the speed of sound. It may disintegrate directly in the air."

"Yes, our MiG-25 is quite strong. Stainless steel has a natural advantage in this regard. However, the MiG-25 also has its own shortcomings," said Andre.

The Mikoyan Design Bureau and the Sukhoi Design Bureau were competitors within the Soviet Union. Both sides were constantly competing with each other, but privately, they admired each other. It has to be said that the products of the Mikoyan Design Bureau are very representative.

Now, hearing the front-line pilot talk about the advantages and disadvantages of this aircraft, Simonov suddenly became very interested. Perhaps he could be greatly inspired by the words of this front-line pilot.

The entire hall was still filled with the clinking of glasses. In a corner of the hall, a conversation that would determine the future of the Soviet Union's advanced fighter jets had already begun.

In fact, Andrei also knew that this was a good opportunity to get to know those big bosses, which would be very beneficial to his future development. However, his current status was still very low, and getting to know these high-ranking officials too early would have both advantages and disadvantages. Now, Andropov was like his father-in-law, marrying Ekaterina to him, and he already had a big backer. The most important thing for him was to continuously accumulate his strength in the army. Moreover, he could not be remembered by those ambitious people, so at this time, it was best for him to keep a low profile.

Andre's favorite thing is to communicate with this famous aircraft designer. After all, Andre has a deep understanding of this designer's most outstanding work, the Su-27. The J-11 he flies is a replica of the Su-27.

"One of the biggest problems with the MiG-25 is the flight control system," said Andre. "Using a hydraulic system to operate the control surfaces is also the most common way for our current fighters. However, this method requires the pilot's rich experience to judge. For example, the control rod has a small amount at high altitude and a large amount at low altitude. In a fierce air battle, the pilot may not pay full attention to his altitude and may make a wrong judgment. Especially for the MiG-25, the control surfaces are huge to adapt to the thin air conditions at high altitudes. At low altitudes, the aerodynamic torque is often too large. Once, it was because of this reason that I went into a stall spin."

Stall spin can be said to be a killer of plane crashes! Only the best pilots can recover from a spin!

Simonov listened carefully. Now, the prototype of T-10 has begun to be manufactured. It also uses a hydraulic system and has the same twin-engine and twin-vertical tail structure. This problem is now very prominent.

"How should it be improved?" Simonov asked.

"We must improve the flight control system and use digital fly-by-wire!" Andre said, "The joystick and rudder are all controlled by a displacement and force sensor, which inputs the signal to the computer, allowing the computer to determine how the various control surfaces of the aircraft should move. In this way, the computer will integrate the altitude information and make the right choice!"

Fly-by-wire! Andrei clearly remembered that in the development of the Su-27, the company did not intend to use a complicated fly-by-wire system at the beginning, but still intended to use a hydraulic control system. As a result, the prototype crashed due to flight control problems, and the famous test pilot Yevgeni Sonoyov died. Only then did the engineers of the Sukhoi Design Bureau realize the importance of flight control and adopted fly-by-wire operation.

However, due to the limitations of Soviet electronic technology at the time, a three-redundant analog fly-by-wire was used. After China introduced it, it was modified into the J-11 and also improved to a four-redundant digital fly-by-wire.

At this time, the American F-15 used a dual-redundant, high-authority analog control and stabilization system, which was actually the first generation of fly-by-wire flight control system, plus a set of mechanical backup. You should know that the American F-15 began flight testing in 1972, while the Su-27 was still in the prototype design stage at that time, and historically it did not start its first flight until 1977.

The Americans later improved the F-15 into a quad-redundant digital fly-by-wire. As for the F-16, it was developed as a digital fly-by-wire from the beginning. These were far ahead of the Soviet Union.

Although fly-by-wire technology will increase the complexity of the aircraft, if you want to have a first-class fighter, you must overcome the technical difficulties of the fly-by-wire system! In later generations, China's Chengfei also made great efforts to develop a four-degree-redundant fly-by-wire system, which resulted in an advanced fighter like the J-10.

Digital telex? Simonov was stunned when he heard Andrei's words. This had never been thought of in the Sukhoi Design Bureau. The Soviet Union was far behind in electronic technology, and it was quite difficult to develop such a flight control system.

However, within the design bureau, it was believed that if the fighter was to have first-class maneuverability, the fly-by-wire system was a technical hurdle that must be overcome. For example, one model plan within the design bureau was a three-wing fighter, which would be almost impossible to accomplish if manual control continued to be used.