Chapter 1211 Figure 160, the only Available Vehicle

A few days later.

Gaojing, Yanliang Airport.

A slender white plane with wingtips almost extending to the edge of the grass on both sides landed lightly at the end of the runway.

The moment the main wheels touched the asphalt ground, accompanied by a crisp sound of "squeak--", two curling green smoke rose in the air, but were almost immediately torn apart by the tail vortices of the four engines.

At the same time, three huge deceleration parachutes opened backwards from the conical tail, helping the huge aircraft to slow down steadily, and then walked along the taxiway to the apron that was specially cleared for vacating.

With the help of the ground crew, the engine was shut down, the ground power was connected, and the doors of the front and rear bomb bays were opened.

A few minutes later, the four crew members came out along the boarding ladder behind the landing gear, took off their helmets, and lined up around the nose of the aircraft.

A group of air force leaders headed by Qiao Chenqing had been waiting here for a long time. Seeing this, they also stepped forward quickly, saluted and shook hands one by one.

Of course, a leader of his level was definitely not there just to chat with a few pilots.

So after asking about the training and life of the pilots, he turned his attention to the plane a little further away.

This Tu-160 was one of the four planes that were exchanged from Ermao that year.

It was also the last "Red 14" to land at the airport when it returned to China.

After officially receiving the world's largest supersonic strategic bomber a few years ago, Gaofei Group quickly used the long-established cooperative relationship with Tupolev to complete the inspection and maintenance of all four aircraft with the latter.

The first three of them were immediately incorporated into the combat sequence of the 108th Regiment of the 36th Air Division after they were determined to have restored their mission capabilities, and completed their first weapon delivery mission in an exercise last year using the Donghai-10 cruise missile that was still under testing.

As for the last Red 14, due to its newest age and best condition, although it was also given the tactical number "41175" and operated by a pilot sent by the 108th Regiment, it actually remained in the Gaofei Group and the Huaxia Flight Test Institute for various technical verification and testing work.

In fact, the original intention of deciding to keep this aircraft was to study the structural design, material use, production process and other engineering and technical issues of aircraft with a take-off weight of 300 tons, and did not involve tactics or weapons testing.

However, plans cannot keep up with changes.

After the hypersonic weapons project was launched, Chang Haonan first planned an air-launched ballistic missile with a double-cone warhead as a technical verification.

Although this verification missile can only be regarded as a small gadget in the ranks of "ballistic missiles", it also has a total length of about 8 meters, a diameter of 1 meter, and a launch weight of nearly 6 tons.

For air-based weapons, it is already an unimaginable behemoth.

In addition, in order to provide sufficient initial energy, the launch conditions of at least 15,000 meters in altitude and 1.6 Mach speed are required.

Let alone the whole of China.

Even if all the air forces in the world were put together, only the Tu-160 model could meet such stringent requirements.

So since the beginning of 2005, Gaofei Group has turned to study how to modify this aircraft so that it can meet the needs of launching hypersonic weapons.

The simplest and crudest way is naturally to hang the missile directly under the belly.

But on the one hand, the Tu-160 was not designed to carry large-sized ammunition, so this modification requires penetrating the fuselage skin and additional reinforcement of the belly structure.

It just looks simple, but the actual workload is difficult to estimate.

There is even a high probability that it will not catch up with Chang Haonan's progress.

So the final plan is to modify the front bomb bay of the belly and stuff the verification bomb into it.

However, this matter is also not easy.

The 41175 aircraft has been conducting test flights for nearly half a year, totaling no less than 30 times.

The two bomb bays of Tu-160 are both 11.3m*1 in size. In terms of space, they are large enough, but each of them is fixed with a six-mounted KMU-6-5U rotating weapon rack, which cannot be used directly to carry unplanned aviation ammunition.

The reason why the Donghai-10 tested earlier can be seamlessly compatible is that its size and basic design are closely related to the Kh55.

But a ballistic missile obviously exceeded the expectations of Tupolev designers at that time.

…

Accompanied by the crew members and a group of engineers, Qiao Chenqing walked slowly to the bottom of the fuselage and looked up at the fully opened bomb bay door.

Compared with the usual form, the rotating rack of the front bomb bay of the 41175 aircraft has been completely removed.

Only a huge space with a volume of more than 40 cubic meters is left, accompanied by two doors, like a steel monster opening its black bloody mouth, ready to swallow everything below at any time.

Even Qiao Chenqing, who is used to seeing all kinds of equipment, feels a little hairy for no reason.

However, he quickly adjusted his mood and observed the details inside the bomb bay with the help of the two flashlights beside him.

Modern precision-guided weapons are not free-fall bombs, and they need to obtain sufficient launch parameters before being dropped.

Because the hypersonic verification bomb involves cryogenic liquid propellants and rocket engines, it has an additional layer of quite complicated self-checking steps.

These data transmission processes require the rack and the onboard weapon system to be connected by cables.

The original rotating pylon of the aircraft is fixed in the bomb bay through a rotating shaft. Various electrical and communication interfaces are also integrated inside this rotating shaft. There is no "hanging point" in the traditional sense that can be used directly.

Although the rack has disappeared, Qiao Chenqing has not discovered the new mounting location.

He leveled his gaze again and turned to look at Jiang Jianjun, the person in charge of the renovation project who was following behind him:

"Comrade Jianjun, do the current electronic facilities in the Tu-160 bomb bay support the direct mounting of the verification bomb developed by Academician Chang and others?"

The latter nodded:

"The bomb bay of Figure 160 can originally support the delivery of complex ammunition such as cruise missiles. Our current plan is to set up a bomb bay at the top of the bomb bay after we obtain the detailed mounting plan for the target ammunition from Academician Chang. Hanging rack that meets size requirements.”

Jiang Jianjun introduced it while pointing the light beam of the flashlight at the location where the hanging point is expected to be set:

"However, this pylon does not have an umbilical cable, it is only responsible for the release action itself, and several additional connecting lines are drawn from the original rotating shaft position for communication between the ammunition and the carrier aircraft, and are disconnected from the carrier aircraft before launch. Open... These connecting lines are directly fixed on the inner surface of the bomb bay without being buried inside the fuselage, which can minimize modifications to the fuselage structure. "

Qiao Chenqing quickly understood what the other party meant.

In fact, it is to split the fully functional pylon into mechanical and electrical parts, and the electrical part that is not easy to modify is exposed, just like when launching a launch vehicle at a space launch site.

It is not standard equipment anyway, so advanced requirements such as beauty or compactness can be put aside for the time being.

"These exposed cables... won't cause any adverse interference to missile launches, right?"

He was still a little uneasy.

The hypersonic weapons program is one of the “alert cards” projects that the top decision-makers personally deal with, and it must be as foolproof as possible.

As the chief designer of the latest improved H-6, Jiang Jianjun has naturally considered this issue for a long time:

"Most of the length of the cable will be fixed by buckles. Only the last 20 centimeters or so can swing freely. Before launch, it will be bounced by a pneumatic switch to keep it as far away from the projectile as possible... Furthermore, the projectile is It's a big thing weighing 6 tons, and the impact of a few cables on it is completely negligible..."

Having said this, he paused for a moment, and then changed the subject:

“Actually, what is really likely to have a fatal impact on the delivery process is the bomb bay itself... Including the dozens of test flights we have conducted so far, they are basically to verify the flow field characteristics of the bomb bay and the magazine door. …”

Just as he said this, two technicians climbed down from the cockpit of the aircraft.

He also held several metal boxes of different colors in his hands.

"You see, these are the data we collected during this test flight."

It was only then that Qiao Chenqing discovered that there were nearly a hundred sensor probes densely packed in a circle around the edge of the bomb bay that he had not noticed just now.

"The bomb bay itself?"

He frowned slightly.

Qiao Chenqing had seen a lot of bomber bays.

But they all seem to be relatively the same.

"If I remember correctly... the Tu-160 seems to be able to launch weapons at supersonic speeds, right?"