Chapter 1083 I am big, but light

Although Didier Casoré realized the possible problem at the first time.

But almost at the same time, he had already started to make up for it in his heart——

The flight quality requirements for early warning aircraft are not as high as those for business jets.

As for military products, we can make concessions in many areas.

Slow down?

It’s not a big problem. The early warning aircraft are hovering on the edge of the battlefield most of the time anyway. Only the process of rushing to the mission area requires speed.

Moreover, as an aircraft with a cruising speed close to Mach 8, combined with the straight antenna that has very little resistance, the Falcon 0.9Z is definitely faster than a propeller or a platform like the ERJ145. It has gone far enough.

The pneumatic noise is a bit louder...but it's not a big problem.

This is a war, not a vacation. Just be patient and it will pass.

If it doesn't work, the operator can just give each person a pair of noise-cancelling headphones.

The maneuverability and serviceability are not very good...

It’s okay, military pilots and ground crew can all practice it!

As for operating costs and the like, that is not a problem at all.

The reason for this idea is not entirely because he advocated cooperation with China from the beginning. He would lose face if he returned empty-handed.

From a technical point of view, the Falcon 8Z's airframe design and production are entirely the responsibility of Dassault, and are parts that it can control 100%.

Compared with the Erieye balance beam or Falcon conformal array solutions, which would bring huge additional risks in terms of aerodynamics and operation, the design proposed by Liu Yongquan now also has risks, but if you really want to solve it simply and crudely, you can also do it only from the level of structural reinforcement at the cost of a slight loss in flight quality.

Taking all factors into consideration, Dassault can actually increase the amount of things it can control.

Although Casore is the head of the aerodynamics department, he is also the senior leader in charge of the Falcon 8Z project. Therefore, he has already begun to consider how to provide sufficient reinforcement to the aircraft at the lowest possible cost.

Of course, for engineering matters like this, qualitative thinking alone is definitely not enough.

To strengthen the team, there must at least be a specific goal for the reinforcement.

Therefore, after Liu Yongquan briefly introduced the system called "Highlight", Casore took advantage of an opportunity to ask directly:

"Dr. Liu, what is the approximate weight range of the entire antenna system you provided?"

The specific mass distribution of the equipment can only be calculated after the detailed design is completed.

But a simple system total weight indicator is not an important data.

Casore asked this only to make a preliminary assessment of the difficulty of the subsequent work.

That’s why we’re talking about range.

However, the degree of completion of this radar system called "Gaoming" far exceeded Casore's imagination.

Therefore, Liu Yongquan immediately gave a specific number:

"About 1.2 tons. Of course, it needs to be adjusted according to the characteristics of the carrier platform, but the fluctuation will not exceed 5%."

Facing this answer, Casore's first reaction was...

Bewildered for a moment.

In fact, for early warning aircraft, the radar antenna itself only accounts for a small part of the external payload.

For example, the entire antenna group of the E2C early warning aircraft weighs two tons, but the Yagi antenna of the AN/ASP145 radar is only about 770 kilograms.

The rest are the radar cover, radar support frame, rotation mechanism, and of course the data transmission system.

Generally speaking, because active phased array radars have a large number of T/R components, the weight of the antenna itself is greater than that of traditional mechanical scanning radars.

For example, the PS890 radar of the Erieye system has an antenna weight of 900 kilograms.

Although there is no complicated rotation system, the cooling system and signal and power supply cables are more complicated than the mechanical scanning antenna, which in turn adds a lot of weight.

As a result, the total external load of the aircraft reached about 1.3 tons.

Although the straight-line antenna in front of him further reduced the weight of the supporting system, its size was almost one-third larger than that of PS890.

By this calculation, the antenna itself must weigh about 1.2 tons.

A normal result would be for the entire system to be around 1.8 tons.

Therefore, Casore initially thought that he had not asked clearly.

So he added another sentence:

"I don't mean the weight of the antenna alone, but the entire external radar system, including the radome and other servomechanisms..."

Unexpectedly, Liu Yongquan nodded directly:

"I'm talking about the weight of the entire external load, which is around 1.2 tons, and no more than 1.3 tons at most."

"In addition, the size shown in the figure is the best among our series of solutions. If the user does not have a particularly high requirement for the detection distance, the external load can be further reduced to around 900kg. Of course, the size of the antenna will also be reduced to about 8 meters accordingly."

"..."

This result, which seemed too good to be true, caused the venue to suddenly fall silent.

All that was left was the breathing of a dozen people and the humming sound of the projection equipment dissipating heat.

As for Casore himself, his mind was in a state of confusion and he didn't even know what to think.

The maximum payload of the Falcon 8Z is designed to be 1850 kg. If all the external equipment combined weighs only 1.2 tons, then the total mission load can be limited to the payload weight by slightly controlling the number of operators and internal equipment.

There is no need to bother with any structural reinforcement.

As for the 900 kg... that can almost be installed directly on a two-size smaller Falcon 6Z.

Not only that, it can even allow early warning aircraft and business jets to be mostly produced on the same line, requiring only a few more steps in the final assembly process, without having to go through the process again after leaving the factory.

Although these details may seem insignificant and may not even have an impact on performance, they can significantly reduce costs and shorten delivery cycles.

For users who are in urgent need of spot goods, the attraction is undoubtedly extremely high.

Moreover, there is another non-technical advantage -

In the short term, the only aircraft that can compete with the Falcon 8Z platform early warning aircraft is the Gulfstream G550+Falcon jointly developed by Elta Electronic Industries and General Dynamics.

Go to David to buy early warning aircraft.

And I'm buying futures...

If there were no competitors, that would probably be it.

After all, the situation of the roundabout project is rather special, so it is inevitable that everyone will have some luck.

But if there is a competitor that is obviously made in France, has similar or even better performance, and is almost in stock.

Then most users may have to think twice.

The only problem is...

How is this done?

It’s impossible that this pole is an external antenna, and even the antenna cover and cooling system are saved, right?

Fortunately, Cassore still had some basic common sense, so he didn't ask such an outrageous question.

But in a trance, he blurted out:

"Is the radar solution you provided...really an active phased array?"

Compared with the active phased array radar (AESA) where each radiator needs to be equipped with a separate T/R component, the passive phased array radar (PESA) has only one central transmitter and one receiver. Therefore, in terms of the weight of the antenna itself, it is generally much smaller than an AESA of the same size...strictly speaking, the same area.

In previous communications between the two sides, the term used has always been the somewhat ambiguous "electronic scanning radar".

Therefore, it cannot be said that it is completely unreasonable for Casore to have such an idea.

But it made Liu Yongquan on the opposite side laugh.

However, he was not an expert in the field of electronic technology, and Guo Lin was still in Jinling and could not leave, so he gave the right of interpretation to Fan Jimin, a project assistant from the Electronic Technology Group next to him.

The latter was a little bit overwhelmed at this moment, but after all, it was a serious question raised by the foreign partner, so he answered solemnly:

"Regarding this, our radar system is indeed an active phased array, and this will be reflected in our cooperation agreement."

At this point, perhaps worried that his words were not convincing enough, he paused for a moment and added:

"In fact, we have not systematically developed passive phased array radars. Please rest assured, Mr. Casore..."

Although AESA is undoubtedly more advanced than PESA, in the technology tree, the two actually have a parallel relationship with common prerequisite technologies, rather than a sequential relationship.

Now that things have come to this, Casore can only assume that the Chinese have some special tricks in the AESA field.

After lowering his head and writing down a few key points in his notebook, he thought he had calmed down and signaled Liu Yongquan that they could proceed to the next stage of the meeting.

However, Kasore would soon find out.

Lightness is only the most insignificant advantage of this radar...