Chapter 1371 "Xuan Niao" Flies Southwest

All the ballistic characteristics of the DF-16 are specially designed to propel this hypersonic warhead. Therefore, it does not meet the optimal energy utilization of conventional ballistic missiles, which greatly limits the range of the missile itself.

But now, all these costs have paid off.

The solid rocket engine stopped working at an altitude of about 200 kilometers and completed the separation of the head and body within the next second, officially sending the waverider warhead into the working orbit.

Subsequently, because its speed was insufficient to reach the first cosmic speed, the Xuanniao began to fall slowly under the influence of the gravity field and continued to increase its speed. At the same time, the laser gyroscope built into the flying body began to take over navigation.

This inertial device, which was born during the Cold War, is still the jewel at the top of the industrial pyramid. Its drift rate under strong electromagnetic interference is only 0.0005°/h.

It was not until the moment it penetrated near space that the ingenious design of the "Xuanniao" waverider configuration finally began to show its deadly elegance.

The sharp wedge-shaped structure at the leading edge of the aircraft is like a scalpel, splitting the thin air into two stable oblique shock waves, completely sealing the high-pressure airflow, and forming a compression zone together with the lower surface of the aircraft, like an invisible air cushion, which increases the lift efficiency to several times that of conventional shapes.

This is the optimal solution that Chang Haonan's team iterated through hundreds and thousands of wind tunnel tests.

As it entered the upper edge of near-space at an altitude of about 100km, the speed value on the display screen of the Dingxin Base finally broke through the 4000 mark and gradually increased to an astonishing 4080m/s.

Chang Haonan, who had been standing silently behind the podium, also breathed a sigh of relief and showed his first smile of the night.

"As you can see, the 'Xuanniao' aircraft has entered its first hopping cycle and has reached our preset flight speed at the upper edge of near-space..."

He turned on the microphone and introduced the leaders and guests on the viewing platform in front of him:

"Please note that I did not use the description of Mach number here, because in some technical materials, some researchers will increase the Mach number corresponding to the same speed value by changing the external environment, so we directly use the most direct description method..."

Hearing this, the chief sitting in the center of the front row suddenly leaned forward, and all the fatigue brought by days of running around was swept away.

This is a literal interpretation of what it means to be "happy when things happen":

"At 4 kilometers per second, wouldn't it only take about 2000 minutes to fly the entire 8 kilometers?"

This number clearly demonstrated the power of hypersonic weapons to everyone present.

No matter how complete the early warning system and evacuation plan are, it is impossible to complete the operation in such a short time.

"Well... because the aircraft itself has no power, the speed of the next two bounce cycles will drop slightly, but generally speaking it will not exceed 12 minutes..."

Chang Haonan used a makeshift telescopic antenna as a pointer, pointing to a countdown in the lower right corner of the big screen:

"To be specific, it was 11 minutes and 05 seconds."

While everyone was communicating, the parameters displayed on the big screen suddenly flickered for a moment, and then disappeared at the same time.

The sudden change made all the audience experience a roller coaster-like state of mind, with expressions of either horror or confusion.

The few big guys at the front were able to maintain their composure, but from the subtle changes in their body postures, it was not difficult to see the shock at that moment.

"Don't worry, this is a signal interruption caused by the plasma shield. Soon..."

Before he finished explaining, the red light indicating the signal connection status turned green again, and the various flight parameters resumed display one after another.

Chang Haonan pointed to a workflow diagram displayed on another screen:

"We have set up two ion jets on the nose and back of the aircraft. High-concentration ion liquid is ejected in a directional manner using the high-pressure gas. Combined with the deflection effect of the electromagnetic field, the plasma sheath corresponding to the radar guidance antenna and the data transmission antenna is precisely weakened."

"In this way, we can ensure the normal operation of each missile-borne subsystem and maximize the shielding effect of the plasma layer on electromagnetic waves, giving the flying object a certain degree of radar stealth capability... Of course, this is just a side effect. Even if the opponent relies on specially optimized equipment to complete observation, no air defense system can intercept it with a speed of more than 4 kilometers per second and an unpredictable trajectory."

"In fact, most radars can't even do stable tracking..."

……

As if to confirm what he said.

When the "Xuanniao" broke through the atmosphere for the first time, the alarm at the Maodao radar station almost blew off the roof of the control room.

The function of the strategic early warning radar is to issue a warning before a missile attacks, but now the target it has detected has even flown over the heart of China and is speeding towards the direction of the radar itself.

"Polarization filtering is invalid! Doppler radial velocity matching failed!"

The operator's voice was a little hoarse as he watched the vague ghost in front of him explode into a spot of light on the radar screen. It was the powerful interference caused by the wingtips of the waverider tearing through the ionosphere. Therefore, he could only speculate based on the existing signs:

"It's... changing track?"

Liao Yongcai didn't know exactly what he was facing, so it was difficult for him to grasp the key to the problem:

"Or is it a false signal caused by shock wave oscillation?"

Guo Lin's response was much quicker:

“Try using dynamic beamforming… Academician Chang and his colleagues may have affected the plasma generation mode to some extent, allowing the shielding layer to specifically absorb or scatter L-band signals.”

The operator, who had practiced many times, completed the operation at the fastest speed, but the light spot on the screen suddenly appeared in another location.

"Hell..."

Guo Lin had long known that it was difficult to track such a ghostly weapon with current technology alone, but he had never expected that there would be such a big gap that even the landing point warning could not be accurately made:

"The bouncing change of trajectory is superimposed on the ionization interference. It is impossible to distinguish which is the real change and which is the interference..."

In fact, the anti-interference algorithm has been specially enhanced during the design of this radar.

However, the target's outrageous speed made it impossible to complete the solution in time and process the new flight trajectory, which completely overloaded the data processing capacity.

In the following 90 seconds, Guo Lin tried several new methods in succession, but he was still unable to steadily grasp the elusive target.

"call--"

He sighed somewhat dejectedly and decided to throw the can into the ground:

"Use the data obtained so far to estimate where the landing point is."

The coordinates of the shooting range are of course information that everyone knows, but since it is a simulated confrontation, this link is still indispensable.

“But the data is very imperfect and fluctuates widely…”

The operator hesitated.

"Try it……"

Guo Lin interrupted him directly:

"There's nothing else we can do anyway."

Following his instructions, the trajectory data was quickly injected into the computing program.

A few seconds later, a result was actually displayed on the screen:

32°34'N, 27°53'E.

When Guo Lin saw this data, he was stunned.

It was not until I turned around and looked at the map next to it that I realized that this was a location roughly in the eastern Mediterranean, which was obviously outrageous.

He suddenly thought of the classic photo introducing the boost-glide trajectory, smiled bitterly, and patted the control cabinet.

"Why don't you calculate it a little more crookedly? You'll really end up in Paris..."

……

At the same time, in the underground command center of the Dingxin Base, Chang Haonan continued to introduce this technological crystal that embodies the wisdom of almost the entire industry:

"The control of shock wave boundary layer interference is the core."

Chang Haonan pointed to the pneumatic model and explained:

"The micron-scale honeycomb array on the lower surface of the aircraft guides the boundary layer airflow to form longitudinal vortices, dispersing the peak heat flux caused by shock wave oscillation by 30%. On the upper surface, the gradient ablation ceramic material is distributed layer by layer with an accuracy of 0.2 mm. The outermost layer is a high-temperature resistant zirconium carbide coating, and the inner layer is a carbon/silicon carbide composite material with both mechanical and thermal insulation properties."

"When the missile reaches the apex of each hop cycle, the onboard computer will adjust the leading edge shape 500 times per second based on the real-time heat flux sensor data, causing the curvature of the waverider's trailing edge to change within a 2% range. This seemingly minor adjustment can increase the lift-to-drag ratio by 8%, thus reserving critical energy for the next two hops. In theory, this technology can also be applied to the leading edge, but the material properties cannot support it for the time being..."

"..."

Before anyone knew it, the Xuanniao had completed its third jump cycle and suddenly changed its angle of attack 65 kilometers above the ground.

With the help of optical observation equipment near the target range, one can see that the intense friction between the lower surface of the waverider and the air produces a continuous bright purple glow, like an umbrella-shaped cloud formed by metal particles exploding in the ionosphere.

"Will such obvious reentry features be easier to detect with infrared detection equipment?"

Jing Zhiyuan suddenly asked.

But he was destined not to get an answer in the first place.

Because in the time it took to say this, a dazzling flash of light had already pierced the ground from the top of the sky. The huge impact even caused the optical lens several kilometers away to feel a noticeable tremor...

This spectacular scene made many people at the scene suddenly think of the same ancient poem:

It is suspected that the Milky Way falls for nine days.

……

When the waverider warhead penetrated the 30-meter concrete target, Liang Yangang was using his military boots to crush the last wisp of smoke from the launch site.

The camouflage team is re-covering the vehicle with an intelligent camouflage net, while the electromagnetic prism vehicle is automatically cleaning the yellow sand stuck to the antenna tube.

"Circular error probability 15 meters."

He looked at the design parameters marked in the operation manual and suddenly laughed:

"The error of the Dongfeng 3 back then was enough to fit half of a county town."

The convoy quickly and slowly drove away from the shooting range, and the eastern skyline began to glow faintly.

In high latitudes near the summer solstice, the sun always rises very early.

Fortunately, the area where the missile brigade stopped was still a lifeless desert, except that the shadow of a sand dune somewhere was slightly darker by half a pixel than a few hours ago.

That was the only scar left in the digital world when the Black Bird broke through the iron curtain of the times.