Chapter 1636 The Bug in the World's Operation

After losing the restraint of ground resistance, the airspeed of the "Zou Yu" prototype quickly reached 300 knots.

Chang Haonan's voice rang out along the tower communication system:

"Turn off the afterburner, maintain the speed, change to level flight, and circle the airport."

"Understood. Turn off the afterburner, maintain the speed, and level off."

Fu Guoxiang's voice contained a hint of relaxation after being tense.

He quickly adjusted the throttle and turned the flight mode knob to "turbojet/cruise". He then operated the mouse to set a new route and finally pressed the Enter key. The command arrived instantly via the data link.

On the big screen, in the images sent back by the left and right cameras, the originally slightly upward viewing angle began to adjust smoothly, and finally steadily aimed at the slightly bleak skyline in the distance in winter.

A few seconds later, the observer's voice sounded with a tone of confirmation:

"Report, the target has reached path point No. 1!"

Almost at the same time, the images transmitted back showed that several large aerodynamic control surfaces at the trailing edge of the "Zou Yu"'s unique forebody waverider body began to move.

They do not deflect synchronously, but instead subtly adjust their angles upward and downward based on the preset flight control logic.

The entire huge body then began to tilt to the left, entering a huge turning radius.

The air in the tower seemed to freeze.

Everyone held their breath, their eyes fixed on the posture data and real-time images on the screen.

As was worried during the design phase, the lateral stability of the "Zou Yu" was not its strong point in subsonic speeds, especially in the medium and low speed ranges. Coupled with the impact of the dorsal air intake structure on the airflow, the turn appeared to be unusually slow and long.

The dark gray figure drew a huge arc in the air; the sense of speed was diluted by the distance, and time seemed to be stretched.

Fu Guoxiang still followed his past habit, with his hands firmly on the control stick and throttle lever, but did not make any manual intervention, just kept scanning the various parameters.

Similar to most drones, the "Zou Yu" also has a complete throttle-sidestick-rudder control system on its flight console, which is no different from the layout of modern manned combat aircraft.

However, due to the tightrope-walking aerodynamic characteristics and extremely high flight speed of the "Zou Yu", in most speed envelopes, the operating frequency and reaction speed of human pilots cannot fully meet the flight requirements.

Therefore, most of the time this system is used to operate mission payloads or respond to certain emergency situations.

As for flying, the operator usually only needs to play the role of a "commander" and give target instructions on the computer without making specific control actions.

Although the fuselage's posture changes slowly, it always maintains a reassuring stability.

To everyone in the tower, this half minute seemed as long as half an hour, and every second was a matter of nerves.

Finally, the dark gray figure completed a 180° turn and the nose of the plane pointed back towards Beiling Airport.

A collective sigh of relief was heard in the tower.

Everyone's eyes subconsciously shifted away from the central screen and looked out the huge floor-to-ceiling windows.

Soon, a sharp, black object with a triangular cross-section appeared at the end of the field of vision.

With a lightness that seemed disproportionate to its size, it swiftly crossed...or more accurately, floated across the sky above the runway.

For the Shengfei people who have been working here for many years, seeing planes flying past their eyes is a very common sight.

But today, the "Zou Yu" with its subversive appearance and representative meaning makes this scene full of surreal meaning.

Many people subconsciously stretched their necks, following it with their eyes for a long time, unwilling to look away.

Bian Lizhen stood beside Chang Haonan, watching the black shadow passing by the window, and couldn't help but sigh in a low voice: "Although I personally watched it go offline, when this thing flew through the sky... it still felt like a black mosaic floating by."

He tried to use this slightly teasing tone to calm his inner shock.

Xing Muchun, who was standing next to him, gave another metaphor: "It's more like a bunch of garbled code suddenly appeared in the program that runs the world."

More abstract, but closer to other people's ideas.

Upon hearing this, Chang Haonan's mouth twitched slightly. He did not comment, but his eyes became more profound.

About three minutes later, "Zou Yu" successfully completed the test subject of circling the field and accurately returned to the first navigation point set after takeoff.

Fu Guoxiang skillfully operated the control interface, resetting the flight trajectory to the original climb and acceleration route, and switching the flight mode from "turbojet/cruise" back to "climb/acceleration".

On the big screen, the area representing the tail nozzle of the "Zou Yu" lit up again with the unique blue arc light of the afterburner.

In the flight status bar, the two numbers representing speed and altitude seemed to have been untied and began to climb steadily and rapidly again.

Chang Haonan's eyes quickly switched between real-time images and instrument data.

When his eyes swept over the fuel gauge reading in the corner, his brows furrowed slightly, almost imperceptibly.

Just in the low-speed cruise and circling flight just now, the turbojet 14P has consumed nearly one-fifth of its fuel reserves.

"This fuel consumption... is still too high." Chang Haonan's voice was not loud and more like he was talking to himself, but it was clearly heard by Xing Muchun and Bian Lizhen beside him. "The prototype finally freed up some mission space and payload redundancy, but it was all taken up by the fuel tank of this turbojet... We must find a way to increase the volume later."

Xing Muchun thought for a moment after hearing this, and then continued: "The ramjet engine combined with the waverider is indeed not sensitive to weight and volume in hypersonic flight. But the problem is..."

He paused, his tone filled with doubt:

"If the overall volume is too large, it would be difficult to accelerate such a large platform to the ramjet start speed of Mach 1.8 with just a turbojet engine... After all, that is the critical threshold."

Chang Haonan did not immediately answer Xing Muchun's doubts, but just shook his head slightly: "Aviation Power Group is focusing on the variable cycle engine project. At present, the ground bench test has begun, and the progress is smoother than expected."

He was about to explain in more detail when Bian Lizhen on the other side suddenly had his eyes light up and joined the topic:

"Boss Xing, I read the initial performance briefing of the WS-25 a while ago. The combined fuel consumption rate in both turbojet and turbofan modes is simply... a bit ridiculously low, and it can also maintain thrust output close to the paper design in the speed range of more than 85%..."

"Of course, the results of ground tests cannot be directly transferred to the sky, but in any case they can provide sufficient imagination."

Xing Muchun frowned and tried to imagine it, but finally shook his head with a hint of confusion and disbelief:

"It's still hard to imagine that a large aircraft can accelerate like the 'Zou Yu'... the thrust curve is still too idealistic."

Chang Haonan refocused his attention on the image of "Zou Yu" rising on the screen.

"The large cargo hold may not be able to accommodate it for the time being," he said with a promising tone, "but it should be enough to carry some important small items, or simply move a bomb..."

"..."

At this moment, the observer's clear and powerful report interrupted the three people's whispered discussion:

"Report! Unit 01 has reached the planned altitude of 10500 meters!"

Everyone's attention was instantly drawn back to real-time monitoring.

In fact, if you choose a flight altitude above 1.2 meters, the air resistance can be reduced further, but the aerodynamic stabilization effect at high altitude will also be weakened accordingly.

Therefore, according to the settings, the Zuo Yu prototype will not further increase its altitude before starting the ramjet engine.

On the screen, the speed of "Zou Yu" has steadily exceeded 600 knots and is diving into the most dangerous transonic section for it.

In this speed range, the aerodynamic characteristics are extremely complex, and the formation and movement of shock waves will bring about drastic changes in aerodynamic loads and potential control reactions.

During previous tests in Fucheng, the static aerodynamic model of "Zou Yu" repeatedly encountered several troublesome problems within this speed range.

The main focus is on nonlinear mutation of pitching moment and decrease in lateral stability.

After all, wind tunnels can only simulate static or quasi-static conditions and cannot fully reproduce the dynamic process of real-time coupling between high-speed airflow and elastic fuselage and flight control system during actual flight, let alone restore the aerodynamic stabilization effect.

So the solution at the time was to simply add an additional stabilization term to simulate actual flight conditions.

But simulation is still simulation.

The success or failure of the entire project depends largely on whether we can safely survive these ten seconds of "gate of hell".