Chapter 612

Chapter 612: The Experience Within

A fighter jet with five diamond-shaped forward-swept wings began to take shape on the computer screen, pixel by pixel.

“Did you really build this fighter jet yourself?”

Colonel Jiang, accompanying Lin Mo, looked astonished. Forward-swept wings?!

His eyes nearly popped out of his head.

As an experienced pilot, Colonel Jiang understood exactly what type of fighter jet he was witnessing.

He initially thought it would resemble the “stick” (nickname for the J-10), at most being similar to the F-22. Considering the challenges of production, he never imagined it would have such an unusual design.

What kind of technology is required for this?

The Russians attempted it with the Su-47 “Golden Eagle,” but after producing just two prototype models, they only displayed them as a showpiece.

The Germans tried with the Ju 287, which was later captured by the Soviet Union’s military and then fell silent.

The Americans experimented with the X-29A, which Grumman used merely as an experimental machine for technical validation, achieving excellent roll control without any additional wings or thrust vectoring technology. However, with Lockheed’s rise, it faded into obscurity.

There was also an obscure model, the SFW/F-16. Due to material issues that could not solve structural divergence, it was ultimately eliminated; otherwise, America’s third-generation main fighter jet, the F-16 “Falcon,” would have featured the external characteristics of negative 25-degree forward-swept wings.

China also had a forward-swept wing experimental machine, the XP-1 “Research Drive Type,” which was abandoned after a test flight accident in 1945. Later developments included the “Dark Sword” single-engine drone, initially designed with forward-swept wings but ultimately modified to a swept-back design when finalized.

Nevertheless, countries have not ceased research on forward-swept wings. Domestically, China is revisiting manned forward-swept wing fighter jet development, such as the National Defense Star’s X-1, which serves as a design proposal for fourth-generation fighters. There are also other unnamed models still in secret development.

If technology matures, National Defense Star may compete with the J-14, J-18, J-20, and J-31 for orders for the next generation or two of main fighter jets.

The remarkable performance of forward-swept wings is well-known, yet no country has truly dared to apply this technology to its main fighter jets.

America, with its technological advantage, cannot afford to take such risks. The bulky Russians lack confidence, while China’s technology and materials are not mature enough. The United Kingdom can only use the design for drones, and countries like France have no capacity to even build an experimental machine.

Rather than viewing technology as the barrier for forward-swept wings, it is more accurate to say that materials and structure are the real hurdles, as issues with structural divergence and stealth continue to plague development.

However, for Lin Mo, who possesses the gold giant dragon, these material and structural challenges pose no problems. Both National Defense Star and the Aerospace Department rely on Lin Mo’s alloy formula library to solve various technical issues arising from materials.

Many special technologies are simply compromises resulting from substandard materials; if the materials were up to standard, there would be no need to expend such effort researching technologies, leading to substantial cost reductions.

Seeing Colonel Jiang’s increasingly skeptical expression, Lin Mo shrugged and nodded. “That’s right, I designed and assembled this fighter jet myself. It incorporates production techniques shared by experts from several domestic aviation design institutes. Since it was a collaboration, the blueprints for this fighter jet are publicly shared, which is why Chen Haiqing’s National Defense Star has an experimental prototype, and other domestic factories have similar models as well.”

“Don’t try to fool me. The engine data doesn’t add up — does China have engines that strong? And this fire control system and radar system, when did domestic manufacturers possess the technology to produce these?” Colonel Jiang, seasoned in his knowledge of fighter jets, looked at Lin Mo’s data for the computer specialists. He knew about various fighter jets worldwide and every parameter inside and out. He immediately spotted the inconsistencies. Just the engine parameters far surpassed even the domestically produced WS-15X. When did the Gas Turbine Research Institute acquire such impressive technology? It was truly puzzling.

The data for this fighter jet was astonishing, even outpacing the J-20. If Lin Mo claimed to have built it himself, what did that mean for those domestic design institutes? Had the country wasted so much research and development funding?

“It’s real, more genuine than gold. Your doubts are quite reasonable. Some equipment is indeed not produced domestically; hmm, some was sponsored by the Americans.”

Lin Mo chuckled. He wasn’t as honest as the domestic aerospace design institutes. To gather these components, he had resorted to all kinds of tricks and methods, pushing the limits. Only the Americans and the distraught Lockheed Martin understood Lin Mo’s tactics.

Most of the parameters Lin Mo provided were validated real data, including experimental data from the Night computer center and large domestic wind tunnels (wind tunnel experiments mostly require models, not full-scale prototypes).

Due to the constraints of real-world equipment and technological levels, while Lin Mo combined technology and equipment from China, Russia, and America to create the “monstrous” fighter’s impressive performance, it still fell short of the theoretical values on the original blueprints. For example, the design aimed for Mach 5, which, with the F119-PW-100 vector thrust engine borrowed from the Americans, seemed an impossible task. Perhaps acquiring the engine for the F/A-XX might be feasible, but right now even Boeing didn’t know where its F/A-XX was.

Thus, the “monstrous” fighter had considerable room for improvement in its engine, radar, and endurance capabilities.

Even so, Lin Mo’s “monstrous” fighter had already positioned itself among the top international fighter jets.

“Sponsored by the Americans? Have they gone mad? They’d better test it first!”

Colonel Jiang remained skeptical. Without seeing the actual machine, convincing the colonel in such a short time wouldn’t be easy.

Although the Americans weren’t crazy, they were certainly not far from it.

Lin Mo didn’t reveal to Colonel Jiang that the engine parameters actually belonged to one of America’s main fighter jets, the F-22 “Raptor,” specifically its F119-PW-100 vector thrust engine.

Otherwise…

Bullying a confused Colonel Jiang wouldn’t exactly make him a hero.

“It will take two more hours to complete all the modeling. Based on your request, we will also perform mathematical calculations on aerodynamic properties and defense capabilities. In two hours, you can call up the model on the simulator. Please define the model name,” said a computer expert who had finished setting the parameters. Although the data looked real, he, like Colonel Jiang, held a half-believing attitude, indifferent to whether it was true or not.

“Model name will be X-8, called ‘monstrous’!”

The number 8, “monstrous,” should be considered the eighth aircraft in the Aircrew Group’s hangar, even though it had not been completed yet.

Of course, the clay model didn’t count.

In fact, the current appearance of the “monstrous” had slightly changed from the initial design after Lin Mo had the gold giant dragon stealthily capture many fighter jet designs.

With the support of a large server’s computing resources, Lin Mo and Colonel Jiang experienced the “monstrous” simulated combat aircraft as promised two hours later.

Although it was the same aircraft, their experiences were quite different.

Once the J-20’s landing gear left the ground, it signaled the beginning of combat.

Colonel Jiang chose to pit the J-20 against Lin Mo’s “monstrous,” clearly considering the “monstrous” to be comparable in combat effectiveness to the F-22 “Raptor.”

Having been the pilot representing Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group in the battles of “Abyss Nirvana,” he was naturally more familiar with Chengdu’s design style (since the early J-5 to J-8 models were primarily developed and produced by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, it was only after the J-10 that Chengdu began to share the market), and although he had no prior experience flying the J-20, his rich flying experience and recent simulation training made him adept at controlling this new stealth jet still not officially in service.

Although he hadn’t yet engaged with any forward-swept wing fighter jets like the Su-47 “Golden Eagle,” Colonel Jiang was well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of forward-swept wing designs, so he wasn’t careless at all.

Even in tackling what seemed like a small challenge, he approached it with full effort. Over the past few days of simulated confrontations, Colonel Jiang understood that if he held back against Lin Mo’s air combat skills, he would probably face a humiliating defeat.

He placed Lin Mo on the same level as himself.

“Beep, beep!”

The radar seemed to malfunction, weakly emitting intermittent signals.

This was the result of Colonel Jiang maximizing the radar power, yet the feedback signals were very faint.

The domestically produced active phased array radar still lacked some strength.

He didn’t know how Lin Mo resolved the “monstrous” stealth technology issues, which made this forward-swept wing fighter even more terrifying.

If he hadn’t been present with Lin Mo during the design and modeling process, he might have been caught off guard in this battle.

Suddenly, the warning alarm system blared loudly, startling Colonel Jiang as two bright spots appeared on the radar screen.

They were missiles, but he saw three extremely fast trails approaching him, the sound from them hadn’t even reached yet.

If there were clouds nearby, he wouldn’t even know how he was taken down.

Curiously, why were there three trails? Two were missiles, and the other was…

No, this simply wouldn’t do. Seizing the initiative, Colonel Jiang didn’t feel discouraged at all. The canard configuration provided the J-20 with exceptional aerodynamic layout, very suitable for supersonic air combat. The J-20 quickly adjusted to his commands, preparing for the attack envelope.

The weapon bay opened.