A few days ago, when the U.S. Air Force released the B-21 Assault bomber and achieved its first test flight, foreign media ridiculed and said where is the H-20 of our PLA?
For many years, the news of the H-20 has been the focus of attention in the West, because our secrecy measures have been very good, and they have always been in a state of only hearing the sound of the stairs, and they really can't see any information that says a word.
For a long time, there has been only one type of strategic bomber in our army, and that is the H-6 strategic bomber independently produced after the Soviet Tu-16 bomber. Since 1969, when it was able to produce products on its own, it has always been the most relied on large military aircraft of the PLA Air Force. However, after all, it is a product of the 70s of the last century, and the H-6 is obviously outdated and old, and it is difficult to cope with the battlefield environment of the new era, so in 2016, Ma Xiaotian, a general of the People's Liberation Army Air Force, mentioned for the first time that our army is developing a new generation of long-range strategic bombers - collectively known as H-20 in the outside world.
Learning from the successful experience of Xi adversaries has always been a fine tradition in the field of military research and development of our military, so from the beginning of the H-20 project, the outside world has speculated that a flying wing layout similar to that of the B-2 bomber in the United States will be adopted. And this speculation was "confirmed" by some ** chasing after the West soon after, they believe that in October 2018, at a gala of our People's Liberation Army Air Force, there is a peculiar silhouette of an aircraft in the background logo, which is the shape of an aircraft without a vertical tail, and another feature is a wingtip sail. Although this incident seems to have confirmed that our H-20 adopts a flying wing design, however, our secrecy work has been done very meticulously, and the details they want to see have not been determined. Because in various news, there have been several versions of the H-20 model, one of which has a low-angle twin vertical tail, and another that has canceled the twin vertical tail. In October 2020, in a promotional video of "Great Power Take-off" released by China's aviation industry, the white cloth that appeared in the last scene was suspected to be the outline of the H-20, and they still had no way to determine the appearance of our army's H-20.
Western military analysts ridiculed and believed that there may be problems with the research and development of the H-20 of our army. They believed that the operating system of the flight wing design was not easy, as it had few operating rudder surfaces. The service and application of the American B-21 has proved that it is feasible, but watching others fly does not mean that you can fly. Speaking of which, to give you a reminder, do you remember what a certain country said before our atomic bomb?
In fact, Northrop's research and development of flying wings began as early as World War II, and the Northrop N-1M, which first flew in 1940, was the world's earliest flying wing aircraft. By 1946, Northrop had developed the YB-35 fly-wing bomber, the first large-scale fly-wing aircraft, which had been funded by the U.S. Air Force and wanted to be improved into a jetThe YB-49 in 1947 was equipped with eight General Dynamics J-35A turbojet engines. However, in the era when there was no CNC flight control, such an aircraft was difficult to operate effectively, and the YB-49 encountered a serious accident, resulting in the death of many outstanding test pilots at that time, and the YB-49 program was suspended until the B-2 research and development project was proposed in the 1970s, which made the flying wing design known to the public. Nature is the design concept of the 70s of the last century, can it still be rare to be smart and intelligent Chinese?
Now not only our army has put forward a plan for the H-20, but Russia also has a PAK-DA bomber plan, all of which are to adopt a flying wing design. It's just that we've done a good job of secrecy, but you haven't seen the results so far. However, the decisions often made by the leaders and decision-makers of our party are unexpected, and perhaps one day in the future we will let you see a kind of aerodynamic appearance and the best effect is the best H-20 of our time. It may still have the characteristics of the early flying wing, but after all, the flying wing layout has many advantages, such as better lift-to-drag ratio, higher fuel economy, and longer flight range and air time, which are also valuable advantages for large military strategic bombers. With so many advantages, are you allowed to have them, but not us?