【Military Subplane】Author: Big Ivan.
December 14, 2023 is the 35th anniversary of the successful first flight of China's first supersonic fighter-bomber, the J-7 fighter-bomber. Thirty-five years in the blink of a finger, from a difficult start, to a thrilling test flight, to naval equipment, and then the Air Force rolled out, becoming the backbone of the Chinese Air Force's in-depth tactical strikes, the J-7 series fighter-bombers have embarked on a successful development path, and have also become the eternal memories of the turn of the century.
So, what kind of development path has the J-7 series fighter-bombers gone through, and what are the important nodes worth mentioning?What kind of tactical mission is currently being undertaken by the Chinese Air Force, and why has the final improved model of the J-7 series fighter-bomber not appeared in the eyes of the world for a long time?
The birth of the J-7.
Let's talk about the first question first, we mentioned before that the original intention of the research and development of the J-7 series fighter-bombers was to create a light bomber for the Chinese Air Force that could replace the H-5, or to build a front-line bomber according to the model classification of the Soviet Air Force. To this end, the tactical indicators of the J-7 are also formulated in accordance with the implementation of front-line bombers, including the combat radius under its different loading configurations, the use of secondary airfields to implement combat support and sorties, the corresponding maximum speed, etc., while carrying out the attack on the enemy's campaign depth targets, it can also take into account the implementation of aviation sea control tasks and strike surface ships.
"Flying Leopard" at the Zhuhai Air Show
Therefore, at the beginning of its birth, when the J-7 was still in the stage of conceptual design and model bidding, it was actually a light bomber, and at the same time, there were many technical controversies in the process of conceptual design, model bidding, and research and development. For example, in the bidding process, whether this new light bomber should use a variable swept wing design similar to the MiG-23MS fighter obtained by China from Egypt, that is, to choose Lu Xiaopeng's Qiang-6, it has gone through a long period of trade-offs. After referring to the design of the Su-24 and F-111, the Air Force believed that the use of a parallel cockpit design was more conducive to the new light bomber to communicate with each other when penetrating at low altitudes, while the Navy insisted on using a tandem cockpit design, and the technical requirements could not be reconciled, which eventually led to the Air Force withdrawing from the entire project.
Su-24
However, after the Air Force withdrew from the project, this new light bomber became pure, the Anglo-Argentine Falklands War in the early eighties of the last century, let our personnel have a glimpse of the power of guided aviation sea control, and several local maritime conflicts occurred during the same time period, but also made our country realize the necessity of establishing missile aviation sea control capabilities.
China's naval aviation finally chose two projects to advance at the same time: on the one hand, it began to integrate anti-ship missiles on the H-6 bomber and carry out missile modification, which is the H-6D bomber that integrates the YJ-6 anti-ship missile;On the other hand, it is to promote the project of this new light bomber and give priority to the integration of the YJ-8K anti-ship missile. At this time, the project code name of the new light bomber has changed, from the original H-7 type, plus a J, on the one hand, it means that its tactical positioning is a fighter-bomber, on the other hand, it also means that it has a certain degree of maneuverability and air combat ability, can compete with the second generation fighter in air combat, and has a certain self-defense ability. At this point, the J-7 model was born in the People's Navy.
Improvements of the J-7A.
So far, the first technical positioning of the J-7 fighter-bomber has been obtained, that is, an anti-ship missile attack aircraft serving the naval aviation, which is also the only two more reliable missile-based aviation sea-domination models of the Chinese naval aviation in the late 90s of the last century, alongside the H-6D bomber. However, the fly in the ointment is that the overall avionics system design of the J-7 is still at the level of the second and a half generations, and the fire control radar can only meet the needs of anti-ship operations at sea, and there is also a large room for improvement in flight performance. More importantly, the first batch of J-7 engines installed in the army still use the Spey-MK202 engine of the British Rolls-Royce company in stock, and the number of engines limits the equipment scale of the J-7.
Spey - MK202
In the late 90s of the last century, with the urgent needs of our army's emergency operations, the naval aviation urgently needed to expand the scale of its own anti-ship missile attack aircraft, and the J-7 unit, which originally had only one fleet of air forces, was obviously unable to meet the operational needs. After acquiring a batch of Su-30MKK fighters with the ability to fight on the opposite side, the Air Force aviation also believes that it needs a fighter with a long range, strong attack power, Fighter-bombers with the ability to strike on the opposite side, on the one hand, to make up for the shortcomings of the Su-30MKK and the heavy tasks, on the other hand, to replace the Qiang-5 series of attack aircraft that are already useless, it is obvious that the J-7 is a good platform, so after parting ways in the early eighties, the Air Force went around and back.
Su-30MKK
So far, the J-7 fighter-bomber has obtained the second technical positioning, that is, a fighter-bomber with precision strike capabilities that can block the depth of the campaign and the depth of tactics, while taking into account the task of aviation and sea domination. Compared with the earliest H-7 bomber, the current J-7 can be said to have not forgotten its original intention, the name of the J-7A "Flying Leopard II", compared with the earliest J-7, the J-7A has been reborn and improved:
The fuselage structure has been upgraded, which not only improves the flight life of the whole aircraft, but also adds a pair of heavy-duty pylons under the wings, which can carry an additional pair of YJ-83K anti-ship missiles or K AKD-88 air-to-surface missiles, improving the ability of precision strikes on the opposite side
The technical status of the avionics system has been upgraded, from the original second-generation half-level analog and discrete avionics system to the integrated avionics instrumentation equipment of the third-generation fighter, including the use of standard data bus series connection for the whole aircraft system, centralized mission computer design, etc.;
Changes have been made to the fire control system, increasing the ability to use multi-model precision guidance systems, increasing the ability of fire control radars to carry out surveying and mapping attacks on ground targets, and theoretically increasing the ability to carry out over-the-horizon interception and launching air combat, etc., all in all, the original J-7 can only undertake anti-ship missile attack missions, and has become an all-round fighter-bomber that can carry out a variety of missions;
In order to adapt to the J-7A, in addition to the two opposite missiles mentioned earlier, it is also equipped with YJ-91 anti-radiation missiles, LT series laser-guided bombs, etc.
After a series of technical improvements, the technical and tactical performance of the J-7A has even surpassed that of the Su-30MKK to a certain extent, not to mention the J-5 series attack aircraft that are congenitally deficient and have many technical defects even if they are improved.
The mystery of the J-7B.
In the first 15 years of the 21st century, the J-7A of the Air Force Aviation and Naval Aviation provoked our army's campaign and tactical depth interdiction, and missile-based tactical aviation to dominate the sea, and even the J-10A and J-11B, two third-generation fighters, could not be compared with the J-7A in the opposite attack mission. After all, the task of our army to use third-generation aircraft to seize air supremacy at that time was still very heavy, whether it was the J-10A or the J-11B, the primary task was still to seize and maintain air supremacy, rather than to carry out the opposite attack mission, and in terms of the opposite attack function and training time allocation, it was far inferior to the J-7A unit. It wasn't until after 2016 that another model was born, yes, that is, the J-16 multi-role fighter.
The emergence of J-16 J-16 represents two points, one is that the strategic thinking of the Chinese Air Force is undergoing a major change, from the original simple reliance on air combat to seize air supremacy, to the full attack and defense, which makes the J-16, a multi-role fighter with the ability to attack on the opposite side, instantly become a sweet and sweet;The second is that for the first time, the Chinese Air Force has obtained a model with more powerful performance than the J-7A, which can carry out the ability to attack the opposite side, and it is powerful in all directions, and the J-7A has obviously not kept up with the times in front of the J-16 fighter.
To this end, the J-7A in 2013 to 2015 or so, made the last improvement efforts, this is the dragon has not seen the end, the only few ** in the end are confirmed to be fake pictures or P maps, until the 35th anniversary of the first flight of the J-7, there are also military bloggers remember the J-7B fighter-bomber. It is said that compared with the J-7A, the J-7B has been comprehensively upgraded to the fuselage, and it is even rumored that the avionics system has been replaced, the active phased array fire control radar, etc., and the fuselage structure has also been further strengthened, which can carry 2 or even 4 YJ-12 heavy supersonic anti-ship missiles, especially this design that can carry YJ-12 anti-ship missiles. If it does appear, it can be said that it can make its aviation sea control ability even more deadly.
However, in the end, the J-7 series fighter-bomber did not usher in its third important development node, but came to an abrupt end in the J-7A, and only launched a small modification of the J-7A2. The reason for this is that its performance has no advantage over the J-16 fighter, and the original task of the J-7A has been completely or partially replaced by the J-16, and on this basis, the J-7A, as a second-generation and a half-fuselage fighter-bomber, naturally has no need to implement further improvements.
With the J-7B project finally turned into a technical reserve, it no longer appears in the word of mouth of military fans, the legend of the J-7 series of fighter-bombers will also gradually end in the Chinese Air Force, and it is estimated that in the next 10 to 15 years or so, with the retirement of the last batch of J-7A fighter-bombers. Now the only hope is that the aviation industry will one day actually be able to put the prototype of the J-7B on display, so that we can see the ultimate flying leopard in the past.