One is as high as tens of millions, and at present, only 4 countries in the world can produce independently, it is a special blocking cable for aircraft carriers, specially used to intercept high-speed taxiing carrier-based aircraft, if the aircraft carrier does not have it, it can only be a pile of scrap metal.
Russian experts also threatened that it would be impossible for China to manufacture qualified arresting cables within 10 years, but it took only four months for China to develop and use them. So what are the difficulties in making blocking cables?How did China succeed in developing it?
As we all know, aircraft carriers are an indispensable part of the navy, and they are also a symbol of a country's strength. But few people know that if an aircraft carrier wants to exert its full strength, the role of carrier-based aircraft is particularly important.
The weight of the carrier-based aircraft determines the size of the strength, you know, when the carrier-based aircraft lands on the deck autonomously, its inertia can run about 80 meters, but the deck length of the aircraft carrier is usually only about 100 meters, if the speed is not intercepted, the carrier-based aircraft can directly rush to the bottom of the sea, and even fire and accidents will occur in serious cases.
The ground crew of the aircraft carrier can install a blocking cable, which can reduce the speed of the carrier-based aircraft to zero in a few seconds, allowing it to stop smoothly on the deck. This requires extremely strict materials and craftsmanship for the arresting cable, after all, when a carrier-based aircraft is loaded, its weight can reach twenty or thirty tons.
However, in general, the heavier the carrier-based aircraft, the more weight it can carry, and the more supplies it can transport.
During World War II, due to limited technology, the weight of carrier-based aircraft was far from being comparable with today, and the Japanese fighter plane weighed less than 3 tons when it took off, and the reason for this phenomenon was not because it could not make heavier fighters, but because the length of the aircraft carrier was limited, and once the length of the aircraft carrier was exceeded, the carrier-based aircraft could not successfully land on the aircraft carrier.
Therefore, in order for carrier-based aircraft to reach land safely, the blocking cable plays a key role. Add to that the pull of the blocking claim, which is equivalent to 850,000 newtons, which is like a 5-centimeter wire holding a 100-ton cargo.
If the arresting cable does not have such a large pulling force, or if it is torn off during the interception of carrier-based aircraft, it may directly threaten the lives of the ground crew on deck, then it will cause incalculable damage. And such examples are not uncommon.
In September 2003, the USS Washington aircraft carrier was carrying the F A-18, which weighed up to 22 tons.
After the break, the arresting cable quickly rebounded, and the 12 people who were working on the deck at the time were mercilessly whipped by this steel whip, resulting in serious leg injuries to the 12 people on the aircraft carrier.
Our country now has 3 aircraft carriers, so no one dares to provoke easily. Recall that when we first purchased the blocking cable from Russia, we were sternly rejected by the Russian side, and their experts even bluntly said that our country would not be able to master the manufacturing technology of the blocking cable after waiting for another ten years.
Before 2012, there were only three countries that could independently develop and manufacture blocking cables, and they monopolized the core technology of aircraft carrier blocking cables, resulting in higher and higher blocking cables year by year. If the blocking cable is a long-term use of the part, it is not impossible to grit your teeth and buy it back and study it yourself, the key is that the blocking cable is a consumable, or the consumption speed is fast.
Because the number of uses of a blocking cable is generally 100 times, once the number of uses reaches 100 times, the blocking cable must be replaced, otherwise it is easy to break the blocking cable.
In order for carrier-based aircraft to be able to hook the blocking cables on the deck, generally 3-4 blocking cables will be installed on the aircraft carrier, and in the event of war, the number of takeoffs and landings of carrier-based aircraft on an aircraft carrier will definitely not be less than 100 sorties a day, which can be imagined What a big expense this must be.
However, the importance of building aircraft carriers to our country is self-evident, and we must not give up our achievements because of this step, and we have no choice but to seek foreign purchases and block cables.
However, even if our country is willing to spend this ** to import, no one is willing to sell it to us, under the technological blockade of the United States, the only option is to negotiate with the Russian side to introduce a full set of blocking cable technology, and the predecessor of the Liaoning ship is the Varyag with Russian blood, plus the Russian side has always had a good relationship with our country, as a cooperative ally, I don't think it will be too difficult for us.
Unexpectedly, the Russian side directly rejected our request, and even gave an extremely outrageous sky-high price, in order to make us retreat in the face of difficulties.
So in the 80s of the 20th century, China spent more than 30 million US dollars to buy an abandoned aircraft carrier from Australia, which was sold to Australia by Britain at a low price, but was bought back by China at a large cost.
I thought it was a loss-making deal, but when the dismantling crew opened the hatch, they found two treasures, that is, the catapult and the device of the blocking cable.
Therefore, China immediately dispatched scientific researchers to study the technology of the interceptor cable, and after a number of tests and studies by the scientific researchers, the performance and parameters of the aircraft carrier arresting cable were finally determined.
However, in order to manufacture the aircraft carrier blocking cable as soon as possible, China specially convened various steel wire manufacturing companies to hold a meeting, and passionately talked about the role of the aircraft carrier blocking cable, and if we break through this technology, what kind of situation will be ushered in, which made everyone enthusiastic.
However, just when all countries were waiting to see our country's jokes, we slapped the whole world in the face through practical actions, and no one expected that we had really developed this aircraft carrier lifeline, which was even more advanced than Russia's blocking cable, and it only took 4 months, which surprised the whole world.
You may not believe it, one second he was still an ordinary private enterprise, just because he looked at the performance parameter table given by the military, and the next second he became a high-end enterprise that mastered the industrial crown and became the only first-class businessman in the domestic aircraft carrier blocking cable. This enterprise is Hebei Juli Group.
After taking over the development task of the aircraft carrier arresting cable, Juli and its partners will transform and upgrade the blocking cable. However, due to its particularity, the aircraft carrier arresting cable must be strong, tough, corrosion-resistant, and have a certain degree of ductility, which also gives a lot of challenges to cohesion. But this did not bother them, and after countless tests, they finally found a breakthrough.
An engineer was observing the aircraft carrier arresting cable when he suddenly thought of the steel cable on the cable-stayed bridge.
You know, there is a kind of bridge called cable-stayed bridge in China, it is a bridge, completely suspended by steel cables, each steel cable has to bear a weight of up to 100 tons, the most important thing is that these steel cables are very strict with climatic conditions, and the performance of the steel cables on the bridge is also excellent enough, and the corrosion resistance is also very strong, which is fully in line with the needs of the aircraft carrier blocking cable.
So, through many experiments on the cable-stayed bridge steel cable, coupled with other mechanical pulley structures after many modifications, they successfully parked the J-15 fighter on the deck of the aircraft carrier.
In this way, we explored step by step, and finally successfully developed an aircraft carrier arresting cable belonging to our country, and put it into the test and use of the Liaoning ship. In the subsequent carrier-based aircraft interception test, the carrier-based aircraft took only 2-3 seconds from the tail hook hooking the blocking cable to the aircraft stopping, which fully met the index requirements of the aircraft carrier blocking cable.
It can be said that China's success in the aircraft carrier blocking cable has not only broken through the technological blockade imposed by the United States and Russia on us, but also slapped Western countries in the face.
And the reason why Juli has this technology is thanks to the United States, because the United States has a lot of aircraft carriers and loves to do things, so the demand for blocking cables is very large.
The process of purchasing the blocking cable in the United States is subcontracted layer by layer, and the purchase price of one blocking cable is 1.5 million US dollars, and in the end, the contractor only has 750,000 US dollars, and the profit is not so high compared with others.
Coupled with the cost of materials and production of the blocking cable, the United States directly outsourced the manufacturing of the blocking cable, and this company happened to become the manufacturer of the United States. However, the United States only bought some of it, and many of the remaining ones were piled up in the warehouses of the Juli Group.
Since no one buys this rope, they can only wait for the United States to buy it again. So it wasn't until our staff came to the door that they learned that it was the blocking cable of the aircraft carrier.
Now after continuous reform, China has not only realized the independence of the blocking cable, but also transformed and upgraded, and now the blocking cable is more durable, and this is not the first time that our country has overtaken in the corner, I believe that in the near future, China's manufacturing will be able to beat the world's scientific and technological products.