This ** of flight training of a certain unit of the Air Force was posted on the military network in English, giving people an inspiring feeling. On the left side of the **, two fighters carry the legendary "Thunderbolt-17" long-range air-to-air missiles, which gives our fighters the longest range in the world when striking at enemy aircraft. Previously, even the Thunderbolt-15 missile, which was intercepted at a medium range, had a maximum range of only 150 km (some say 200 km), and there was no significant advantage in the face of enemy aircraft equipped with the latest AIM-120 missiles.
The "Thunderbolt-17" missile has a range of up to 500 km, and with the assistance of our army's early warning aircraft, it can first destroy the enemy's early warning aircraft, and then shoot down the enemy fighters one by one. This kind of non-contact air combat fully demonstrates the development principle of "one inch long, one inch strong". The J-16 carries 10 air-to-air missiles at a time, and has the ability of long-range sneak attack, medium-range interception and close-range combat, thus establishing its status as the "king of the fourth generation aircraft".
Under normal circumstances, among fighters of the same generation, "the heavy one is king", because the range, first-class payload, nose radar diameter, and number of electronic countermeasures equipment of heavy fighters exceed those of small and medium-sized fighters. In our army's previous "Golden Helmet" Xi exercises, although the J-10C is one of the most advanced fourth-generation medium fighters in the world, it is often at a disadvantage in the confrontation with the J-16. This illustrates the fact that the J-16's active phased array radar (later batches are likely to be derived from the J-20 "Digital Array" radar) will certainly have a larger diameter.
In the case of equal processing speed of the fire control computer, the more components of the radar, the farther the detection range and the stronger the anti-jamming ability. Therefore, in the confrontation, the J-16 clearly has the upper hand, so the heavy fighter is the king of air combat. To give another foreign example, why did the US military re-develop a fourth-generation aircraft like the F-15EX after hundreds of F-35A aircraft had already been in service?Simply because the F-35A is inferior to the F-15EX in almost any other respect, except in stealth performance.
Therefore, even a medium-sized stealth fighter with a small generation difference has little air combat advantage over the latest heavy fourth-generation fighters. The key to dominating the sky lies in the independent research and development of aviation ammunition and fighter planes for national defense, especially the independent development and manufacturing of missiles and other advanced equipment, which is very important for a country to occupy a dominant position in the world. Otherwise, even if you have abundant financial resources, you will be constrained by others. Because any country that develops the first product will retain its back, set restrictions on exports, such as not opening up key technology sources, resulting in the inability to independently upgrade and use new aviation ammunition.
These restrictions seriously affected the maximum combat effectiveness of the fighter. The Su-30 fighter jet introduced in the early years, although equipped with missiles, cannot be regarded as the result of independent development. However, more than ten years later, our army's J-16 fighter and the missiles carried on it are independently developed and manufactured, and their performance is even more comprehensive!As a great power, independent research and development and manufacturing of fighter jets and missiles are indispensable, and only aircraft and missiles with independent equipment can truly dominate the sky.