Taking off and landing in rainy weather is one of the necessary skills of modern fighters, but at the same time, the risk of taking off and landing in rainy days is also very large, such as the United States' B-2 stealth bomber once crashed due to data failure during takeoff in rainy days. Therefore, not all fighters are willing to take off and land in rainy days, and there are many factors that affect take-off and landing in rainy days, and fighters may not be able to take off and land normally in rainy days!
Does rainy weather have a big impact on fighter take-off and landing? If it was just raining, in fact, even the heavy rain would not have much impact on the take-off and landing of fighters. Because generally speaking, when the fighter engine is working in the rain, the rainwater and other foreign objects that are sucked into the engine will be thrown out directly from the outer duct due to the centrifugal action of the engine fan, and basically will not enter the inner duct.
Even if a small amount of rainwater enters the inner tract, the water will quickly turn into a gaseous state at high temperatures after passing through the compressor and combustion chamber. After the water changes from liquid to gaseous state, the volume expands rapidly hundreds of times, and the expansion work increases the thrust. Therefore, under normal circumstances, rainwater entering the engine will not cause the engine to stop in the air, but will increase the thrust of the engine.
Then the fighter engine will also undergo the so-called "water swallowing" test before it is equipped, that is, a large amount of water is artificially injected into the engine to test whether it will stop. Generally speaking, the water intake of military aviation flight engines must reach more than 4% of the total amount of air inhaled without stopping, and this water intake is basically equivalent to the actual heavy rainstorm level.
Of course, the above is just a simple rain, and in reality, heavy rain is often accompanied by strong winds, thunder and lightning, and even hail. So if you take these factors into account, then it will not be so easy for fighter pilots to take off and land on rainy days!
Because strong winds can seriously affect the flight path of fighters, especially strong crosswinds, which can sometimes be very deadly. It's like a car driving at a high speed and suddenly crashing into a car from the side, so you can't be caught off guard at all, and eventually the plane crashes and people die. Then the lightning also has a great impact on the fighter, because once the lightning hits the fighter in flight, it may cause the electronic equipment on the fighter to be damaged and malfunction, and then the fighter plane will lose control. Finally, it is also dangerous for the engine to inhale hard foreign objects such as hail, which can cause problems in the engine structure and prevent the engine from being able to start again.
Therefore, rainy days are not terrible for fighter flights, but what is terrible is that rain is accompanied by other extreme natural conditions. In peacetime, the air forces of various countries basically will not let their fighters take off and land forcibly in thunderstorms and windy weather, after all, fighters can be dispensed without, but pilots are very valuable. Of course, it would be a different matter if it was a wartime situation!
The above analysis is for most fighters, but there is one fighter that is not only afraid of thunderstorms, strong winds, hail, but also very afraid of the rain problem we are discussing today. This fighter is the most expensive fighter in the world today, the American B-2 stealth bomber. So why is such an advanced B-2 afraid of water? It all started with an accident.
On February 23, 2008, a B-2** bomber stationed in ** suddenly lost control less than 20 seconds after takeoff, and then the plane rolled to the right and crashed between the tarmac and the taxiway. This flight accident is also the most expensive crash in the history of the US Air Force, and the US military has lost more than $2 billion in just a few tens of seconds.
Later, according to the investigation of the US side, the root cause of the accident was the heavy rain in the area, which caused the moisture in the air data sensor on the fighter plane to soar. The intrusion of moisture distorts the information in the fighter's air data system during the calibration of air data, resulting in the flight control computer calculating inaccurate airspeed and negative angle of attack during takeoff. As a result, the fighter plane took off with a steep rise in the nose at 30 degrees, and then the plane stalled and crashed.
The sensor in the small airspeed tube is flooded, which in turn causes the **. This made the B-2 stealth bomber once bitten by a snake, and ten years afraid of the well rope. For a long time after the accident, the U.S. military did not allow the B-2 to fly in rainy weather on the grounds that the stealth paint it covered was very expensive. And this also made the B-2 fall into the name of not being able to fight in rainy weather!
To sum up, whether or not fighters can take off and land normally on rainy days depends on the situation, and it is believed that the air forces of various countries will not easily take off and land fighters under extreme rain conditions. Of course, except for those who don't want to die, like Russian pilots, they are not afraid of knives, so it doesn't matter if it rains a little and blows a little wind!
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