What are the most advanced aircraft in the United States at present?

F22 claims to be the best in the world, but it seems that there are many problems.

F35 looks powerful, but it doesn't seem to be over yet.

The x-47b seems very strong.

Ea 18g electronic warfare aircraft is said to have won the f22, but its authenticity is unknown.

F- 14: overall dimensions: the height of the aircraft is 4.88m, the length of the aircraft is19.10m, and the wingspan (sweep angles of 20, 68 and 75) is 19.54 and10 respectively.

Weight and load: empty weight 18 19 1 kg, and take-off weight without external stores is 26,632kg.

The normal takeoff weight is 24,948kg, the maximum takeoff weight is 33,724kg, the fuel weight is 7,348kg, the fuel weight of the auxiliary fuel tank is 1.638kg, and the maximum external weight is 6,577kg.

Performance data: the maximum horizontal flight speed is M2.34 (altitude 12 190m), M 1.2 (sea level), and the cruising speed is 741-kloc-0/019 km/h.

Third, the structural characteristics

F- 14 is a two-seat multi-purpose supersonic fighter. Its aerodynamic layout adopts the scheme of double engine, double vertical tail and swept middle wing proposed by NASA60 in the late 1960 s, and its structure adopts advanced structural types, titanium alloy is widely used, and some boron composite materials are used, thus obtaining a high strength-to-weight ratio.

The wing is a middle wing with variable sweep. The design requirements are: reducing wing loading and ensuring maneuverability; Improving transonic maneuverability by using leading-edge and trailing-edge air combat maneuvering flaps: minimizing parking space. The outer wing section of the variable swept wing is shorter, which can reduce the weight of the rotating shaft structure, but a "wing sleeve" covering the central wing box is added, and the symmetry plane of the rotating shaft base fuselage is 2.72 meters. In flight, the wing sweepback angle varies from 20 to 68, which is automatically adjusted by airborne equipment according to the flight state, and the maximum change speed is 7/sec. It can also be adjusted manually by the driver. The sweepback angle can reach 75 when parking to reduce the occupied area. The movable section has two-stage leading edge slats and three-stage trailing edge slats with full span, which are used for take-off and landing and maneuvering flight. There are three spoilers on both sides of the upper wing surface, which automatically open when the sweep angle is less than 57, and are used to assist lateral control and deceleration when landing. In order to control the movement of the pressure center when the wing sweepback angle changes, provide the pitching trim lift and reduce the wing load, a movable front fan wing is designed at the leading edge of the wing fixed section, with the maximum rotation angle of 65438+05.

The fuselage. All-metal semi-hard shell structure, using machined frame, titanium alloy main beam and light alloy stress skin. The front fuselage consists of the nose and the cockpit, and the hood can be folded when stopping. The fuselage is a simple box structure, which can store oil. The rear fuselage is thinned from front to back, and the tail is equipped with an extended oil discharge pipe. There are speed brake on the rear fuselage, and there are two on the rear fuselage, which are opened when diving violently and launching missiles, and locked by speed brake when landing.

The tail consists of a double vertical tail and a differential full-motion flat tail. The horizontal tail deflection angle is+15 ~-35, and the differential horizontal tail plays the role of aileron. The vertical stabilizer is connected with the steel reinforcing frame of the rear fuselage. The rudder is also made of honeycomb reinforced chemical milling to fit the gold skin.

Landing gear: retractable front three-point, the same as A-6 attack aircraft. When the main landing gear is retracted forward, it is rotated 90 degrees to the lower part of the engine intake, and the front landing gear is retracted forward into the fuselage cabin. The wheels are tubeless tires filled with nitrogen. The strut of the two-wheeled nose landing gear is used as a hook during ejection and take-off. The landing hook is installed in the fairing under the rear fuselage. Starting from the spring of 198 1, the carbon brake device of Goodyear Company was used to replace the original steel brake device, which further reduced the weight.

Power plant. The two-dimensional external pressure inlet with straight channel is placed under the fixed wing sections on both sides of the fuselage, with a distance of 25 cm from the fuselage to eliminate the influence of boundary layer. There is a multi-shock adjustable inclined plate system in the inlet, which can be automatically adjusted by airborne equipment under all flight conditions to ensure the engine to obtain suitable airflow. The inlet structure is mostly aluminum alloy honeycomb structure, about 4.27 meters long. The rear nacelle adopts bonded titanium alloy honeycomb structure and is about 4.88 meters long. The aircraft produced in the early days were equipped with two Pratt & Whitney TF30-P-4 12 afterburning turbofan engines, with a single afterburning thrust of 9490 kg. Its installation pipeline can be opened and can be maintained within the range of 180. The aircraft produced from 1983 fiscal year was replaced by TF30-P-4 14A engine, and the rated power value remained unchanged. Engine F 1 10-GE-400 has been used since 1986, with single afterburner thrust 12700 kg. Garrett ATS200-50 air turbine starter is adopted. The telescopic aerial fuel tank is located on the right side of the fuselage, near the front of the front cockpit. Adopt pneumatic ejector to zoom the nozzle.

F- 14 uses Hughes AN/AWG-9 pulse Doppler radar. According to the size of the target, it can intercept air targets in the range of 120 to 3 15 kilometers, track 24 targets at an ultra-low altitude of 30,000 meters, and attack 6 of them at the same time. It is also equipped with AN/AWG 15 fire control system, AN/ASW27B data transmission system, CP 1050/A Central air data computer and other advanced modern electronic equipment. After improvement, about 60% of analog equipment is replaced by digital equipment, and a new type of An /APG-7 1 radar is installed, which has the ability of monopulse angle tracking, digital scanning control, target recognition and air combat effect evaluation.

Communication system: AN/ARC-5 1 and AN/ARC- 159 UHF AM radio communication transceiver; AN/ARR-69 receiver, KY-28 cipher system, LS-460/B walkie-talkie of ultra-FM auxiliary radio communication station.

Navigation system: AN/ASN-92 carrier-based aircraft inertial navigation system: A/A24G39 attitude and heading reference system: An /APN- 154X band radar beacon; An /APN- 194(V) Radar altimeter: ARA-63A automatic landing system receiver-decoder: An /ARN-84 mini Tacan.

Self-defense system. AN/APN-50 radar receiver, AN/APR-25/45 radar warning system. AN/ALE-29 and AN/ALE-39 electronic countermeasures chaff bomb throwers with integrated jammers.

Weapons and equipment. F- 14 weapons include 1 M6 1A 1 Vulcan 20mm six-barrel gun and 675 rounds of ammunition. Air-to-air missiles (maximum) 6 AIM-7, 4 AIM-9 and 6 AIM-54. Air-to-ground ammunition: MK-82, MK-83(4 pieces), MK-84(4 pieces), MK-20 cluster bomb, GBU- 10(4 pieces, laser guided), GBU- 12 (laser guided), GBU-65438+.

F- 15: overall dimensions

F- 15 trilinear diagram

Personnel: 1 (empty), 2 (empty)

Total length: 63.75 feet (19.43 meters)

Span: 42.75 feet (13.03 meters)

Overall height: 18.625 ft (5.68 m)

The wing area is 608 square feet (56.5 square meters).

Empty weight: 28,000 lbs (12,700 kg)

Weight and load

Empty weight 12973 kg, maximum takeoff weight 30845 kg (air-to-air fighter 20244 kg), maximum fuel weight (inside the aircraft) 6 103 kg, (external stores, 2 conformal fuel tanks and 3 auxiliary fuel tanks) 98 18 kg, and maximum external weapon load.

powerplant

Two Pratt & Whitney F 100-PW- 100 turbofan engines were installed in the early stage, with a single static thrust of 65.2 kN, afterburning thrust of 105.9 kN, 199 1 year, and then the F6with thrust of 129 kN was replaced.

operating characteristic

The maximum horizontal flight speed is Mach 2.5, the approach speed is 232km/h, the service ceiling is 18300m, the takeoff taxiing distance (interception) is 274m, the landing taxiing distance (without umbrella interception) is 1067m, and the maximum endurance time (without aerial refueling) is 5h 15min.

Main airborne equipment

Hughes An/APG-70 (type C/D) or An/APG-63 (type A/B) fire control radar, An /ASN- 108 attitude/direction reference system, An/ALQ-19 electronic jamming pod, An/. AN/AWG-20 fire control system, AN/ASK-6 air data computer, CP- 1075/AYK central data computer, etc.

navigate by water/air

C: 3000 nautical miles (with adaptive fuel tank and three external auxiliary fuel tanks).

E: 3 100 nautical mile (with adaptive fuel tank and three external auxiliary fuel tanks) and 2400 nautical mile (with auxiliary fuel tanks).

service ceiling

A/b/c/d: 65,000 feet (19,800 meters)

East: 50,000 ft (15,000 m)

The climb rate is 50,000 ft/min (15,240m/min).

weapon

Six lower wings, four outer sides of the fuselage, and one mid-line hanging point. The total external store can reach 16000 lbs (7300 kg), and the weapons include:

Gun: M6 1A 1 gun.

Missiles: AIM-7 sparrow air-to-air missile, AIM- 120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile and AIM-9 rattlesnake air-to-air missile.

Bomb: F- 15E can mount various air bombs of the US Air Force, including free-fall nuclear bomb and GBU-28 4500-pound (2000 kg) bunker penetration bomb [12].

F- 16: The main equipment of the early F- 16A is: APG-66 pulse Doppler radar, with a downward looking distance of 37-56 kilometers and an upward looking distance of 46-74 kilometers; An /ARN- 108 instrument landing system; SKN-2400 inertial navigation system: radar photoelectric display equipment; Central air data computer; Flight control computer, etc. F- 16a is equipped with a /APG-66 pulse Doppler fire control radar. There are four working states in air combat, namely, head-up search and tracking, head-down search and tracking, automatic target interception in combat, and automatic work. For a target with a radar reflection area of 5m, the detection distance of APG-66 radar is 60-90km from the top and 46-65km from the top. For a large target like Tu -95 aircraft, the maximum detection distance can reach about 140 km.

In the air-to-ground working state, APG-66 radar has seven working modes: air-to-ground ranging, real beam mapping, extended real beam mapping, Doppler wave speed sharpening, beacon, image freezing and maritime search. The improved F- 16c adopts An /APG-68 fire control radar, which is developed from APG-66. Three parts are mainly improved, namely, programmable signal processor, transmitter and low pulse repetition frequency module. It is said that the detection distance of APG-68 is 40% longer than that of APG-66. This kind of radar has the ability of reprogramming with the change of demand and weapons, high-resolution mapping, over-the-horizon target recognition and so on. It can be used with air-to-air missiles such as rattlesnake, sparrow and AIM- 120. While scanning and tracking the state in the air, 10 targets can be tracked at the same time.

When using the machine gun, the optical display and fast hotline display modes can be calculated by the front angle. There are eight working conditions to choose from when carrying out the mission to the ground, namely, continuous calculation of hitting point, continuous calculation of landing point, throwing, photoelectric guided weapon dropping, strafing, beacon, visual punctuation and manual mode. In addition, compared with F- 16C, F- 16A has more infrared pod systems for low-altitude navigation and night aiming, and the display device and computer have also been improved.

1, electronic system

Attack system: AN/APG-66 pulse Doppler radar, maximum search distance185 km; An /AAQ- 14 "Blue Shield" navigation pod. Paving penny laser tracking pod, Hamm aiming system pod, An /APX- 10 1 IFF.

Defense system: An /ALR-56M threat early warning receiver, An /ALR-69 radar early warning system and An/Alai -74 radar early warning system (instead of ALR-69); An /ALQ- 1 19 electronic jamming pod, An /ALQ- 13 1 electronic jamming pod, An /ALQ- 178 internal electronic jamming system and An /ALQ- 184. An/ale-40, AN/ALE-47 infrared bait, jamming line spreader.

Communication system: an/arc- 164 or an/arc- 126 VHF radio station, KY-58 secure voice communication system.

Navigation system: LN-93 laser gyro, An /APN- 132 radar altimeter, An /ARN- 108 instrument landing system, An /ARN- 165438 TACAN system and An /AAQ-20 Explorer navigation system.

2. Weapons and equipment

F-/KOLOC-0/6 aircraft equipment/KOLOC-0/M6/KOLOC-0/A/KOLOC-0/type 6-tube aerial gun, with the loading capacity of 5/KOLOC-0/5 rounds, can be used to calculate the advance angle with the help of radar and computer, and the effective range is about/KOLOC-0/000 meters. F- 16A has 9 external contacts: 1 at the tip of the left and right wings, 3 under the left and right wings, and 1 at the belly of the fuselage. Only rattlesnake missiles can be hung on the measuring pylons at the tip and outside of the wing. The maximum overload of the wingtip pylon is 9g, and the overload limit of the wingtip pylon is 5.5g Combat missiles or various air-to-surface weapons can be hung on the wingtip pylon, and guided bombs, nuclear bombs and conventional bombs, air-to-surface missiles, submunitions and rockets or 1 1400-liter auxiliary fuel tanks can be hung on the wingtip pylon. The maximum overload of these two pylons is 5.5g, and a bomb or11135l auxiliary fuel tank can be hung on the belly pylon of the fuselage. The maximum external load of F- 16A is 4760 kg (engine oil) and 6890 kg (internal load shedding).

The main weapon of the F- 16A is air combat weapon, which is a "rattlesnake" air-to-air missile with the model AIM-9L and the export number AIM-9P-3. Aim-9L has a maximum range of about 7 kilometers, a maximum overload of 26-35g, and an off-axis emission angle of plus or minus 30 degrees. It has certain omni-directional attack ability and good actual combat effect. AIM-9P-3 is improved from AIM-9 or AIM-9J, and its performance is not as good as AIM-9L. Compared with F- 16A, the number of external stores of the improved F- 16C has not changed, but a sparrow medium-range air-to-air missile can be hung. The more advanced AIM- 120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile is now F-16c/d.

The standard weapons of various weapons mounted on F- 16 cannot be mounted on F-16A/B. After F- 16C is equipped with the "Blue Shield" nacelle, laser-guided bombs can be irradiated by this aircraft. The newly produced F- 16c can also use air-to-ship missiles, anti-radar missiles, and "cub" AGM-65 air-to-surface missiles and other ground attack weapons.

The aircraft is equipped with M-6 1A 1 cannon and 500 rounds of ammunition. Weapons hanging points: one at the left and right wing ends, three under the wing, one in the abdomen and nine hanging points. Air-to-air missiles with infrared guidance can be hung on both wings. The hanging point under the belly can hang 1000 kg load, the hanging point in the wing can hang 1587 kg load, and the hanging point in the middle wing can hang 1 134 kg load; Two outer wing hanging points and two wing end hanging points can be hung 1 13kg respectively. Portable weapons include AIM-9 Diamondbacks (2) and AIM- 120 missiles (up to 6). AGM-65 calf air-to-surface missile (2), AGM-88 Hamm high-speed anti-radar missile (2), Mk-82(6), Mk-84(2), CBU-87(4), CBU-89(4) and CBU-.

B2: There are three types of B2:B- 2 bombers.

"Brock 10" can carry 16 B-83 nuclear bombs and 16 MK84 conventional bombs at most, and the cruising speed is Mach 0. 8, the ceiling is 19240m, the range is 1 1675km, and the range can be reached by refueling in the air once.

"Brock 20" can carry 16 B-6 1 nuclear bomb at most, has the ability to carry ground attack missiles outside the air defense zone, and can also carry 36 cluster bombs and 16 bombs assisted by global positioning system (GPS), and has the ability to partially complete the flight mission automatically;

"Brock 30" can carry up to 80 MK80 bombs, 36 M 1 17 bombs, 80 MK62 bombs and 16 joint frontal attack bombs, and can also carry 8 attack missiles outside the air defense zone, which has the ability to automatically complete the flight mission.

weapon

The two weapon bays can accommodate Boeing's rotary missile launchers, and can carry 16 AGM- 129 advanced cruise missiles or 16b61b83 nuclear bombs, 80 Mk82 bombs of 227kg,16 joint direct attack weapons and 65443.

The size data length is 2 1.03m, the aircraft height is 5. 18m, the wingspan is 52.43m, and the wing sweepback angle is 33 degrees.

Weight load: the empty weight is 45360-49900kg, the maximum weapon load is 22,680kg, the maximum fuel quantity in the aircraft is 8 1650-90720kg, the normal takeoff weight is 152635kg, and the maximum takeoff weight is 168433kg.

Performance data: the approach speed is 259 km/h, the service ceiling is 15240 m, the range (refueling once in the air) is greater than 18530 km, and the operational range (with 8 short-range attack missiles and 8 B83 bombs, the weapon weight is 169 19 kg). (high-low-high) 8 149 km, operational range (8 short-range attack missiles and 8 B6 1 bombs, weapon weight 10886 kg, takeoff weight 162386 kg), (high-high-high).

primary data

The stealth B-2A bomber has two crew members, with a fuselage length of 2 1.03m, a height of 5. 18m, a wingspan of 52.43m and a maximum bomb load of 22,680kg. The aircraft is equipped with four F118-GE-110 afterburner turbofan engines produced by American General Dynamics Company. Without aerial refueling, the combat range can reach 1223 1 km, and aerial refueling can reach 18530 km once. The air flight time of each mission is generally not less than 10 hour, and the US Air Force claims to have the ability of "global arrival" and "global destruction". B-2A integrates various cutting-edge technologies, and is praised by experts as "a milestone in the development history of military aircraft in this century" because of its outstanding stealth performance. It is reported that the radar reflection cross section of the B-52 bomber is 1000 square meters, that of the MIG -29 is 25 square meters, that of the B-LB is less than L square meters, and that of the B-2A is less than 0. 1 square meter, which is only equivalent to the radar reflection cross section of a bird in the sky, and it is difficult to find by general radar. So where does this invisibility come from?

The stealth performance of B-2 first comes from its shape. The overall appearance of B-2A is smooth and round, without "wrinkles", and it is not easy to reflect radar waves. The cockpit is curved, and the radar waves irradiated here will "crawl" around the shape of the cabin and will not be reflected back. The sealed glass hatch cover is inclined, and all the glass is doped with metal powder during manufacture, so that radar waves cannot penetrate the hatch body and cause diffuse reflection. The wing is swept back 33 degrees, so that the radar waves incident from up and down cannot be reflected or refracted back to the direction where the radar is located. There is an irregular honeycomb cavity on the back of the coating on the leading edge of the wing, which can absorb radar waves. There are two W-shaped wings in the rear half of the wing, which can make the detection radar waves from the rear of the aircraft unable to reflect back. Moreover, the B-2A has no vertical tail, which greatly reduces the radar reflection cross section of the whole aircraft. There is no weapon cabin and weapon pylon under the fuselage, and even the engine cabin and landing gear cabin are buried under the smooth wing to avoid the reflection of radar waves. The whole fuselage of B-2 aircraft is made of carbon fiber, graphite and other composite materials except the main beam and engine room, which are not easy to reflect radar waves. In addition, these different composite parts are not assembled by rivets, but by high pressure die casting. In addition, the leading edge of the wing is completely covered with a special absorbing material (RAM). The two square protruding parts located in the front of the wing and equipped with radar scanning antenna array also use special absorbing materials. In addition, B-2A is sprayed with special absorbing coating, which greatly reduces the echo of enemy detection radar.

In order to meet the need of stealth, the engine inlet of B-2A aircraft is arranged in an S shape above the wing, which can naturally attenuate the incident detection radar after repeated refraction and cannot be reflected back. The nozzle of the engine is deeply placed in the wing, which is also honeycomb-shaped, so that radar waves can enter but not exit. In addition, the engine assembly is also equipped with an airflow mixer, which can guide the cold air flowing through the airfoil into the engine and continuously reduce the outer temperature of the engine. The nozzle part is wide and flat, so people can't see the nozzle at the tail of the plane. Especially, due to the nozzle temperature adjustment technology, the infrared exposure signal of the nozzle part is greatly reduced, and the stealth performance of the aircraft is greatly enhanced.

mobile system

The main airborne equipments are Hughes An/APQ-/KOOC-0/8/KOOC-0/low interception J-band attack radar (with terrain following avoidance and other 2/KOOC-0/usage modes), aiming system with GPS auxiliary function, TCN-250 TACAN system, VIR-/KOOC-0/30A automatic landing system and AN/APR. There are many advanced airborne electronic systems on the B-2A aircraft, such as detection, navigation, aiming, electronic countermeasures and other systems, each with its own advantages and extraordinary functions. As far as detection radar system is concerned, it usually plays the role of "eyes" for aircraft. An /APQ- 18 1 Radar is used on B-2A and made by Hughes Company. It has the advantages of narrow frequency spectrum and difficult signal interception by the enemy. This electronic scanning phased array radar system has two radar antenna arrays, and its characteristic is that it can scan in different angles and directions only by changing and combining the positions of signal arrays without additional rotating or swinging antennas. Its working frequency is12-18 GHz, and its sidelobe is very small, so it has strong anti-electronic interference ability. There are 2 1 working modes * *, among which the most prominent are synthetic aperture radar working mode and anti-synthetic aperture radar working mode. The former is mainly used to scan the land landforms, and can clearly obtain the land radar scanning images with the distance of 1, 6 1km, so as to be used by aircraft when bombing ground targets; The latter is mainly used to identify and capture maritime targets, and the longest effective distance can reach 128 km. In addition, these working modes also allow the B-2A bomber to use terrain matching and terrain avoidance technology, so that it can penetrate enemy airspace at low altitude and carry out bombing missions.

The B-2A is also equipped with an advanced NSS navigation system. Two kinds of navigation devices are installed in the system, one is inertial navigation unit, and the other is NAS-27 astronomical navigation unit. They can provide advanced automatic navigation and the most commonly used constellation positioning navigation for B-2A respectively, thus ensuring flight safety.

The target aiming system on the plane adopts the global positioning auxiliary aiming system, which can lock the selected target and enlarge it by 4 times, which greatly facilitates the crew to identify and aim the target, thus greatly improving the hit accuracy of the bomb. According to the United States, with this positioning auxiliary aiming system, the error of a bomb hitting the target is usually less than 6 meters.

B-2A also has an APQ-50 electronic warfare system. The system can not only provide radar early warning for aircraft, but also quickly detect the azimuth coordinates of enemy radar. The ZSR-62 active electronic warfare system on the plane can quickly and actively interfere with and suppress the enemy.

There are also some other electronic systems on the plane, such as communication management system and various display systems in the cockpit, which can display the information and images obtained by all sensors in combination for the crew to judge the processing situation and contact with relevant departments on the ground. In front of the seats of the two crew members, there are four full-color multi-function display screens with the size of 15.2 cm respectively, which makes the situation clear at a glance.

Bomb carrying capacity

The B-2A bomber can carry 16 AGM- 129 cruise missiles, 80 MK82 or 16 MK84 ordinary bombs or 36 CBU-87 cluster bombs. When using the new TSSM long-range attack ammunition, the carrying capacity is 16. When using nuclear weapons, you can carry 16 B63 nuclear bomb. In addition, AGM- 129 cruise missiles can also carry nuclear warheads.

According to the actual situation of the Gulf War, the US Air Force calculated the bombing capability of B-2A. Take the "attack task force" commonly used by the US military to bomb Iraqi targets as an example. It usually consists of 16 attack planes carrying precision guided bombs, 16 escort fighters, 4 accompanying electronic jammers, 8 ground attack planes suppressing ground air defense firepower and 7 KC- 135 tankers. The bombing effect of these 49 planes can be achieved with eight F- 1 17A and two KC- 135 tankers. If you change to B-2A, you don't need to refuel in the air. You only need two planes and four crew members to take off from Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.

In the future, as the US military gradually equips its troops with the Joint Direct Attack Ammunition weapon system, B-2A aircraft may also carry this weapon. At that time, B-2A only needed to launch this weapon from a long distance, and then it could go back to China or carry out the next mission, because the JDAM weapon itself brought the last American bomber, and B-2 always seemed to be the focus of media attention. Once upon a time, journalists trumpeted it and crowned it as the "ultimate weapon"; In recent years, it has been criticized as an "expensive high-tech toy". However, whether it is good or bad, there is an undeniable fact that B-2A is good, but expensive.

1978, when the manufacturer won the contract to develop B-2, the quotation for producing 132 aircraft was $36.6 billion. By 1984, the manufacturer's total offer had risen to $42.5 billion, which forced the US Air Force to reduce the number of orders. 1987, the us air force decided to buy only 75 aircraft, but it still had to pay $35 billion.

During the period of 1993, when the US Congress decided to buy only 20 B-2A aircraft, the research and development expenses paid by the Air Force in advance and the start-up manufacturing expenses of the manufacturers had reached 44.4 billion dollars. In this way, even if the development cost is deducted, the cost of each aircraft is 840 million US dollars. 1995, according to the final contract, the manufacturer manufactured 20 B-2A aircraft at a production speed of 3 per year, and each aircraft cost about 600 million US dollars. Even so, if the development cost is added, the cost of buying a B-2A will exceed $2 billion!

Another important reason for the high cost of B-2 is the difficulty in maintenance. A few years ago, when the B-2A was first equipped with troops, the maintenance tasks were basically completed by technicians from major companies, and the maintenance time per flight hour was 132 hours. After each flight mission is completed, the high-speed airflow will cause wear on the surface of the aircraft. In order to ensure that the stealth performance of the aircraft will not decrease, technicians need to repair the radar absorbing material on the surface of B-2A with a method similar to painting after each flight. The newly sprayed radar absorbing material must be dried and solidified at a certain temperature and humidity. Due to the lack of sufficient spare parts and perfect maintenance equipment, B-2A has been unable to be deployed in overseas bases, which is an unbearable regret for the US troops deployed around the world. Although the US military has used force overseas many times since the B-2A was equipped with troops, the B-2A has never appeared on the battlefield.

The high cost and complicated maintenance make it uninterested in any country outside the United States. Even in the United States, the production line of B-2 has been closed, and 90% of the more than 4,000 suppliers who provide accessories for B-2 also use the production line for other purposes. Even Thomas, commander of the US Air Force's 509th Bomber Wing equipped with B-2? Brigadier General Gosling also has to admit that there will be no B-3 or B-4 in the next 20 years. Maybe 30 years later, people will find that the B-2 is just a brilliant afterglow in the history of bomber development.

powerplant

Four GE F118-GE-100 afterburner turbofans, with a single thrust of 84.5kN (8620kg), an S-shaped inlet and a V-shaped tail nozzle at the upper part of the trailing edge of the wing, are all special configurations for stealth.

It is installed in pairs between the outer side of the weapon cabin and the wing structure, and sulfuric acid chlorofluoride is sprayed in the exhaust gas to eliminate the visual wake of the engine.

Actual combat performance

B-2 has served in three wars. On March 24th, 1999, two b-2s took off from Whiteman air base. After 30 hours of continuous flight and two aerial refueling, they dropped 32 908 kg joint direct attack ammunition on Yugoslav targets, which was the first time that B-2 bombers participated in actual combat. During the whole Kosovo war, six B-2s dispatched 45 sorties and dropped 656 joint direct attack bombs on important targets in Yugoslavia. B-2 flew less than 1% of the total aircraft in the war, but the bombs dropped reached 1 1% of the total bombs dropped. Destroyed nearly 33% of Yugoslavia's targets.

In the war in Afghanistan, three days before the war, * * * six B-2s took off from the mainland, passed through the Pacific Ocean, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, carried out air strikes on Afghanistan, and then landed in Didao, setting a new record of 44 hours of continuous combat flight and dropping 96 joint direct attack ammunition.

During the Iraq war, B-2 aircraft flew 49 sorties. Among them, 27 sorties took Whiteman as the landing base, flew over the Atlantic route and carried out long-range raids, with a flight time of about 35 hours. The other 22 sorties were based on a forward base and carried out precise attacks on Iraq's command, control and communication facilities.

B- 1B: main function: long-range multi-purpose heavy bomber. The captain is 44.5 meters, the wingspan is 4 1.8 meters, and the aircraft height is 10.4 meters; Main wheel track is 4.42m, front main wheel track 17.53m: empty weight is 86 183kg, and maximum takeoff weight is 214650kg; The penetration speed is Mach 0.92 at 500 feet and Mach 65438+Mach 0.25 at 50000 feet. The bomb load (inside) is 34,050kg, and the bomb load (outside) is 26,786kg. The maximum fuel consumption is 88,450kg, which is 7,455 miles without refueling and 3,444 miles when loading normally. The service limit is 60,000 feet (65,438+08,000 meters); The takeoff and running distance is 2530 meters. The crew of B- 1B consists of pilot and co-pilot, self-defense system operator and attack system operator.