Great Power Fighting Falcon

The second test flight area is about 60 kilometers away from Chengdu Luoma Airport in a straight line. It is a suburban and rural area with plains underneath and mostly farmland. It avoids civil aviation routes and has better air clearance conditions.

When a large maneuvering range is required, test flights will be arranged in this airspace. To run at maximum speed, it obviously requires a fairly large airspace range, and two to three hundred kilometers is obviously enough.

After taking off, Li Zhan quickly climbed to an altitude of 8,000 meters. After checking the status of the aircraft, he asked the tower for instructions: "Tower, the cavern is requesting to enter the maximum airspeed test flight, completed."

"Dongyao, you can start." Chen Ming gave the order.

The altitude of 8,000 meters is safe. Civil aviation routes here are all below 6,000 meters, and transit routes are above 8,000 meters. There is at least a 300-meter altitude difference, so Li Zhan stepped on the accelerator with confidence.

Li Zhan turned on the afterburner and started running wildly. Under the surging power, the aircraft gave the pilot a strong pushing feeling on his back, which was stronger than the pushing feeling during takeoff. The two nozzles opened wide and sprayed out light blue tail flames, which could be vaguely visible to the naked eye in the bright environment above the clouds.

The acceleration capability, which was better than any previous fighter jet, made Li Zhan's blood boil. No man can resist the pleasure of speed, no matter what he does. Nothing in the world can be broken without success, but nothing can be broken by speed. The Rafale fighter that Li Zhan has driven has the best acceleration performance. However, compared with the Black Ribbon, if the Rafale fighter is a small-volume family car that relies on turbocharging to improve its acceleration performance, then the Black Ribbon relies purely on large displacement. A large car that looks like a violent man in a suit with excellent acceleration performance.

Li Zhan watched the airspeed figures continue to rise, breaking the sound barrier in a few seconds! The sudden sonic boom in the sky shook everyone within a certain range on the ground. Then there was a rumbling sound much louder than rolling thunder from the sky to the ground, and the sound could clearly be heard moving westward. .

"The sound barrier was broken so quickly." Chen Ming subconsciously looked at the timepiece and was slightly surprised.

He increasingly believes that the performance limit of fighter aircraft is related to the pilot.

For the same aircraft, if the maximum airspeed is 2,000 kilometers per hour, Li Zhan might be able to fly beyond the limit of 2,500 kilometers per hour, but he asked himself that he couldn't do it. The technical parameters in the instruction manual are the envelopes flown by test pilots, not the limits of the aircraft itself.

This makes test pilots like Li Zhan so valuable - he can fly a wider range of flight envelopes, which is of great practical significance.

Li Zhan maintained the course and altitude, held the control stick tightly, and paid attention to the various systems of the aircraft, focusing on the engine speed and airspeed.

It's two thousand kilometers per hour. If the altitude is less than one thousand meters, then in the eyes of the ground personnel, the No. 01 black ribbon is just a "whoosh" afterimage, and it is impossible to see what is passing by.

Black Ribbon No. 01 did not disappoint Li Zhan. All systems were normal, the fuselage was very stable, and the flight attitude was very stable. The obvious difference is that the wind noise is much smaller than that of other aircraft, which shows that the aerodynamic layout is very excellent.

At supersonic speeds, the sound of the engine can no longer be heard, and only the slight vibration caused by the engine can be vaguely felt. The fourth-generation aircraft also does a very good job in this regard. There is no trembling phenomenon like other aircraft.

The airspeed reached 2,300 kilometers per hour, and all conditions of the aircraft were still normal. This shows that the fourth-generation aircraft can carry out normal operations at such extreme speeds. Of course, it cannot perform large maneuvers, otherwise the aircraft, no matter how sturdy it is, will disintegrate in the air - such a fast speed is a massive overload of several G's.

Then the acceleration rate dropped significantly, and the increase in airspeed suddenly slowed down a lot. However, the No. 01 Black Ribbon was still arching forward tenaciously, like a bullfight that refused to admit defeat, attacking the opponent again and again.

"Dong Yao! It's two thousand six, is the plane in normal condition?" Chen Ming's voice was trembling. Li Zhan broke through the limit again and flew to a new level of speed.

Li Zhan took a quick glance and said, "Every system is normal..."

Before he finished speaking, the speed of the left engine suddenly dropped rapidly.

Li Zhan made a quick judgment and immediately reported: "The left engine has stopped, tower, the left engine has stopped, I have to slow down, over!"

"Emergency treatment, return immediately!" Chen Ming's heart tightened and he immediately issued the order.

Strangely, he felt relieved, as if the other shoe had finally dropped.

Bao Guanhua also subconsciously stood up and looked west, although he couldn't see anything. He then remembered that there was a monitoring screen on the tower, and looked over quickly. He saw that the airspeed of Black Ribbon No. 01 dropped to two thousand kilometers per hour in a short period of time.

This speed is still fast.

Before he could remind him, Chen Ming also noticed this problem and quickly gave Li Zhan an order, "Dongyao, slow down quickly and turn around and return home immediately!"

"Working on it...the throttle lever doesn't work very well...oh, the power system fault light is on...uh, the left engine is driving automatically...the tower, the throttle lever has completely failed, and the power system is running at full power." Li Zhan spent more than ten years It took seconds to finish the report, all because these questions appeared one after another in the report, as if all the friendliness of Black Ribbon No. 01 before was just to deceive him into the sky, and then give him a cruel blow.

The tower is about to explode. What a bunch of malfunctions!

So far in the test flight work, there has never been so many failures in one flight, and every failure is fatal. The throttle lever failed and the power system failed, which means that the control system is likely to fail as well.

Any one of them will cause a major flight accident that destroys the aircraft and kills people.

Li Zhan was very calm. He said, "Tower, help me clear the airspace in front of me. I need time to deal with it. Over!"

"The tower understands! Dongyao, you can parachute depending on the situation!" Chen Ming said quickly.

Bao Guanhua had already picked up the phone and reported it to the Air Force Area Control Center. The Air Force Regional Control Center has already made preparations. Ensuring the test flight of fourth-generation aircraft is the most important task. They have multiple sets of plans. After receiving the report from the manufacturer's control tower, they quickly ordered all civil aviation flights to avoid the designated airspace. Those who planned to enter the detour were already in the designated airspace to avoid emergency.

The Civil Aviation Area Controller immediately became busy and completed the tasks of the Air Force Area Control Center in a very short time.

The second test flight airspace continues to the west of the Chongzhou area, and further to the west is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. There is a civil aviation route into Tibet. All flights in and out of Tibet use this route, so it is quite busy. The most important thing is that the altitude of 8,000 meters coincides with the cruising altitude of the route, so the hidden danger is very great.

Of course, Li Zhan could climb or lower his height, after all, the joystick did not malfunction. The problem is that until the cause is found, his best option is to keep the plane flying forward in its current attitude.

Li Zhan tried many methods, but still could not solve the problem of power system failure. Randomly he started from the throttle lever again, with the same result. He has encountered so many dangerous situations, including engine failure, hitting a bird, being struck by lightning, the canopy flying off, the landing gear getting stuck, and even the control stick being pulled off, but he has never encountered a throttle lever failure.

"It's really frustrating."

Li Zhan smiled bitterly and said, "I've never encountered any dangerous situations. I've never encountered anything like this."

Chen Ming was going crazy with worry, "Dongyao, what are you thinking? Is there any way?"

"There is a way." Li Zhan said.

The tower jumped for a moment, and Chen Ming quickly asked, "What can we do? Deal with it quickly!"

"Wait until the fuel runs out, then get stuck and return. There is a high probability of success." Li Zhan said matter-of-factly.

What a solution!

Everyone was immediately disappointed. It is difficult to accurately calculate fuel consumption. The gliding capability of fourth-generation aircraft is very limited. The most important thing is that the aircraft must be stuck at a certain point on the landing route at the moment when the fuel is exhausted. It is too early and too late. No more.

It just couldn't be done.

You know, as long as there is fuel, the engine will run at full power. No matter how you do it, you will have to fly level approach in the end. The current situation of the aircraft is bound to be supersonic.

Landing at supersonic airspeed?

What international joke are you kidding!

Chen Ming cried and said with a smile, "Dong Yao, now is not the time to joke. The technicians are urgently analyzing the cause of the failure. You have to control the plane!"

"Understood!" Li Zhan also knew that the proposed method had almost no possibility of being completed, so he simplified the problem.

Fortunately, there is an entire R\u0026D team providing support. They developed the fourth-generation machine, and they are very familiar with every aspect. At this time, they have begun to find solutions based on the fault symptoms!

Before taking off, Black Ribbon No. 01 was loaded with six tons of oil. Even if it flew at supersonic airspeed, it could fly more than a thousand kilometers. Therefore, the plan of making an emergency landing after running out of fuel is very difficult to implement.

The failure of the throttle lever means that the afterburner state cannot be canceled. The two engines of No. 01 Black Ribbon will continue to fly with afterburner until the automatic protection device starts to turn off the afterburner. However, after the buffer time, the automatic power control system will turn on the afterburner again. Power, because the aircraft's intelligent system will remember the last state before the failure and will automatically keep the aircraft flying in this state until something goes wrong somewhere.

In other words, the power system is now controlled by a computer, but the throttle lever that Li Zhan can give instructions to the power system has failed...

"Oh, it's really difficult this time."

Li Zhan wasn't very worried. In fact, as long as the joystick was still normal, he wouldn't worry too much. At least this is much better than shutting down two engines. At least the plane will not fall now, and he and the technicians on the ground still have time to study countermeasures.

However, there is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau ahead, and a big storm is brewing ahead. The situation is really not as optimistic as he expected...