Black technology: a super empire spanning two worlds

Chapter 145 [The Most Expensive Fighter in the World]

As soon as the seminar ended, Xiao Yu came to the company's R&D center.

It is already December and 12 is coming to an end. According to the original plan, the prototype's superconducting suspension test is to be carried out within the year. This test has only one task, which is to test the use of room-temperature superconducting composite materials for the aircraft's fuselage material.

Simply put, it is to randomly manufacture an airplane, using all other ready-made components, and only test whether it relies on aerodynamic layout, lift, and only relies on the room-temperature superconducting material fuselage to allow the entire aircraft to float and land vertically.

During this period, Xiao Yu will "produce" about 30 tons of room-temperature superconducting materials for experimental purposes, and will not produce too much. After all, the nominal room-temperature superconducting material synthesis production line has not yet been established.

These thirty tons were produced in the laboratory at all costs for the testing needs of the "Shenlong" fighter jet.

The manufactured nanostructured room-temperature superconducting composite materials will account for approximately 22% of the empty weight of the aircraft. For example, an aircraft with an empty weight of 15 tons will require approximately 3.3 tons of this material.

The "Shenlong" fighter, which is an integrated fighter and bomber, is an ultra-heavy fighter. Its full load of ammunition can reach an astonishing 87 tons, and its empty weight reaches 58.2 tons.

According to the proportion, the amount of room-temperature superconducting composite materials required for a "Shenlong" fighter will reach 12.8 tons.

萧宇此前跟赵贺阳报的室温超导材料的预估成本是每吨8亿到10亿，如果按照8亿的价格来计算，一架“神龙”战斗机光是使用12.8吨的室温超导材料就得花102亿。

The total cost of the entire aircraft is estimated to reach 118 billion yuan. Room-temperature superconducting materials account for about 86% of the total cost of the aircraft, which is undoubtedly the absolute bulk of the funds.

This price is enough to build 17 J20 fifth-generation fighter jets, which are definitely the most expensive fighter jets in the world.

But as long as it can be manufactured and achieve the designed performance, the military will definitely not hesitate, let alone the cost of 118 billion yuan, even if it doubles to 236 billion yuan per aircraft, because such a powerful strategic weapon, one aircraft can be equivalent to 100 or even more J20 fifth-generation fighters.

Jiang Heng, who was accompanying him, said to Xiao Yu: "The test flight application has been approved. According to the plan, the superconducting suspension vertical take-off and landing test will be carried out at the end of the month."

At the R&D center, Xiao Yu looked at the prototype in front of him and nodded, saying, "Without the project approval, many key equipment components cannot be purchased even if we want to spend money. It is really unlikely that we can test the superconducting suspension as planned this month."

The prototype in front of us is actually a traditional aircraft, not fully electric, and has no combat system or electronic warfare system. It can be said to be half an empty shell.

But its test mission this time does not require those modules, it only tests the superconducting suspension capability of the fuselage.

There is not much aerodynamic layout. After all, in theory, even a brick shape can be suspended.

However, the appearance of this prototype is very handsome. It also has a delta wing layout and no vertical tail, and looks extremely sci-fi.

Finally, Xiao Yu said with satisfaction: "Then just fly according to the schedule, and fly openly without hiding anything."

Xiao Yu added: "Of course, it is fine for the outside world to see or even take pictures of it flying, and the military has no special requirements. However, the performance parameters, especially the performance parameters of the 'Shenlong' fighter, are top secret information and cannot be leaked. This is clearly stated by the country and the military."

Jiang Heng nodded immediately and said, "Understood."

If it were ten or twenty years ago, the outside world wouldn’t even be able to see the plane flying.

But times are different now. There is no need to be too secretive. When necessary, we will even take the initiative to appear and boost morale.

Now that the big goose and the two Mao are fighting fiercely, including the undercurrent in the Middle East, the East must cheer up those younger brothers who are knocking on the West, boost their confidence, and undermine the confidence of the West. Taking the initiative to show high-tech equipment that even the old man does not have is one of the ways to show strength and deterrence.

It is worth mentioning that at this moment, the country and the military did not think that AVIC Linfei could achieve much. The approval of the project was more of an expression of their attention to Xiao Yu. They approved the "Shenlong" project with the mentality that if it failed, it would be expected, but if it succeeded, it would be a pleasant surprise.

Moreover, the sixth-generation aircraft projects of Chengfei and Shenfei are progressing quite smoothly, but they are kept confidential, and few people outside know the actual situation.

To put it bluntly, I don't have any high expectations for AVIC Linfei. If you want to do it, then just go for it.

……

Xiao Yu left the R&D center, returned to his office and called Chen Zaiqing over.

After waiting for a while, Chen Zaiqing came to the office and saw Xiao Yu and asked directly: "Mr. Xiao, what's the matter?"

Xiao Yu directly ordered: "Write a document and apply to your superiors for the flight data of fighter pilots. Our AI agent needs this valuable data to feed the big model."

The "Shenlong" fighter developed by the company is an unmanned aircraft controlled by AI, which requires a large amount of pilot data to train the AI model, but these valuable data can only be obtained by applying to relevant national and military departments.

Xiao Yu's ultimate vision is to allow human pilots to control the "Shenlong" fighter in a simulated cockpit on the ground. The pilots will be presented with real-time images through VR headsets in the simulated cockpit, making it feel like sitting in a real plane.

But this is not easy to achieve. First, due to the limitations of the current level of communication technology on Earth, the "delay" problem in the transmission of images and commands is difficult to solve in a short period of time, which is undoubtedly a fatal flaw in the ever-changing battlefield.

Human pilots are in a simulated cockpit on the ground, with the aircraft thousands of kilometers away and the fighter jets flying at such a high speed that they have to face the physical problem of the Doppler shift effect.

One of the reasons why mobile phone signals are poor on today’s high-speed trains is Doppler shift.

Mobile phone signals are essentially electromagnetic waves, so there is a Doppler effect. When the high-speed train passes through the communication base station quickly, the frequency of the electromagnetic waves received by the base station from the mobile phone will become higher, and conversely, when it is far away, the frequency of the electromagnetic waves will become weaker.

This frequency shift will cause the electromagnetic wave frequency at the transmitting end to be inconsistent with the frequency at the receiving end when sending pictures and videos using a mobile phone, resulting in problems such as reduced transmission rate, lag and delay.

If the Shenlong fighter is remotely controlled by a human pilot on the ground in a simulated cockpit, this problem will also occur and be more obvious. This is the case with high-speed rail. If the Shenlong fighter is cruising at Mach 5 supersonic speed or flying at speeds above Mach 8, the Doppler effect will be even more obvious.

In addition, the computer processing power on board the fighter jets is also a constraint. The intelligent mechanical combat units in the Blue Star world, such as unmanned fighter jets, have incorporated quantum processing technology and are equipped with a quantum computer.

With such powerful computing power, real-time battlefield image analysis and processing are easily possible.

Obviously, the "Shenlong" fighter jet, in its current state, cannot be remotely controlled in real time by human pilots on the ground through a simulated cockpit.

We can only wait until communication technology is further upgraded and quantum computers are mastered, and then the improved version will enable human pilots to remotely control aircraft in real time to perform combat missions in a simulated cockpit on the ground.

Rather than forcibly doing this with the existing technological system on Earth, it would be much safer to completely leave it to the AI agent to execute. All we need to do is give the AI the decision on task instructions, and the AI will autonomously execute the task after receiving the decision.

……

(End of this chapter)