Back in 1978, I was admitted to Northwestern Polytechnical University.

Chapter 113 Did the buyer and seller switch places?

The moment Qin Liang said those words, the previously harmonious atmosphere in the conference room vanished without a trace.

What is this young man saying? He is refuting the British viewpoint!
Sabir was starting to regret it. He should have known better than to bring Qin Liang along. Qin Liang was like a cannon fodder, ready to fire at anyone he could get his hands on!
Peterman was also taken aback, and then... smiled: "Mr. Qin, the East doesn't have advanced avionics technology, so we don't know much about these devices. I understand. Let me give you a brief introduction. Currently, the most advanced electrostatic levitation gyroscope developed by our Marconi company is about the size of a basketball. Can your light aircraft find such a large space to install it?"

Newton's three laws of motion form the technological basis of a gyroscope. Its core component is a rotating gyroscope, which has absolute stability. When mounted on an aircraft, the gyroscope remains stationary while the frame supporting it rotates as the aircraft's attitude changes. By measuring this angle, the aircraft's movement can be determined, and through integration, the aircraft's trajectory can be calculated.

As a result, the friction between the gyroscope and the frame became the biggest factor affecting its accuracy. Engineers tried all sorts of methods, first using ball bearings, and later using technologies such as liquid floatation, air floatation, and magnetic levitation. In the 1970s, they began to use the electromagnetic force of an electrostatic field to support the gyroscope, thus completely eliminating friction, which was considered the most advanced method.

However, it is still the same size as before!

Looking at the future, even a small mobile phone can integrate an inertial navigation module. That's technological progress!

"An electrostatic gyroscope, and you call that advanced?" Qin Liang rolled his eyes at the other person: "Dynamically tuned gyroscopes, ring laser gyroscopes, interferometric fiber optic gyroscopes, superconductor gyroscopes, particle gyroscopes, tuning fork vibrating gyroscopes, fluid rotor gyroscopes... Aren't you British supposed to be technologically advanced? You can only make an electrostatic gyroscope?"

Tu Lao and the others were dumbfounded. Although they were in the aviation industry, pilots in the East never used gyroscopes and relied on their naked eyes to see landmarks. None of them had ever been exposed to gyroscopes before. They only knew about ordinary electromechanical gyroscopes and didn't know about electrostatic gyroscopes. As for the gyroscopes that Qin Liang mentioned, they had never heard of them.

The British were dumbfounded. Wasn't the East just a backward agricultural country? When did they become experts in the field of gyroscopes?
"Mr. Qin, have you studied all of these spinning tops?"

"Of course not. We only choose the most suitable technical route for research and development. It's a pity that our country's scientific research was delayed in the past few years. Otherwise... we wouldn't need to go abroad to buy them. If your gyroscopes are only big things like electrostatic gyroscopes, then forget it!"

"No, no, we have something even more advanced. Our ring laser gyroscope can be reduced to the size of a lunchbox!"

Qin Liang couldn't help but sigh inwardly, "Britain, an old empire, they really are amazing! I was just bluffing them, I didn't expect them to actually have it! When we get the parts, we'll have to take them apart and study them, and try to replicate them!"

Sabil's eyes widened. "We Pakistanis buy things that the British don't even have the latest models! That's going too far! Thank goodness I brought Qin Liang!" At this moment, he had completely forgotten his earlier regret, his heart filled only with pride.

"Alright, the spinning top is settled then. Now let's talk about radar. Your Marconi company only has radar rangefinders? You're not trying to sell us the junk from the Sea Harrier, are you?"

"Ahem... Of course not, we do have pulse-Doppler radar too, it's just that..."

"But what? The technology is too advanced to be exported?" Qin Liang rolled his eyes at the other person: "If it were an American airborne radar, perhaps that would be one thing, but the European one... I heard that the Tornado fighter jet comes in two models. The IDS model is called multi-role, but it's mainly used for ground attack. Your Britain specifically developed an ADV model for air defense, and it still uses an inverted radar antenna. This technology is probably more than ten years behind the US..." In later generations, every time the Su-27 was mentioned, everyone was filled with emotion: a perfectly good design was ruined by that N001 radar weighing more than a ton in the nose. The old Russian electronics industry was backward, and they couldn't even make a flat panel slotted antenna, so they could only use the outdated inverted radar!

In reality, neither the Russians nor Europe could do it!
The Tornado IDS is used for ground attack. In order to fly at extremely low altitudes, it needs a dedicated terrain mapping radar. Therefore, there is an orange elliptical radar antenna inside. It looks like a flat panel, but upon closer inspection, there are no grooves on it at all.

The Tornado ADV was designed to intercept Russian bombers and required excellent air-to-air capabilities. The British developed the AI24 radar specifically for it, with an antenna resembling an inverted pot lid that occupied the entire nose of the aircraft.

Then look at the Americans, the Tomcat they developed in the 60s and 70s, it was a flat panel slotted antenna, with a whole bunch of modes for air-to-air, air-to-ground, and air-to-sea...

The British blushed. Yes, they certainly knew the gap between themselves and the United States, but it was still somewhat hard to accept that an Easterner would say it like that.

“Mr. Qin, we are currently working on overcoming the manufacturing challenges of planar slotted antennas, and this defect will be fixed soon!” Janice, a radar engineer from Marconi, said from the other end of the line.

The efficiency of radar is closely related to the antenna, since it directly determines the efficiency of radiating electromagnetic waves!

The earliest antennas were parabolic, which were essentially dish-shaped. Later, as the dish-shaped antennas became larger and larger, they became difficult to rotate. So, the dish-shaped antennas were simply turned upside down, with the feed placed at the back. By moving the feed, the direction of electromagnetic wave propagation could be changed. This is the inverted dish antenna.

Even more advanced than these antennas is the planar slot antenna, which has a slot cut into a planar antenna, with the slot size being exactly half a wavelength. This results in very high radiation efficiency, and before the advent of phased array technology, it was the king!
Europe only mastered the processing technology in the mid-to-late 1980s, around the same time as the East.

“It requires very advanced processing technology. You probably won’t be able to develop it in less than ten or eight years. Why don’t you come and ask us for advice?” Qin Liang said with a smile. “We have already overcome the production process difficulties of planar slot antennas, but the yield rate is still very low, which leads to a high price. Of course, if you need it, we can help you with production.”

We don't have any! We don't even have a satellite dish. The airborne radar that our Department of Electronic Engineering at Northwestern Polytechnical University is currently researching is still using a regular satellite dish!

A hush fell over the meeting room, and Sabir began to question the meaning of life.

Wait, what am I here for? I brought my Eastern friends here to purchase advanced Western avionics together. How did it turn into my Eastern friends trying to sell their products to Westerners? What... what's going on? Am I dreaming?
"You've overcome the difficulties? That's impossible!" Janice's face was full of disdain: "This antenna has a special structure, with multiple layers, cavities, thin walls, and an accuracy of 0.02 millimeters. We've been researching it for many years, but the accuracy has never met the standard. You Easterners? Where did you get this kind of technology?"

　PS: The top one is an interceptor radar, and the bottom one is a ground attack radar.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)