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

Chapter 163 Xiao Erhei needs technical support from Northwestern Polytechnical University!
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, with the help of Russia, the East established a complete industrial system, and the equipment of its army, navy and air force was in sync with the rest of the world at that time.

In terms of anti-ship missiles, based on the Russian P-15, also known as the Styx missile in the West, the Shangyou-1 ship-to-ship missile was copied, and later expanded into the Haiying-1 shore-to-ship missile and the Yingji-1 air-to-ship missile, forming a complete family of anti-ship missiles.

However... this liquid rocket engine anti-ship missile is too big. The air-to-ship missile can only be carried by the H-6 bomber, but the H-6 is such a big guy that it has no self-defense capability. Therefore, the Navy has set its sights on the Q-5.

In the 1970s, the Q-5 program was to modify the torpedo bomber into the Q-5B. The Navy wanted to equip this torpedo bomber with an advanced air-launched anti-ship missile. So, Mr. Liang from the Third Academy of the Seventh Ministry of Machinery Industry led his team to develop a small anti-ship missile that could fly at ultra-low altitudes and skim the sea, in accordance with the Navy's requirements.

However, due to the weak electronic technology in China, the development of the Q-5 torpedo bomber failed, and the accompanying missiles became meaningless. As a result, this anti-ship missile project was cancelled.

Old Liang was unwilling to give up. He knew the enormous use of this anti-ship missile for the military. If the higher authorities wouldn't allocate funds, they would develop it themselves!

Without funding, without official status, and without even a name, the research team called this missile "Little Black Two".

The most crucial part of this missile is the engine test stand. Because there was no project approval, it was impossible to go to relevant units for research and development. The older generation of researchers found a place in the Western Hills of the capital and buried the missile upside down to conduct ignition tests. Because the noise was too loud, many people's ears were deafened. Even though they had to wear hearing aids, they had no regrets!
74 years later, the demand for anti-ship missiles became important again. In 1977, the Xiao Erhei (小二黑) project was finally approved and officially named Yingji-8 (鹰击八). Now... it should be undergoing testing, right?

Dalian, Zhoushuizi Airport.

Located by the sea, this is where the Navy has built its most advanced air and sea search radar, and some maritime equipment is also tested here.

At this moment, several vehicles were parked at the seaside base. One of them had its onboard radar deployed, with a dish-shaped radar antenna searching the sea.

On the radar vehicle.

"Target locked!"

"emission!"

Nearby, on a cylindrical launch vehicle with two rectangular sections, flames flickered. The red warhead emerged first from the launch tube, followed by the red and white missile body. Four trapezoidal main wings unfolded, followed by four tail fins... Behind the tail fins, the booster was burning fiercely, leaving a thick trail of white smoke that quickly enveloped the entire launch site.

In the base's monitoring radar room, a group of people nervously watched the dots on the radar screen.

"Flight normal!"

"We've reached a sea-skimming altitude of twenty meters!"

"Fifteen kilometers from the target!"

"Five kilometers from the target, altitude dropped to ten meters... the missile did not correct its course! What's going on?"

Countless people stared at the screen as the missile flew past its target a kilometer away, and then... crashed into the sea at the end of its journey.

It failed again!

"The waves are quite large today. After our missile descends, it may not be able to filter out the sea clutter, causing our No. 8 missile to fail!" Wang Zuquan, the deputy chief designer of the YJ-8 missile, said with a frown. Although the missile has not yet been retrieved and the flight data has not been obtained, he has already found the cause based on his experience.

Anti-ship missiles all use active radar seekers, starting with the YJ-1. However, the original YJ-1 flew at an altitude of two to three hundred meters, so it was unaffected by sea clutter. At this altitude, it would be detected and intercepted by the target's shipborne radar from a great distance. To penetrate defenses, it needs to descend to a lower altitude!
The anti-ship missiles of several major technological powers in the world have shifted to ultra-low-altitude sea-skimming penetration technology. In particular, the French Exocet missiles cruise at an altitude of 20 to 30 meters, but only fly at an altitude of 5 to 7 meters during the terminal phase of the attack. Now, we only need to lower the altitude to 10 meters, and the radar seeker will not be able to find the target.

How to do?
"Alas, it's still because our electronics industry is lagging behind!" Chief Designer Yao Shaofu said.

"Everyone, we just received a message from Professor Liang!" Just then, Liu Qingmei, the technical team leader, walked in: "Northwestern Polytechnical University is willing to provide technical support to our Xiao Erhei!"

Northwestern Polytechnical University? What technologies do they have?

Everyone was busy with the No. 8 missile project and had no idea what was going on outside.

"Northwestern Polytechnical University's technology is amazing! They provided the design and improved the J-7 for Factory 132. The new Super-7 fighter jet participated in the airshow and sold for hundreds of millions! They led the reverse engineering of the WP-15 turbojet engine and even designed engines for the British..."

what?
Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. When did Northwestern Polytechnical University become so prestigious? How come they had never heard of it before?
"They designed a brand-new airborne radar for the Air Force, featuring pulse-Doppler capability. It's currently being tested on an avionics test aircraft modified from a Y-7 transport aircraft, and the results are said to be excellent. It won't be long before it's finalized..."

Pulse Doppler! This one word stunned everyone: "Their radar has look-down capability?"

"That's right, downward-looking and downward-firing design, specifically for the J-8 fighter jet..."

"Then what are we waiting for? Pack your things, stop the experiment, and let's head to Northwestern Polytechnical University!"

Northwestern Polytechnical University, Department of Electronic Engineering.

"The radar's sea search function is quite simple; we can simplify the land search function as well. Our programming only involves a few hundred instructions..." Zhu Qiu began, "Currently, Engineer Zhu and his team from Institute 607 are testing it on the Y-7 transport aircraft. The news from there is that they want to add synthetic aperture radar functionality to the radar..."

"Cough cough, this is really like someone who hasn't learned to walk yet but wants to run... or fly!" Qin Liang sighed.

When an airborne radar flies in the air, it will create relative motion with stationary ground objects. This allows the radar antenna to synthesize a larger virtual antenna aperture, known as the synthetic aperture, thereby improving the resolution of the ground.

Simply put, this function is used for topographic mapping!

What's the use?
It's incredibly useful! When fighter jets attempt to penetrate enemy defenses at extremely low altitudes at night, even if the pilot is wearing an infrared imaging night vision device, they can't see very far. That's when radar comes in handy. It scans the terrain ahead and displays a digital map on the screen, allowing the pilot to avoid obstacles in time.

If it's a CNC telemetry system, it can also be directly linked with the telemetry system to achieve automatic avoidance. It's perfect for sneaking over and dropping bombs at night!
However... this technology is not easy to implement. It requires writing a lot of programs, and the 8086 processor may not be able to process them in time. Once data delay occurs... that would be disastrous!

"Teacher Zhao, this technique is too difficult, we should put it on hold for now..."

"Qin Liang, Qin Liang! People from the Third Hospital are here and want to invite you back!"

The Third Hospital? So fast?

Qin Liang's eyes lit up instantly: "Let's invite them here. We're having a technical meeting and can't go over there right now!"

(End of this chapter)