On September 27th, Senior Colonel Shen, the spokesman of China Air Force, once again mentioned the phrase "East, West, North and South, Braving the Fighter -20". According to the official statement of the Air Force, the J-20 stealth fighter, as a new generation fighter of China Air Force, once fought with other multi-type fighters in the Taiwan Province Strait and played an important role in the struggle to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Of course, I believe we all know that the J-20 fighter plays an important role in the China Air Force. What military fans have noticed is a detail, that is, when Air Force spokesman Shen mentioned the J-20 fighter, he explicitly mentioned that the J-20 fighter was a "fifth generation" fighter. This is by far the clearest and brand-new expression of China Air Force in the generation of J-20 fighters. Therefore, we can change our thinking in the future and call the J-20 fighter equipped by China Air Force the fifth generation fighter.

Controversy over the replacement of fighter planes

Then, why did the J-20 combat opportunity change from the previous "fourth generation" fighter to the "fifth generation" fighter? What is the mystery? Da Ivan believes that the previous four generations of fighters are actually the established statements of the air forces of major military powers on the generations of fighters:

MiG-15 and F-86 sabers

According to this statement, the first generation fighters after the Second World War were mainly jet fighters with actual combat capability and truly participated in actual combat on a large scale. Its main technical control point is the use of centrifugal or axial jet engines. However, in terms of aviation weapons and fire control systems, the aviation weapons used by the first generation fighters are relatively simple, and aviation guns, aviation machine guns, aviation rockets and aviation bombs are still the main weapons. The fire control system used is mainly a simple optical sight or an optical sight with gyro and follow-up shooting ability, which generally does not have all-weather combat capability (except some special improvements).

The division of the first generation fighters in various countries is not controversial as a whole. American F-86F and Soviet MIG-15 and MIG-17 are typical representatives, and our corresponding model is the J-5 fighter. Of course, some Americans later tried to "transition" some early jet fighters, such as F-80 and MIG -9, from piston fighters to jet fighters, using straight wings, which were called the first generation fighters. However, no one agrees with this idea.

When the second generation fighters arrived, problems began to appear. It's simple. The technical span between the second generation fighters is really too big. As far as the Soviet Union is concerned, the MIG-19 fighter put into mass production in 1955 is the second generation fighter according to the typical generation method of the previous second generation fighter. Its main technical control point is that a turbojet engine with afterburner is installed, and the fighter has supersonic flight capability.

Some of the improved ones are equipped with interceptor radar, and can even carry Soviet P- 13 "atoll" air-to-air missiles. Interception radar can give the launch parameters of air-to-air missiles by ranging under the condition of ground guidance and guiding MIG-19 to the rear of enemy planes, so as to guide air-to-air missiles to attack. This was a great progress at that time. Compared with MIG-15 and MIG-17, it seems to be the second generation fighter.

However, the painting style of the second generation fighters began to be wrong. For example, the F-4E fighter of the US Army was also defined as the second generation fighter. However, compared with MIG-19 fighter, the F-4E fighter was first equipped with monopulse An /APQ- 120 fire control radar, and the later models even had certain multi-target interception capability.

At the same time, it can also carry AIM-7 series air-to-air missiles, and the later improved AIM-7M even has the capability of over-the-horizon launch to some extent. Although it only has this ability in theory, it is undoubtedly a great technological progress compared with MIG-19, which can only run and fire after the human tail, and the F-4E is also defined as the second generation fighter.

Not to mention that. After MIG-19, the Soviet Union introduced MIG -2 1 and MIG -23 one after another. After MIG -2 1 was developed to MIG -2 1B millis, it was equipped with fire control radar, which also had strong air interception capability and was considered as an excellent interceptor.

After being improved to MIG -23 MLD, MIG -23 was even used by the Soviet Union as a general fighter for the air force and national air defense forces, and also assumed the functions of air defense interception and frontline fighter. These aircraft have made progress across generations on the basis of the second generation MIG-19.

We really can't do it. We have more malicious ones, our fighters 8F and 7G. The former is equipped with full waveform fire control radar, which can launch PL- 12 active radar guided air-to-air missiles. The latter is equipped with helmet sight, which improves the mobility. A dogfight can wrestle with a typical third-generation fighter. But, alas, these planes are all second-generation fighters.

So, this is the problem. Internationally recognized fighters are divided on the second generation issue. There are voices inside the United States and the Soviet Union: the United States believes that its F-4E should be divided into third-generation fighters; Russia believes that its MIG -23MLD should also be designated as the third generation fighter. In this case, what we usually think of as the "third generation fighter", such as F- 15 and Su -27, is considered as the "fourth generation fighter". Of course, fortunately, the debate about the second generation fighters is still dragging the past scores, but it has not had much impact. Everyone still follows the rules that the second generation fighters include all MiG-19 to J -8F.

In contrast, only in the era of the third generation fighter, this situation is really a mess. Both the third generation fighter and the second generation fighter have encountered the same problem. We all know that a typical third-generation fighter has the following technical characteristics:

Aerodynamic layout widely adopts wing-body fusion or lifting body aerodynamic layout, and the aerodynamic design of fighter is one generation higher than that of the second generation fighter. In the flight control system, the relaxed static stability design is generally used to improve the angle of attack of fighters under certain circumstances, and the static instability of aircraft caused by relaxed static stability is compensated by the fly-by-wire flight control system; Full waveform fire control radar, even photoelectric detection system. It is standard on fire control system, and aviation weapons have over-the-horizon interception capability, multi-target attack capability and precise guidance of face-to-face strike weapons.

However, the problem still arises: some third-generation fighters have been deeply improved, using turbofan engines with stronger thrust-to-weight ratio, equipped with advanced avionics fire control systems similar to those of the fourth-generation fighters, and using the same aviation weapons as the fourth-generation fighters. Some deep improvements of the third generation fighter even added a low detectability coating on its surface and used conformal ammunition pods, which partially improved the low detectability of the fighter.

For example, the F- 15EX of the U.S. military directly uses the advanced avionics system equivalent to the F- 35A fighter's overtime, and Boeing even boasts that its avionics system is much more advanced than the F-35A. Another example is the J-16 fighter, which is equipped with the same aviation weapon as the J-20 and is a combination of PL- 15 and PL- 10; Another example is F/A-0 18E/F? 3 and gust, the former adopts weapon pod and the latter adopts active electronic countermeasures strategy, just to improve its low detectability.

It stands to reason that these fighters also have a huge technological leap compared with the earlier three generations. But at the same time, there is also a realistic factor that forces the United States and Russia to divide these models into another generation: yes, the military trade of fighters. Who doesn't want to make their models more advanced to attract customers when selling fighters abroad?

Su -35 demonstrates maneuverability.

Russia first achieved this, positioning its Su -35S fighter as a "4++" fighter; Not to be outdone, the United States and the West immediately indicated that they would take out F- 15E and F- 16E, European Gust and other aircraft and designate them as the fourth generation fighters. The same occupation of both sides is that F-22A and F-35A have been upgraded, and the fifth generation fighters have been equipped in advance.

How to treat the J-20 as a fifth-generation machine?

For China, in fact, in terms of fighter generation, we have always been relatively conservative. Basically follow a set of earliest standards:

China has been following its own "Fourth Generation Machine" standard. The articles written by Ivan the Great have always been rigorous. Previously, if the context was a foreign fighter, the "fifth generation standard" was used, and if the context was China Air Force, the "fourth generation standard" was used. I believe our regular readers are very clear.

That is, MIG-15 is the first generation, MIG-19 is the first generation, F- 15 and Su -27 are the first generation, and F-22 and F-35 are the first generation. So 歼 5 is the first generation fighter, 歼 6, 歼 7 and 歼 8 are all second generation fighters, and J-10 is called our earliest domestic third generation fighter, so naturally 歼 20 is the fourth generation fighter. If there are models such as J -8F and J-10 in the middle, they will be divided into two and a half generations or three and a half generations.

At present, the J-30 fighter is redefined as the fifth generation fighter, and the connection of J-2-2 is overtime. It seems that we have a new direction for the first generation fighter in the aviation field. Ivan's personal guess may have two orientations:

First, J-10C and J-16 are classified as the fourth generation fighters by adopting a replacement method similar to that of the United States. After all, we have called these two models "new tactical aircraft" more than once. You said that they are barely a generation, which seems to be true.

The other, then, may be to put forward our own upgrading direction according to the equipment renewal of our army. According to the equipment updating law of China Air Force, J -5 is the first generation, J -6 is the first generation, J -7 and J -8 are the first generation, J-10 and J-1 are the first generation, and J -20 is the first generation, and each generation has corresponding technological leap. In this way, we "cut" a knife at the level of the second-generation fighters, dividing the J-6 with supersonic interception capability into two generations, and intercepting it to a certain extent beyond the horizon, or the J-7 and J-8 fighters with twice the speed of sound.

So no matter from which aspect, our own definition system is very reasonable, and the J-20 will naturally become the fifth generation fighter.