Hydroaviation - is it the past or the future?
Why Russia and China? Everything will be explained a little later, it was just convenient to take two countries that have completely different approaches to this small species aviation. Some had everything and almost nothing left, the second had nothing, but they want, if not everything, then a lot.
So, is the seaplane or the flying boat the past or the future?
On the one hand, yes, this is the past. This is a very glorious past of hydroaviation, when seaplanes won with a huge advantage such a trophy as the Schneider Cup against land planes (and they could not oppose anything to sea flyers), carried out transatlantic flights, sank enemy submarines, carried out long-range reconnaissance (there was no refueling in the air then , but on the water - easily!) for fleet and even landed troops. We do not touch such things as searching for ships in distress and rescuing the crews of downed aircraft, here the seaplane did not know competitors at all.
Well, the fact that seaplanes have been registered in fleets everywhere, from special seaplane carriers to battleships, is known to everyone. And some even got on submarines.
After the Second World War, seaplanes did not lose their positions, on the contrary, despite the fact that the aircraft carrier has firmly entered the everyday life of all (or almost all) leading fleets of the world, there is simply plenty of work left for a seaplane and a flying boat.
How can a seaplane be loaded today?
1. Patrol service. Moreover, this service is perfectly combined with others.
2. Search and rescue service. Indeed, a flying boat (LL) copes with this no worse than a helicopter, and the speed, range and carrying capacity of an LL is much higher than that of a helicopter.
3. Anti-submarine service. You will say that ships and helicopters cope with this no worse, but what kind of ship can be 500 km north of the location within an hour and gurgle into the water of the GAS to find an enemy boat? Or seeding a huge area with sonar buoys in a short amount of time?
Yes, there are nuances in the anti-submarine service, but, unlike a helicopter, an aircraft with refueling can simply control a huge area of \uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbthe water surface, pointing its ships at the detected boats. Or the crew itself can use something from the cargo that is unpleasant for submarines from their compartments.
4. Fire service. Here, of course, a flying boat, capable of filling up with water “under the cork” when landing, is the undoubted king in terms of time. An ordinary firefighting aircraft or helicopter needs to land on the airfield and fill their water tanks through hoses for quite some time. It is enough for the boat to land and “stripe” on the water surface. The containers will fill up instantly, which gives a very big advantage.
The fact that LLs in this incarnation are required is worth looking at those examples when countries that do not have them, but where forest fires are raging, try to borrow these aircraft to extinguish those countries where they are.
How rich is Russia today? Considering that one of the first decently flying boats in the world, the M-1 designed by Dmitry Grigorovich, appeared in 1913, everything is sad with us. For a country that has always been good with hydroaviation. Yes, we didn’t have huge boats like the German Dorniers or Blom and Foss, but we always had our own hydroaviation aircraft, and really good ones.
The heyday, of course, fell on the Soviet era, when everyone looked with envy at the path of not very beautiful in terms of aesthetics, but very effective in combat terms, the "birdfish" of the Beriev Design Bureau. Georgy Mikhailovich was generally an Ichthyander genius. He perfectly felt the air and understood the water. What can I say, if his first work, the "barn" MBR-2 entered history as the most massive seaplane of the USSR and was produced for more than 20 years!
And then the planes went on, too, not very similar in appearance, he and the MBR-2 are so penguin in appearance, and then the gulls-cormorants generally went. But the whole North rattled with MBR-2 engines for half a century, and then Be of various series took over the baton.
And from this greatness and power there were miserable scraps.
Russian Naval Aviation boasts FOUR flying boats Be-12. All that remains of 141 cars made since 1965. The most recent were made in 1973, that is, we can conclude in what condition they are. The machines are based in Kacha, that is, on the Black Sea. There are no amphibious aircraft in the aviation of other fleets.
The Russian naval aviation also has a Be-200 at its disposal. ONE.
And more is not expected yet, since the RF Ministry of Defense terminated the contract with the Beriev TANTK for the construction of aircraft, but this is a separate issue altogether.
Yes, you can talk a lot about the Be-200, and from time to time they even do it on television with pleasure. Stories about what a wonderful car it is, which does not have anything in the world, in fact, the Be-200 does not have one thing: a series. Already 18 cars have been manufactured in 20 years, and half of them fall to the share of Russian customers. The rest went to Azerbaijan and Algeria. And in our country, apart from the Ministry of Emergencies, this car is not particularly interesting to anyone.
On this, in fact, hydroaviation in Russia is either finished or finished. It looks strange, given the vast water frontiers of the country.
Now let's go to the neighbors.
China is also not bad with maritime borders, plus neighbors know how to make friends in terms of disputed islands, islets and archipelagos. Therefore, they believe that seaplanes are very important, and the Chinese Communist Party regularly reminds the military of this.
Initially, with hydroaviation in China, everything was very sad. It simply did not exist, after the Second World War everything got better when the older brother of the Soviet Union transferred a certain number of Be-6s and trained the flight and technical staff. The PLA understood the advantages that such aircraft provide.
But then there was a TA quarrel between Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev, which led to a significant cooling of relations, if not to a break, then whoever thinks.
China really wanted to get the Be-12, the most luxurious amphibious aircraft at that time. But alas, the Soviet government flatly refused to sell / donate modern seaplanes, so all that remained for the Chinese was to launch the production of Qing-6 flying boats (not quite licensed, but a copy of the Be-6) with "new" engines, WJ-6 turboprops , which were a licensed copy of the AI-20.
But even with the new turboprop engines instead of piston engines, the Qing-6 did not at all meet the requirements that were put forward by the PLA navy. The Be-12 did not shine at all, therefore, in the early 70s, a landmark decision was made in China to develop its own amphibious aircraft.
It really was a chic tiger and dragon hunt. The plane was really blinded from what was available.
They took a straight wing from the An-12 aircraft, installed four WJ5 engines from the Xian Y-7-100 aircraft on it. It can be put more simply: a copy of the AI-24A engine from the An-24 aircraft, of course, is unlicensed. The tail unit was completely taken from the Be-6. Works, why be smart?
And only the hull / fuselage was developed by the Chinese themselves. As they say, at least something, but your own.
This is how the Harbin SH-5 (Naval Bomber 5) came about.
We can say that it was the firstborn of the Chinese hydro-aircraft industry. Yes, it took a long time to deal with it, the first copy was built in 1973, and testing and refinement were completed in 1985. But it was a completely real anti-submarine seaplane that fully met the requirements of the Chinese military and was equipped with all the necessary domestic equipment: search radar, magnetometer, navigation system and other useful devices.
The four outer underwing nodes could carry depth charges, anti-submarine torpedoes, or conventional bombs.
In total, the Chinese built 7 machines: 3 prototypes, 3 anti-submarine patrol aircraft and 1 firefighting aircraft.
All of them are still in service, which suggests that far from everything assembled in the PRC is single-use.
Well, then everything is clear - the appetite comes with eating, and, having become adept at copying, the Chinese normally set about independent work on creating a new aircraft. Aircraft of the future.
Considering that China pays great attention to hydroaviation, the work went very hard and as a result of ten years of work, the project of the heavy amphibious aircraft AG-600 "Jiaolong" ("Water Dragon") was born, which today is the largest turboprop machine of this class in the world .
Work began in 2009, planned to be completed by 2013, but the Dragon made its first flight from the airfield only in 2017, and from the water surface even later - in 2020.
However, years of work and 3 billion yuan were not wasted, and today the Water Dragon is being built in series. It seems to be ordered 17 aircraft.
It cannot be said that the “Dragon” is original, outwardly it resembles the Japanese ShinMaywa US-2 aircraft, which has been in service with the Japanese Navy since 2007 and was produced in a worthy series of 14 aircraft.
It is possible that China's intelligence worked at the highest level, but the parameters of the Dragon are similar to those of the ShinMaywa US-2, the same emphasis on range and seaworthiness. The Chinese aircraft even surpassed the Japanese in terms of range (4500 km versus 3800).
The main tasks of the "Dragon" are called the performance of maritime patrol and search and rescue operations, as well as fire fighting.
Yes, as a firefighter, the Dragon is quite good, in one run on gliding it can collect 12 tons of water in 20 seconds. As a rescuer, it’s also quite: 50 wounded at a distance of up to 1600 km from the departure airfield.
However, something tells all the experts in the world that the use of the "Dragon" will be wrong. Even the designers of the machine themselves noted more than once that it is possible to use the Dragon for "other purposes, including military ones."
Naturally, you want to use it in the military. In the end, a car with a decent range, speed and seaworthiness (waves up to 2,2 m are not a hindrance) can carry out a variety of operations. Given that the aircraft is able to take on board up to 10 tons of various loads, we conclude that there are places where the Dragon is very useful.
Actually, for some reason the first 17 aircraft are being built in the standard Chinese secrecy mode, and there is not a letter about their configuration and equipment. The plane is just being mass-produced. Dot.
Although the Chinese military themselves do not strongly deny the need for such an aircraft in the waters of the South China Sea, where recently there has been, I would say, a cheerful and lively atmosphere. Brunei, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines are openly dissatisfied with China's policy of grabbing reefs in the South China Sea and turning them into islands. And the US openly supports these countries.
Official Beijing considers almost all the islands, rocks and reefs in the South China Sea to be its territory, but this position must not only be defended, it may also have to be defended. However, at one time, in disputes with Vietnam, China has already shown its teeth.
So the fact that the "Water Dragon" by the Xinhua agency was called in one of the articles the "protector of islands and reefs" does not seem to hint at the future service of the aircraft - rather, it gives out in full.
There is no need to talk about the weapons of the Dragon yet, but you can build on what the SH-5 was armed with. In the anti-submarine version, in addition to all search equipment, the SH-5 was armed with two 23-mm aircraft cannons (not relevant today), up to 6000 kg of aircraft bombs, which can be placed in the bomb bay in the fuselage and on four hardpoints under the wings. Either four Yingji-1 (S-101) anti-ship missiles, or two anti-ship missiles and four anti-submarine torpedoes, or four 454-kg depth charges can be placed under the wings.
How it will be possible to arm the Dragon is a question, but it is clear that this aircraft will be able to take everything more than the SH-5. Still, almost 2000 hp. on each engine, the "Dragon" has more.
If you look at our neighbors, both China and Japan pay attention to the development of hydroaviation for military purposes. Unlike Russia, where hydroaviation was actually abandoned as unnecessary. The Beriev TANTK actually vegetates, and fifty-year-old Be-12 aircraft live out their lives as part of naval aviation.
Meanwhile, the practice of both the Syrian campaign and the NMD showed how important it is to quickly control the entire coastline, which we have is not like the Chinese one.
In addition, here are the latest examples for you: the entry of three ships at the mouth of the Danube. Theoretically, Su-27s from airfields in the Crimea could stop these ships. So, what is next? Wait until one of the KChF ships separates the steam and deigns to come to the place where the ship stops? Which, as soon as the planes leave, will continue to move?
Or, perhaps, a seaplane would be useful, which could deliver a couple of inspection teams on boats to the specified area?
It seems to me that the possibility of an aircraft launching somewhere and then landing on the water with a load, or taking on a load on the water, should not be discounted. Just as the seaplanes did not say the last word in terms of combating submarines.
In Japan and China, they understand this and build new cars. In Russia, everything is as always with a bunch of questions.
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