Wu knew that any aircraft fire was a serious situation, nearly always life threatening, and it almost always meant land as soon as possible. That meant right now. He had engine fires before, along with similar ‘smoke and fumes in the cockpit’ emergencies, and was comfortable with these time-pressurized dangers. Wu was selected for this testing because of his coolness under pressure, understood he was testing a newly developed, high-performance jet, and sometimes these things happened. Wu was calm under the gravity of the situation, while Liu was way edgier. Wu could pick up on it.
“Liu, we’ll be all right. We’re not burning still because there are no other indicators in here. We’re green across the board. Look outside. I’ll bank the aircraft as we slow down, and you tell me if we’re trailing smoke,” Wu told him over the intercom, in a soothing voice that demonstrated style under pressure.
Liu wasn’t that experienced as a pilot flying unknown jet aircraft, as he was primarily here as an observer and reporter of flying statistics to Chen. Sure, Liu was a rated pilot, but was more of an informal General’s pet and politician, than one of the guys in the squadron.
“No trail, Wu. No trail. No smoke in sight. Only the usual thick segmented contrail… our donuts on a rope,” Liu reported, breathing a bit heavier than normal. His face was full of sweat, at least the portion that was exposed above the bridge of his nose and outside his oxygen mask. Wu’s sixth sense was still spot on.
The donuts on a rope exhaust, extremely rare and unique, were the shock diamonds, also known as Mach diamonds. They were a formation of standing wave patterns that appeared in the supersonic exhaust plume of the Devil Dragon’s engines when it was operated at high altitudes. The diamonds were formed from a complex flow field and were visible due to the abrupt density changes caused by standing shock waves. What was unique about Devil Dragon was that they didn’t come out of all four engines, which was one of Devil Dragon’s most unique, secret features. It only came out of the two outboard engines.
Wu knew he was taking a gamble on this decision. Certainly, the miles of wires embedded inside the cockpit, wings and airframe, connecting generators, alternators, and batteries to components, all made of toxic materials, could have easily burned. They connected electricity to all the lights, weapons systems, navigational components, instruments and radios from the fuselage to the tail to the wings. The fire could also spread rapidly from the 5,000 psi high-pressure hydraulic system, easily spraying fluid out, cutting wires, hoses, and even some internal aircraft skin. Even worse, the multiple fuel tanks full of straw-colored jet aviation fuel and fumes could instantly burn or explode in just a matter of seconds.
Wu’s goal was twofold at this point. First, he needed to calm Liu down and reassure him all was good, and second, get him back to Gansu where they left from. Wu thought carefully about how to approach this scenario, because it would be also be excellent timing for him personally to get back to the U.S. Consulate. The icing on Wu’s cake would be saving face with General Chen in bringing the jet back to the field they left from. Most likely, the ground crew wasn’t even packed yet back into the Y-9 from this morning’s launch, and they were still present on the ramp.
The ground and maintenance crews were under enormous pressure from Chen, too, and Wu understood that. He was sympathetic to them building and fixing a new jet that had no pattern of records, no history, and no formal maintenance manuals to troubleshoot issues with the Devil Dragon. At times, they made the Devil Dragon maintenance seem easy, and at other times, it was apparent that they suffered from the difficulties of excessive dusty conditions being so close to the desert. The extensive travel, the constant secrecy, and the pressure of the flight schedule, all played into the high mission readiness demand. Making matters worse for everyone on the team was when the hours flown for the month dipped, and then Chen was all over everyone.
From this geographic position and altitude over China, Wu looked to the south, and could look down into what was the ancient 1,700 mile Old Silk route through Pakistan, almost reaching the saltwater port that shipped Chinese freight on wooden ships all over earth. From this high up, he could see for 300 miles, with a dark sky above, and brown, green and blue earth below. For centuries, it was the link for Asia to connect with the Middle East, and beyond. These days, China was leading the world in mining precious metals, like copper, and Wu knew the historical significance of the route as he looked to the right. At the moment, though, Wu didn’t care about history, as he turned his head forward again and drove the jet eastbound.
“Listen up… here’s our plan. My decision… we are going back to Gansu Airfield. Plot me a course for the field. No need to land below,” with a slight pause, “satisfactory?” Wu announced, making a decision as aircraft commander, but seeking some buy-in from Liu.
“Yes, ah, yes, yes,” Liu said back to him, putting his head down for the GPS punching in of the way points into the flight computer. Liu put his head up to verify their course was laid out on the colored moving map display in front of them. A white line was plotted on the screen, from their current position to the Gansu Airfield. “Turn to zero one zero, 458 miles to go.”
“Coming left, turning to zero one zero,” Wu replied, flying the aircraft manually with the stick. Upon rolling out, Wu flipped on the autopilot switches between their seats. He verified the course, airspeed and altitude were set correctly, then made notes on his kneeboard for the engineers on the speed tests they completed. Plus, details of the fire, of course. Wu would also be able to check the electronic flight records, as much of the information was recorded onboard the aircraft and downloaded to his smart phone for data transfer upon landing. This electronic maintenance and performance record helped troubleshoot the jet upon its return. If the jet were staying in Chinese hands, the electronic records suite would be especially helpful during the weapons portion of flight testing.
On this flight, though, they would not be able to fly as fast as they wanted due to the loss of an engine, but it was still fast enough. Devil Dragon wanted to fly, and the more flight time Wu accomplished on her, he realized how efficient the design really was. Slowing her down, even with speedbrakes for drag, flaps, and gear, was a chore. Rule of thumb flight calculations would slow down an aircraft 60 knots for every second of deployment of the little speedbrake doors. Not this bird. The thin wings and aerodynamic shape helped it slice thru the air with ease, and it seemed like she could fly forever.
Thanks to a 1964 Soviet mathematician who generated the stealth concepts by publishing Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction in the Journal of the Moscow Institute for Radio Engineering, he wrote that the strength of a radar return is related to the aircraft edge configuration of an object, not its size. With the current flight computers to aid the aerodynamically unstable aircraft, the sky was the limit.
The nose, body, and wings made it glide like the old SR-71 and U-2 that Lockheed’s famous Skunkworks team of engineers used to produce some 50 years ago. The acrylic windshield, which was a combined canopy with quartz, could withstand the impact of any bird strikes in the air and 600 degree Fahrenheit temperatures. Off the airframe came shockwaves produced by the different angles of the airframe, and flowed better than any aircraft designed by China, and was definitely at the same level with those of the U.S. The unique air intakes on top, stabilized the clean air, allowing the supersonic flow without choking with turbulence. The air had to be slowed down to subsonic speeds before entering the jet in order to produce the 30,000 pounds of thrust per engine. Over five thousand sensors provided real-time feedback to the flight computers, demonstrating the high-technology that China had.