This is a young team, with an average age in their early thirties, the chief engineer is 42 years old, and the youngest designer is just 25 years old. This is a highly united team, united in determination, unity of will, united goals, and united actions. This is a group of young talents with extremely strict self-requirements. In order to achieve the development goal of "high-altitude and high-speed, precision strikes, long-term flight, and comprehensive leadership", they self-pressurize, overthrow and restart, aiming at high-altitude and high-speed observation and attacking a UAV. The new characteristics of market demand, brainstorming, pioneering and enterprising, over the past three years have successively overcome the ultra-large aspect ratio aerodynamic shape design, the overall flight performance optimization design, the new composite material airframe structure integrated design and manufacturing, and the fully autonomous system with reconfigurable failures A series of technical problems such as the design of redundant flight control system have won a large number of core technologies with independent intellectual property rights. This is a team that has lived up to expectations. In the early morning of January 11, the roar of an airport heard the good news that the WJ-700 "Falcon" drone landed perfectly with accuracy that exceeded the design expectations, which caused a high degree at home and abroad for a while. pay attention to. "I hope your first flight test will be a complete success, because you will push the industry's basic technical capabilities to new heights." As the "national team" for the overall development of domestic drones, each astronaut in the team once again announced with their own hard work and sweat that China Aerospace is ambitious, confident, and capable on its journey to climb the technological peak of the drone field. New chapters are constantly being written on.
At present, competitive procurement has become fierce in the field of unmanned equipment. As the key model of the third institute, the market promotion of the "Falcon" UAV is particularly important. Under the leadership of the three institutes, Seahawk Airlines urgently coordinated the forces of all parties and sounded the R&D assembly call to exchange market space with time! At one time, the three hospitals solemnly invited multiple users to observe on-site. On the eve of the flight demonstration test, all preparations were in place. At around 10 o'clock that night, the shooting range suddenly notified the need to significantly reduce the flight test time. "The test time is compressed, so can the scheduled task be completed in this way?" The "Falcon" UAV development team is determined to make a breakthrough! Mr. Li, the deputy chief engineer of the model, replied decisively: "Yes, we will prepare now!" While decomposing the tasks, he took turns instructing matters for attention, and the systems began to work in an orderly manner. The mission planning major began to adjust the track points and mission points, the flight control system synchronized simulation test, the overall adjustment of the flight mission requirements, the change of each test password in the coordinated command program... In January, the northern cold wind was freezing, minus 30° The severe cold environment cannot stop the team's enthusiasm for market promotion. The bell rang at zero to complete the route adjustment plan, and Mr. Li checked the data one by one; at two in the morning, he completed the simulation test, and he carefully checked the changed data and emergency response plans; at three in the morning, he gave the command Each password and sending time in the program are carefully proofread, and after repeated verification, they are sorted out together with the emergency plan. At this time, the sky is bright again...
During this long night of technical preparations, the team members covered it with a warm water bag when their hands were frozen, and stomped them when their feet were numb, and everyone took the responsibility of ensuring the success of the flight test. The ground starting power supply is the key equipment for the ground starting of the UAV engine. Due to the severe cold environment, the battery performance in the power supply is reduced. The model engineers Li and Xiao Zheng took the initiative to ask, braving the severe cold weather, staying in the hangar all night, always keeping The battery is heated to ensure the complete success of the flight test.
In the face of a soaring "falcon", the epidemic is also difficult to stop. In July 2021, the epidemic situation abroad is rampant, and it is difficult to find a return ticket. In order to seize the opportunity of the new model market, Seahawk Airlines President Li and Xiao Peng risked their lives to go overseas to promote the market and became the most beautiful "retrograde" in the epidemic area. In the emergence of a new crown-positive patient in the foreign team, they abandoned their personal safety and still seized every opportunity to communicate and negotiate with the foreign party, and finally obtained market intention orders. During this period, the two performed nearly 20 nucleic acid/serum tests successively, which resulted in multiple severe bleeding in the nasal cavity.
After the group company received the emergency notification of foreign negotiations, after 6 days and nights of preparations, Mr. Liu, the model chief, went on a visit in danger, led the team to carry out contract negotiations, negotiated in-depth details on the details, and made new contributions to market development.
Dare to fight! Top half of the sky in questioning and negation
Except for a few chief divisions and deputy chiefs, most of the "Falcon" UAV development team are post-85s, post-90s, and even post-95s who have worked for less than five years. The new technology is difficult, the team members are too young, and the development pressure is self-evident. If the birth of the
WJ-700 drone model has experienced a process from negation to transcendence, then the young people in the technical team must have experienced a baptism from doubt to expectation.
As a high-altitude and high-speed integrated drone system with leading technical indicators, the "Falcon" was questioned by many parties during the initial project demonstration: "Can the current technology achieve the reconnaissance and attack of high-speed drones against time-sensitive targets?" All of them are low-speed. Is there a market for high-speed models?" "Can the current technical level achieve the planned aerotime target?" "Can the full composite structure be practically applied?"...Faced with all this, the development team Based on scientific prediction, determined to fight hard! Especially for the key technology of UAV high lift-to-drag ratio design, the technical team went deep into the wind tunnel test unit and worked continuously for 24 hours. Finally, it broke through the high-altitude and long-endurance design technology of UAVs with large aspect ratios and achieved system index closure.
When the model development entered the critical stage of the coasting test, faced with the serious shortage of overall professional human resources of the model, and the "five lines" of design optimization, development and production, internal and external field test verification and market promotion were carried out in parallel, the new team member Oda only joined 1 He was sent to the field in just a few months ago and took up the role of deputy commander on the spot under the guidance of his tutor. In the follow-up flight test, he always served as the ground commander, led many flight test field work, and undertook the key task of model development. From July 2020 to November 2021, Oda has traveled more than 300 days in total, growing rapidly in the difficult environment of the field. At that time, there was a joke circulating in the team: "Our little worker model Oda is back to Beijing on a business trip."
In July 2021, the team also recruited a post-95 girl Tianqi. Not long after joining the company, I went to the field as the main post for measurement and control. For a while, doubts were raised: "Does Tianqi, who majored in control science and engineering, understand communication? Should I transfer another person from Beijing?" "Tianqi is a newcomer after all. , I don’t feel relieved that she will be in charge." Even the two heads of the team once asked her master Haiwang on the phone, "Tianqi is in charge, don’t you rest assured?". Faced with doubts, the master definitely said, "I will take 10,000 hearts!"
In fact, this "ten thousand hearts" trust does not come from casually. It turned out that since Tianqi joined the Falcon development team, she would call her master for questions and review her work on the day almost every night. The phrase "Master, I'm still a little worried, can you tell me more?" It is the most familiar and kind words that echoes in Haiwang's ears every night. As time goes by, members of the development team can see that Tianqi has already understood the project deeply. She seems to have gone through the entire flight test process dozens of times in her head. Day after day, it is this struggling "tenacity" that makes this "post-95" girl finally gain the trust of the entire experimental team and the two model leaders.
Dare to take it! Decisive decision in scientific exploration
Mr. Liu, the model chief, also joined the WJ-700 development team as a "novice" halfway through the demonstration of the product scheme. As soon as he joined the team, he reviewed the plan based on the actual needs of the current market. In order to pursue the ultimate, he made a judgment that it is very possible to increase the performance index by 30% on the original basis. Under the new goal, the team made a decisive decision, overthrew the original plan, and began to re-evaluate. In order to meet the high-performance index requirements of UAVs, WJ-700 UAVs adopt a large number of new architectures and new methods, and the utilization rate of new technologies is close to 50%. It is the first time that the multi-purpose UAV system at high altitude, high speed and long endurance in China adopts advanced composite Material. The use of new materials will bring new problems, and the production process, quality control, etc. require the team to re-explore. "There is no smooth path on the road of scientific exploration. Since we have chosen this road that no one else has walked, we will get up and pay more than others. We all recognize it. When we first discovered When the performance of the first sample of the processed material did not meet the standard, the team could only start from the source, re-organize every detail from design to manufacturing, and finally found the crux of the problem and won the victory in overcoming the technical difficulties." Said the team's professional vice president Huang.
"Increase the indicator by another 30%. The specific parameters in the previous overall plan and the design plans of each sub-system can only be invalidated, and everything has been re-started. This is a performance of self-pressure and daring to'return to zero'. This decision is not easy to come by. , Our team has withstood the pressure in this regard, and I sincerely thank everyone on the team for their support and responsibility!" Mr. Liu said excitedly. It is precisely in this way that there is now a "Falcon" that is more market-competitive, forward-looking and scalable.
Dare to break, dare to fight, dare to take responsibility, dare to be the first-class aerospace gene, which has made China Aerospace, and also led the "Falcon" UAV development team, freed from the constraints of restrictions, brave self-pressurization, dared to make innovations and breakthroughs. A research and development route with its own characteristics has been established. The years of youth are shining with the devotion of dreams, and personal ideals are impassioned by the integration of the mission of the family and the country. There is a long way to pursue the dream of spaceflight, the dream of a strong army, and the dream of a strong country, but they are not afraid, and insist on "dare" all the way!
