Rebirth of the 1980s: The Military Industry Empire

Aircraft production workshops are typically quite spacious.

Aircraft production doesn't use assembly lines. Each aircraft corresponds to a single workstation. All the parts are brought to the workstation, and workers assemble the aircraft there, starting from the frame and gradually building it into a complete plane. Depending on the man-hours involved, it can take one or two years to complete the assembly of a single aircraft at one workstation.

It wasn't until the 21st century, with the advent of pulsed production lines, that aircraft production time was significantly reduced.

Currently, if you want to produce enough aircraft, you have to spread out the work, providing multiple aircraft assembly spaces simultaneously, allowing more people to work on them. This naturally speeds up the process.

That's how Factory 112 operates. The current workshop is very long, capable of accommodating ten aircraft arranged diagonally. It's also very wide, with an aisle in the middle and another row of diagonally arranged aircraft assembly on each side.

This single workshop can simultaneously accommodate the assembly of twenty fighter jets.

Final Assembly Workshop

The workshop is still a steel structure. Whether it's the pillars or the ceiling, you can see the dense network of steel. Building such a workshop requires a huge investment.

However, this spacious workshop isn't being fully utilized: Currently, there are only three fighter jets being assembled inside.

Two of them are J-8s with nose intakes, featuring slender fuselages and tall vertical stabilizers, closely resembling oversized MiG-21s.

These two fighter jets are on the same side, while the other side has only one lone fighter jet.

It also has a slender fuselage and a tall vertical stabilizer, a genuine high-altitude, high-speed second-generation aircraft. However, this aircraft's air intakes are on both sides! Slender rectangular air intakes are attached to the fuselage, separated by boundary layer splitters, closely resembling an F-4 fighter jet.

With no air intake in the nose, it's naturally free to accommodate a radar.

The dark green radome on this aircraft's nose hasn't been installed, exposing everything inside. The flat, plate-shaped radar antenna is clearly visible.

In the sunlight streaming through the windows, the flat antenna has golden striped light, and the protrusions on it should be continuous wave illuminators…

Natalie held her breath: "You have a planar slotted antenna?"

Qin Yang's expression also changed: "Old Tang, why are you so careless? This thing… is our top secret!"

Director Tang blushed: "President Qin, I, I… Someone, cover up our radar!"

Can Director Tang be blamed for this?

The factory here is in normal production, and there was no intention of receiving Israelis at all. After the Israelis got off the plane, they should have gone directly to Production Workshop No. 3, which is their workplace. They could also have gone to the dormitory or the cafeteria. In short, as long as they left the station, they wouldn't be close to here.

Who would have thought that these guests were frozen after getting off the bus and asked to warm up, so they had to come here first. At that time, Director Tang was also confused. Why didn't he think that the key project was still in progress here?

As a result, the secret here was exposed!

Adam was also surprised: "No wonder I saw a fighter jet with a belly intake at Factory 132. It turns out you already have mature airborne radar!"

"President Qin, can we take a closer look?" Natalie asked.

"Of course not. Everyone must forget what they saw here. This is our air force's top secret."

Natalie also had this question in her mind: Could it be that the Orientals deliberately put it out for them to see?

But the next moment, she reacted and her face changed: "We didn't do it on purpose. This is also our first time here. How could we know that there are secrets in this workshop?"

She suspected that the Orientals deliberately displayed it, and the Orientals also suspected that she did it on purpose. After all, Mossad is very famous all over the world.

Of course, that's just bragging. Mossad is very famous, but it can't be ubiquitous, and it's even more clueless about the East.

At this time, someone was rushing over to cover the radar antenna on the nose. However, this is purely a futile attempt. They've already seen it, so what's the point of covering it now?

Nie Xiaoqian, who was on the side, felt very proud when she saw Natalie's nervous explanation: Brother Yang is too awesome! He created coincidences time and time again. The Israelis might suspect something. Now, by accusing them first, no, by taking the initiative, the Israelis won't dare to suspect anything.

At this moment, they were only left with shock.

Who would believe that the Orientals could produce advanced planar slotted radar? Only the United States has this technology in the world. Even the Europeans can't handle it!

The Israeli Air Force already has a large number of F-15s and F-16s, all using this radar, which is very advanced, but the Israelis themselves can't build it for the time being.

ELTA, an Israeli company specializing in radar, is a subsidiary of IAI. It started developing airborne radar after its establishment in the 1960s, but it wasn't until 1976 that it developed the first EL/M-2001 radar. This radar was actually just a simple radar rangefinder, similar to the one Marconi provided to Factory 132.

In 1977, they began to develop the EL/M-2021 radar, which later developed into the B model, which was a real pulse Doppler fire control radar, but it only used ordinary Cassegrain antennas, that is, dish antennas.

For the Lavi fighter project, ELTA began to develop the more powerful EL/M-2035 radar. This radar evolved to a flat antenna, but they couldn't process it, so the antenna was directly handed over to an American company for processing.

ELTA has developed rapidly, becoming a giant in the world's radar industry in just a few decades. The Phalcon early warning aircraft was also developed by them, but this was entirely based on US technical assistance, standing on the shoulders of giants.

What about the Orientals? They actually came up with this kind of thing?

They can easily associate: Since the Orientals can develop this kind of airborne radar for fighter jets, they can certainly develop the same radar as the E-3, or even more advanced, for early warning aircraft!

The Oriental's early warning aircraft project is not groundless. They have real skills!

Hearing Natalie's answer, Qin Yang's expression was still very ugly: "Really?"

"Really."

Beep beep! At this moment, the sound of a car horn sounded outside.

"Everyone, the car to pick you up is here. Next, are you going to stay or have dinner?" Director Tang asked.

"Let's work first. Take us to the workplace to take a look, and finish it quickly and leave, so you don't have to worry about leaking secrets," Natalie said lightly.