Modern anti-submarine aircraft. Kawasaki P-1

Japan, being a “seemingly” peace-loving state, devoid of any militarism and having a provision in the Constitution prohibiting the use of military force as an instrument of policy, nevertheless has a powerful military industry and a large and well-equipped Armed Forces, formally considered the Self-Defense Forces.

Kawasaki P-1. Anti-submarine and patrol aircraft

To characterize the latter, let's give a couple of examples.

Thus, the number of warships in the far sea and ocean zones of the Maritime Self-Defense Forces exceeds that of all Russian fleets combined. Japan also has the largest anti-submarine aircraft in the world after the United States. Neither Britain, nor France, nor any other country except the United States can even come close to Japan in this parameter.

And if the United States is superior to Japan in terms of the number of basic patrol aircraft, then who is superior to whom in quality is an open question.

From the point of view of assessing what Japan's military-industrial potential really is, a lot of information is provided by one of the most ambitious military projects of this country - the Kawasaki P-1 basic patrol aircraft. The largest and perhaps the most technically advanced anti-submarine and patrol aircraft in the world.

Let's get to know this car.

Having been defeated in World War II and being occupied by the United States, Japan for many years lost its independence both in its politics and in its military development. The latter was reflected, among other things, in the strong “bias” of the Navy of the Self-Defense Forces towards anti-submarine warfare. This “distortion” did not arise out of nowhere - it was precisely such an ally near the USSR that the Japanese masters, the Americans, needed. It was required because the Soviet Union was making an equally strong “lean” towards the submarine fleet, and in order for the US Navy to fight the USSR Navy without diverting excessive resources to anti-submarine defense forces, the American satellite Japan grew such forces at home and at its own expense .

Among other things, these forces included basic patrol aircraft armed with anti-submarine aircraft.

At first, Japan simply received outdated equipment from the Americans. But in the fifties, everything changed - the Japanese consortium Kawasaki began work to obtain a license to produce the P-2 Neptune anti-submarine aircraft already known to the Self-Defense Forces. Since 1965, Japanese-assembled Neptunes began to enter naval aviation and until 1982, the Self-Defense Forces Navy received 65 of these vehicles, assembled in Japan using Japanese components.

Since 1981, the process of replacing these aircraft with P-3 Orion aircraft began. It is these aircraft that still form the backbone of Japanese base patrol aircraft. In terms of their tactical and technical characteristics, Japanese Orions are no different from American ones.

However, since the 90s, new trends have emerged in the creation of combat aircraft, including naval ones.

Firstly, the United States made a breakthrough in methods of radar detection of disturbances on the sea surface generated by a submarine moving underwater. This has already been written about several times

, and we will not repeat ourselves.

Secondly, methods for processing information collected by an aircraft through various channels - radar, thermal, acoustic and others - have stepped forward. If earlier the operators of the anti-submarine complex had to independently draw conclusions from analog signals on the screens of radars and primitive heat direction finders, and acousticians had to listen to the sounds transmitted by sonobuoys, now the on-board computer complex of the aircraft independently “fused” the signals coming from different search systems, converted them into a graphical form, “cut off” the interference and displayed ready-made zones for the supposed location of the submarine to the operators on the tactical screen. All that remained was to fly over this point and drop a buoy there for control.

The development of radars has stepped forward sharply, active phased array antennas have appeared, in the development and production of which Japan has been and remains one of the world leaders.

It was impossible to modernize the Orions so that all this wealth could fit on board. The computer complex alone promised to “eat up” all the free volumes inside, and a full-fledged radar of the level that Japan could afford simply would not fit on the plane at all, and in 2001 Kawasaki began work on a new machine.

The project was named R-X.

By that time, the Japanese industry was already cramped within the existing framework, and in addition to the anti-submarine aircraft, the Japanese, as part of the same project, began to make a transport aircraft partially unified with it - the future S-2, the Japanese replacement for the Hercules. The unification turned out to be quite strange, exclusively for secondary systems, but this no longer mattered, because both projects, as they say, worked out.

Anti-submarine R-1 and transport S-2.
Do you see the unification? And she is! The glass of the cabins, for example, is the same. Saved 7% on the commonality of systems The project was developed almost simultaneously with the American Boeing P-8 Poseidon aircraft, and the Americans offered the Japanese to buy this aircraft from them, but Japan rejected this idea, citing - attention - the inconsistency of the American aircraft with the requirements of the Self-Defense Forces. Considering how advanced the Poseidon platform was (not to be confused with the crazy nuclear torpedo)

), it sounded funny.

On September 28, 2007, the R-1 (then R-X) made its first successful one-hour flight. No noise, no press and pompous events. Quiet, like everything the Japanese are doing in terms of increasing their combat capabilities.

The first prototype of the P-X in TRDI colors.

In August 2008, Kawasaki had already transferred a test aircraft to the Self-Defense Forces, by that time it had already been renamed XP-1 in the American manner (the X is the prefix meaning “experimental”; everything that comes next is the serial index of the future aircraft) . In 2010, four prototypes were already flying in the Self-Defense Forces, and in 2011, based on the experience gained during testing, Kawasaki repaired and modernized the already built machines (the airframe had to be strengthened and a number of other shortcomings eliminated), and made changes to the documentation for the new ones. The aircraft was ready for mass production and it did not take long to wait, and on September 25, 2012, the first production aircraft for the Maritime Self-Defense Forces took to the skies.

Let's take a closer look at this car.

The aircraft fuselage is built using a large number of composite structures. The wing and aerodynamics as a whole are optimized for flights at low speeds at low altitudes - this distinguishes the aircraft from its American counterpart P-8 Poseidon, which operates from medium altitudes. The fuselage itself is created jointly by Kawasaki Heavy Industries (fuselage nose, horizontal stabilizers), Fuji Heavy Industries (vertical stabilizers and wings in general), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (middle and rear fuselage), Sumimoto Precision products (chassis).

R-1 is the first aircraft in the world whose EMDS transmits control signals not through digital data buses on “loop” cables, but through optical fiber. This solution, firstly, speeds up the performance of all systems, secondly, it simplifies the repair of the aircraft if necessary, and thirdly, the optical signal transmitted via an optical cable is much less susceptible to electromagnetic interference. The Japanese are positioning this aircraft as having increased resistance to the damaging effects of nuclear weapons, and the elimination of wires in key circuits of the control system certainly played a role.

The aircraft's airframe is unique in the sense that it is not a modification of a passenger or cargo vehicle, but was designed from scratch specifically as an anti-submarine aircraft. This is an unprecedented decision in modern times. Now the Japanese are developing other versions of this aircraft, from the “universal” UP-1, capable of carrying any measuring, communication or other equipment, to an AWACS aircraft. The first flight prototype has already been converted into the UP-1 and is being tested. Modern aviation does not know another such example.

In terms of its dimensions, the aircraft is close to a 90-100 seat passenger aircraft, but it has four engines, which is atypical for aircraft of this class, and a reinforced structure, which is logical for a specially designed aircraft. The R-1 is significantly larger than the American Poseidon.

The core of the aircraft's sighting and search system is the Toshiba/TRDI HPS-106 AFAR radar. This radar was jointly developed by Toshiba Corporation and TRDI, Technical Research and Development Institute - Technical Design Institute

, a research organization of the Japanese Ministry of Defense.

The specificity of this radar is that in addition to the main antenna with AFAR installed in the nose of the aircraft, it has two more canvases installed on the sides, under the cockpit. Another antenna is installed at the tail of the aircraft.

Nose cone and side radar array with AFAR

The radar is all-mode and can operate in both aperture synthesis mode and inverse aperture synthesis mode. The characteristics and location of the antennas provide a 360-degree view at any given time. It is this radar that “reads” those wave effects on the surface of the water and above it, thanks to which modern anti-submarine aircraft simply “see” the boat under water. Naturally, detecting surface targets, periscopes, RPD devices fired by submarines, or air targets is absolutely not a problem for such a radar.

A retractable rotary turret with the FLIR Fujitsu HAQ-2 optical-electronic system is installed in the nose of the aircraft. It is based on an IR television camera with a target detection range of 83 kilometers. A number of other television cameras are installed on the same turret.

It can be seen that the turret can not only be raised and lowered, but also rotated.

An ordinary magnetometer is installed in the tail of the plane - unlike the Americans, the Japanese did not abandon this search method, although it is rather needed for verification, and not as the main tool. The aircraft's magnetometer responds to a typical steel submarine within a radius of approximately 1.9 kilometers. The magnetometer is a Japanese copy of the Canadian CAE AN/ASQ-508(v), one of the most efficient magnetometers in the world.

The magnetometer rod is very clearly visible.

Naturally, in order to instantly convert signals from the radar, IR camera and magnetometer into a single intended target, and to draw this intended target on the screens displaying the tactical situation, large computing power is needed and the Japanese placed a fairly large computing complex on the plane, fortunately the sit is here. This, by the way, is a powerful trend - really large computers are being installed on airplanes, and it is necessary to provide both space and power supply for them in advance, work on their cooling and electromagnetic compatibility with other aircraft systems. The same thing was done in Poseidon.

The cabin is equipped with high-quality Japanese-made equipment. It is noteworthy that both pilots have HUDs. For comparison, in Poseidon only the commander has it.

Cockpit. Are any comments needed here?

At the same time, the Americans have implemented a blind landing mode, when a virtual image of the terrain over which the plane is flying is displayed on the HUD, as if the pilot actually saw it through the window, and relative to this image the plane is positioned perfectly accurately and without time lags. Thus, if there are virtual models of the terrain around the airfield at which the landing is being made, the pilot can land the plane in absolutely zero visibility and without the help of ground services. It simply makes no difference to him whether there is visibility or not, the computer will give him a picture in any case (if it is stored in memory for a given location). It is possible that the R-1 also has such functions, at least the computing power on board allows them to be provided.

The aircraft is equipped with a Mitsubishi Electric HRC-124 radio communications system and a Mitsubishi Electric HRC-123 space communications system. A MIDS-LVT communication and information distribution terminal compatible with Datalink 16 is installed on board, with the help of which the aircraft can automatically transmit and receive information from other Japanese and American aircraft, primarily from Japanese F-15J, P-3C, E-767 AWACS , E-2C AEW, carrier-based helicopters MH-60, F-35 JSF.

Small terminal of the multifunctional information distribution system MIDS-LVT for integrating the aircraft into the Datalink 16 mutual information exchange system. Truly important things sometimes look unassuming

The “brain” of the aircraft is the Toshiba HYQ-3 Combat Control System – this is the core of the search and targeting system. Thanks to it, disparate groups of sensors and transducers are “merged” into a single complex, where each element of the system complements each other. Moreover, the Japanese have compiled a huge library of tactical algorithms for performing anti-submarine missions, and have developed “artificial intelligence” - an advanced program that actually does part of the work for the crew, providing ready-made solutions for finding and destroying a submarine. However, the work post of a tactical coordinator - a living officer capable of commanding an anti-submarine operation, controlling the entire crew based on the data received and processed by the aircraft - is also there. It is not known whether there is a radio intelligence operator on board, but, according to the experience of the Americans, this cannot be ruled out. The standard crew of 13 people exclusively for hunting submarines is frankly too big.

Combat posts

The plane, as befits an anti-submarine officer, has a supply of sonar buoys, but the Japanese did not copy the American design - neither new nor old.

Once upon a time, Americans loaded buoys into launch silos mounted in the bottom of the fuselage. One shaft - one buoy. Such a scheme was needed so that the reconfiguration of the buoys could be carried out directly in flight, which distinguished the Orion from the Russian Il-38, where the buoys were located in the bomb bay and where they could not be adjusted to the waves during the flight.

Loading buoys into Orion launch silos. With the R-1 this is also possible, and the main thing is that the buoy can be adjusted before dropping

In the new Poseidon, the United States, having mastered new methods of warfare, abandoned this method of deployment, limiting itself to three 10-charge rotary launchers and three shafts for manual release. And the Japanese had rotary installations, and shafts for manual release, and a rack for 96 buoys, and, at the same time, a 30-charge launcher in the bottom of the aircraft, similar to the Orion. Thus, the R-1 has certain advantages over its American counterpart.

On the left are two rotary launchers for sonobuoys. It is very convenient when placing a small number of buoys in one gulp - 4-5 pieces. One at a time is possible

Rack for buoys. The mount is like the Americans, maybe even purchased. The buoys are positioned so that they can be adjusted before being dropped directly in the rack - and immediately into the launch pad

And these are launch silos for setting up a “field” of buoys. This field can work like one huge antenna

Placing buoys

The aircraft is equipped with a Mitsubishi Electric HLR-109B electronic reconnaissance system, which allows it to detect and classify the radiation of enemy radar stations, and can be used as a reconnaissance aircraft.

Antenna system

The defense system of the Mitsubishi Electric HLQ-9 aircraft consists of a radar warning subsystem, an incoming missile detection subsystem, a jamming complex and fireable IR decoys.

On defense

The aircraft engines are also of interest. The engines, like most aircraft systems, are Japanese, designed and manufactured in Japan. At the same time, interestingly, the Japanese Ministry of Defense was announced as the engine developer. The manufacturer is Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries - IHI

, another major Japanese corporation, produces a huge range of industrial products, including a wide range of aircraft engines. The engine of the F7-10 model is small in size, lightweight and has a thrust of 60 kN each. With four such engines, the aircraft has good take-off characteristics and increased survivability compared to a twin-engine aircraft. Engine nacelles are equipped with sound-reflecting screens.

The plane surpassed the Orion in terms of noise level - the R-1 is 10-15 decibels quieter.

The aircraft has a Honeywell 131-9 auxiliary power unit.

Armed Forces of Ukraine

The first hole is the APU air intake, the second is the exhaust.

The weapons that an aircraft can carry and use are quite varied for a patrol vehicle.

The weapon can be located either in a compact weapons compartment in the front part of the aircraft (designed mainly for torpedoes), on eight hardpoints, or on removable underwing pylons, the number of which can also reach up to eight, four per wing. The total mass of the combat load is 9000 kg.

Weapons compartment

The aircraft's missile armament includes American AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Japanese ASM-1C subsonic anti-ship missiles.

Anti-ship missile "Harpoon"

Type 97 torpedo

RCC ASM-1C

AGM-65 Maverick

Underwing pylons (internal)

The recently adopted supersonic “three-mach” anti-ship missile ASM-3 has not been announced as part of the aircraft’s weapons, but this should not be ruled out. To hit small targets at short range, the aircraft can carry the AGM-65 Maverick missile, also made in America.

Torpedo armament is represented by American small-sized anti-submarine torpedoes Mk.46 Mod 5, some of which may still remain with the Japanese, and Japanese Type 97 torpedoes, with a caliber of 324 mm, the same as the American torpedo. The future torpedo, currently being developed under the designation GR-X5, has already been announced in advance as part of the armament. There is no information that the aircraft can use torpedoes equipped with a gliding device, like the Americans, but this cannot be ruled out, given the complete identity of the Japanese and American communication protocols on which military electronics and weapon suspension devices operate. It is also possible to use depth charges and sea mines from an aircraft. It is unknown whether the aircraft is adapted for the use of depth charges with a nuclear warhead.

Interesting, but it seems the Japanese have abandoned the use of in-flight refueling. On the one hand, the flight range of 8000 km allows this to be done, on the other hand, it reduces the search time, which is an extremely negative factor. One way or another, the plane cannot take fuel in the air.

P-8 Poseidon and Kawasaki P-1 side by side. It can be seen that the Americans have better access to the plane, and therefore emergency exit is more convenient. On the other hand, until it falls, Kawasaki can be better

Currently, all P-1s are based at Atsugi Air Base, Kanagawa Prefecture.

As is known, as part of its policy towards militarization, Japan plans to abandon a significant part of the restrictions on its own military-technical development in 2020. Both Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and members of his cabinet have spoken about this more than once. As part of this approach, Japan has more than once offered a new aircraft for export (while Japan's export of weapons is prohibited by its own Constitution). But it has not yet been possible to defeat the American Poseidon - both in terms of political and technical factors. Poseidon, although simpler in some ways, apparently wins in terms of life cycle cost. However, the story of the R-1 is just beginning. Experts are confident that the P-1 will be one of the means by which Japan will make its way into world arms markets, along with Soryu-class submarines equipped with an air-independent power plant and the US-2 ShinMayva seaplane.

It was originally planned that 65 such aircraft would be ordered. However, after receiving the first 15 cars, the purchases stopped. The last time the Japanese government substantively discussed increasing production was in May 2021, but no decision has yet been made. In addition to the P-1, Japan has 80 modernized American-made P-3C Orions.

This is all the more surprising given that the Chinese submarine fleet is growing. The usual belief of any analyst dealing with the military development of Asian states is that the growth of Japanese military power is a response to the growth of that of China. But for some reason, there is no correlation between the development of the Chinese submarine and the Japanese base patrol aircraft, as if in reality Japan has a different enemy in mind. However, as Ryota Ishida, a senior official of the Japanese Ministry of Defense, said in the spring of 2018, up to 58 aircraft will sooner or later be put into service “in the long term,” but now Japan has no plans to increase the number of anti-submarine defense aircraft.

One way or another, the Kawasaki P-1 is a unique program that will still leave its mark on Japanese naval aviation. And it is quite possible that this plane will also fight.

I wish I knew against whose submarines.

Kawasaki P-1 airplane

Currently, the fleet of basic patrol aircraft of the Japanese Navy is represented by P-3C Orion aircraft built under an American license. Their combat capabilities are considered quite high, however, the aircraft will require replacement in the coming years due to physical wear and tear.

The Japanese military-political leadership, taking into account the country's accumulated experience in the production of modern aircraft, decided to create a new basic patrol aircraft on its own. The development of its concept has been going on since 1986, but the decision to full-scale design and build a vehicle designed to combat enemy submarines and surface ships, including in coastal and shallow water areas, was made in 2000. The main developer of the aircraft, designated XP-1, was, and the main subcontractors were Fuji (responsible for the production of the wing and fin) and Mitsubishi (the central and tail sections of the fuselage).

DESIGN

The XP-1 aircraft is a four-engine low-wing aircraft with a moderately swept wing. The engines are located in four engine nacelles under the wing. Ishikawajima-Harima F7-10 bypass turbojet engines with a maximum thrust of 6130 kgf were selected as the power plant for the aircraft. They have a significantly reduced level of acoustic noise compared to turboprops - this will increase the efficiency of the aircraft when searching for submarines. The engine is based on the American General Electric CF34-8 turbofan engine. The aircraft is equipped with a fly-by-wire control system. The crew consists of two pilots and 11 avionics operators.

Read: Junkers Ju 52/3m aircraft - “Aunt Yu” or “Iron Anna”

ONBOARD EQUIPMENT AND WEAPONS

The aircraft is equipped with a powerful set of means for searching underwater and surface targets. It includes:

• HPS-106 radar with three active phased array antennas (one of them is located under the fairing in the forward part of the fuselage, and the other two are on the sides of the cockpit);
• magnetic detector HRQ-102 in a remote tail fairing;
• optoelectronic search and sighting system HAQ-2 in the fairing above the nose of the fuselage;
• receiver of signals from radio-acoustic buoys with an HRQ-1 data processor (the aircraft can carry up to 30 RSGBs in automatic release machines in the rear fuselage).

The aircraft also has an HRL-109B on-board electronic warfare system, a high-performance on-board computing system and communications equipment, including equipment for the Link 16 data transmission system.

The aircraft's armament with a total weight of up to 5,500 kg (up to 9,000 kg when overloaded) is located in the bomb bay and on eight underwing units. It includes anti-ship missiles - both the American AGM-84 Harpoon and the promising domestic ASM-1C, the AGM-65 Maverick air-to-surface missile, as well as anti-submarine torpedoes, mines, and depth charges. Compared to its American competitor, the P-8A Poseidon aircraft, the Japanese aircraft has more “advanced” avionics, but a third shorter flight range. At the same time, the cost of a serial P-1 is lower than that of the Poseidon - about $141 million versus $200 million.

Read: Republic, XF-12 Rainbow reconnaissance aircraft

TESTING AND PRODUCTION

The first prototype XP-1 first flew on September 28, 2007. By March 2010, she produced three more prototypes. The first two production P-1s were transferred to the Japanese Self-Defense Forces Navy in March 2013. Current plans call for the purchase of at least 70 aircraft to re-equip six squadrons of basic patrol aircraft. To date, 33 aircraft have been ordered, including prototypes (four in 2008, one in 2010, three in 2011, two in 2013, three in 2014 and the first large production batch - 20 aircraft - in fiscal year 2015 ).

In connection with the relaxation of Japanese legislation regarding the export of weapons (previously such exports were completely prohibited), it is looking for opportunities to export P-1 aircraft. One of the most likely potential customers is Great Britain, which was left without basic patrol aircraft after the decommissioning of the Nimrods. In the summer of 2015, two P-1 aircraft visited the UK, giving representatives of the Royal Air Force the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the aircraft. Other potential buyers include New Zealand and Norway.

Read: A-37B Dragonfly

TACTICAL AND TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF KAWASAKI R-1

Type: four-engine basic patrol aircraft Crew, persons: 13 Engines: Ishikawajima-Harima R7-10 turbofan engine with a thrust of 6130 kgf Dimensions, m: length; 38.0 height: 12.1 wingspan: 35.4 Weight, kg: normal take-off: 79,700 Technical characteristics: maximum speed, km/h: 996 flight range, km: 8000 service ceiling, m: 13,520 Armament: anti-ship missiles , air-to-surface missiles, torpedoes, mines, depth charges with a total mass of up to 9000 kg on 8 external hardpoints and in the bomb bay