The China Aviation Industry Corporation Shenyang Institute recently revealed that China’s fly-by-light flight control system has been successfully tested, filling the domestic gap. The so-called fly-by-light flight control system is the further development of the existing all-digital telemetry flight control system.
The two are basically the same in principle and design, except that optical fibers are used instead of cables for data transmission of aircraft. Japan’s Kawasaki P-1 maritime patrol aircraft is the world’s first production aircraft using fly-by-light flight control.
There are several advantages of applying fly-by-light control to fighter aircraft, the most direct one is weight reduction. The diameter of the optical fiber is small and the weight is light. One kilometer of optical fiber weighs only 150 grams. After replacing the data cable in the fly-by-wire flight control, it will directly reduce the weight by tens of kilograms.
Another major advantage of fly-by-light flight control is that the optical fiber is not afraid of electromagnetic pulse attack, and there is no need to consider electromagnetic interference when intensive wiring.
Optical fiber also brings greater bandwidth and lower data loss to the data transmission of the flight control system. Even the shortest laser in modern optical fiber equipment can reach 100,000 hours. So fly-by-light flight control in the fighter’s entire life cycle can work reliably, reducing maintenance requirements.
According to military analyst Baizhandao, from the time point when China’s fly-by-light flight control system began its test flight, the first application of this system will be neither an improved J-20 nor the J-35 fighter under development, but the sixth-generation fighter of China in the future.