Source record CMC Political Work Department · 2026-06-24

Combat Aircraft Flight: You Cannot Sustain "Supersonic" Indefinitely

战机飞行：不能一直“超声速”

Machine translation The heading is a machine translation of the original title above. Not reviewed by a human.

Processing status

Analyzed

Passed relevance screening and completed analysis. English title and summary are machine-generated.

Machine assessment Not flagged for closer review. This is a software triage result, not an editorial judgment.

Provenance

What is known about this record and where each part came from.
Desk	China Desk
Publishing institution	CMC Political Work Department
Source outlet	PLA Daily (解放军报) (pla_daily)
Source language	zh-Hans — an attribute of the source, not of this record
Source-stated publication date	2026-06-24
Original URL	http://www.81.cn/yw_208727/16469187.html
Collected at	2026-06-24 15:17:38 — collection metadata, not a publication time
Content fingerprint	0005d491613200481e4b219535cd6a9c9914b8c7a1e127549a4609bf6d7f7b82 — taken when the record was captured, over the stored original title and text
Collection run	67
Analysis model	claude-sonnet-4-6
Prompt version	v1

Every field above is defined in the data dictionary — what it means, when it may be absent, and where it stops being reliable.

Stored source text

Text captured from the source page. Extraction may omit material or include unrelated page elements; consult the original URL when exact wording or completeness matters.

开车的人都懂，全程油门踩到底既费油伤车，也会有安全隐患，这一道理在战机飞行领域更是如此。战机参数中标注的2倍、2.5倍声速最大飞行速度，如同汽车仪表盘的峰值时速，仅能短暂实现，不能长时间维持。可以说，“超声速”并不等于“能一直超声速”。现役绝大多数战机突破声速，必须开启加力燃烧室，在发动机尾部补喷燃油，让涡轮后未充分燃烧的氧气再次爆燃，在短时间内提升推力。美军F-16战机对比测试显示，同样飞行30分钟，开加力超声速飞行的燃油消耗，远超亚声速巡航，航程也明显缩水。一是燃油效率与作战效能难以匹配。一路狂飙飞不远，即使是载油量高的重型战机，全程开加力很快会耗尽燃油；外挂副油箱和武器会大幅增加飞行阻力，影响高速飞行性能，削弱作战能力。苏联米格-31虽能实现2倍以上声速持续飞行，但其机身空重、发动机油耗远超同期主流战机，运维成本高，无法完全普及。二是难以逾越的“热障”门槛。飞行速度突破2倍声速后，机头、机翼前缘温度超过120℃，速度继续提升，局部温度将达到200℃以上。而常规战机使用的航空铝合金，在150℃左右便会强度骤降，长时间高温飞行会引发蒙皮变形、密封件失效，甚至座舱盖裂纹等致命风险。SR-71“黑鸟”虽能实现3倍声速持续巡航，但其机身大部分采用耐高温钛合金，造价与维护成本极高，常规战机根本无法复制。三是指数级增长的激波阻力。战机亚声速飞行时，主要克服空气摩擦阻力。一旦跨过声速，前方空气被挤压形成致密激波，波阻随速度提升呈指数级上涨，超声速提速所需的额外推力，比亚声速时高出数倍，长时间高速飞行极不划算。当前，各国竞相攻关的自适应变循环发动机，可根据飞行状态自动调整工作模式，兼顾航程与速度，有望为新一代战机突破现有约束，实现长时间超声速飞行。

Summary

Machine summary

A Chinese military media article explains to a general audience why combat aircraft cannot sustain maximum rated speeds, covering afterburner fuel consumption, thermal barrier limits on aluminum-alloy airframes, and exponential wave drag growth above Mach 1, with the SR-71 and MiG-31 used as illustrative edge cases. The article closes by framing adaptive variable-cycle engines as the technology that will allow next-generation fighters to overcome these constraints. This is standard military-popular-science content; its value is as a baseline record of how Chinese military media frames current fighter performance limitations and positions variable-cycle engine development as the key capability gap to close—consistent with publicly known PLA interest in propulsion programs for platforms such as the J-20.

Machine-generated from the original text, and distinct from the machine translation of the title. Not reviewed by a human. It is a reading of what was published, not a verification of it.

What this record supports

Source record This item was published at the URL above on the date the source stated.
Official claim Its contents are that institution's assertions.

It does not establish that the described events occurred, that any capability exists, or that the institution's stated position is its actual policy.

Cite this record

Two separate claims, cited separately: the item as its publisher issued it, and the record as this corpus holds it.

Source text. CMC Political Work Department. "战机飞行：不能一直“超声速”." PLA Daily (解放军报), 2026-06-24. http://www.81.cn/yw_208727/16469187.html.

As held. Indo-Pacific Record, China Desk Corpus, Record 1714, Snapshot — 2026-08-26 (3,574 records).

Processing note. The English title and summary held for this record are machine-generated and have not been reviewed by a human.

The record number and this record path are locators inside the 2026-08-26 snapshot. Neither is a DOI, accession number, permanent identifier, public permalink, or published route. See identifiers and citation guidance.