An important invisible sign of modern fighter aircraft is the golden cockpit. The technology of cockpit cover gold plating is very difficult, because the coating should be highly uniform, the thickness of cockpit cover should be strictly controlled, and the opacity or transparency of cockpit cover will be greatly reduced, which will affect the operation. It's useless if it's too thin. Besides, it's durable and can't fall off.
Its materials are also basically rare metals, such as gold, indium, rare earth and tin, especially indium.
Firstly, the U.S. Army equipped with gold cockpit, whose gold cockpit cover is not exported and the cost is high, and seldom produced after the Cold War. Now, when we see the gold cockpit cover, American fighter planes can be said to have been members of the Air Force stationed in Europe before. Now, F-22 and F-35 also have gold cockpit cover, but even F-22 does not actually have all gold cockpit cover, because there is no great threat to the United States. The army did so.
Gold hatch has a clear golden color, platinum hatch is almost colorless, but the surface is very shiny, brighter than gold hatch, not like glass hatch, but like gemstone hatch, also known as gemstone hatch.
As the United States does not export the gold cockpit, China has successfully tested the gold cockpit on the J-20 fighter plane. So Japan is very anxious now.
The Japanese F-35 fighter without a gold cockpit is not a stealth fighter fundamentally, because its cockpit is so large that its reflection will be very large, so Japan urgently needs indium.
Shape stealth is the main means of aircraft stealth, but cockpit is unavoidable in aircraft for driving.
The driver can enter and exit the cockpit and observe things outside the cockpit through the cockpit glass. Cockpit glass is a kind of non-conductive aeronautical glass, which transmits wave.
Cockpit glass as a curved surface reflects radar waves, while radar waves shine through the glass onto the dense instruments in the cockpit, it will form numerous corner reflectors.
In order to eliminate corner reflectors in aircraft stealth design, conductive materials are usually coated on hatch cover and windshield glass to make it a conductive skin of aircraft. In this way, the radiation to the cockpit and radar wave energy will be converted to
The form of electromagnetic wave is transmitted to the fuselage skin. Indium is absolutely indispensable if you want to make a gold cockpit.
The distribution of indium in the crust is relatively small and very dispersed. Its rich ore has not been found, and 90% of the world's indium production comes from by-products of lead and zinc smelters. China is the world's largest producer of primary indium, with a global reserves of about 16-19,000 tons and 13,000 tons. China is the world's largest supplier of primary indium.
In addition to the gold cockpit, indium is the key material for the next generation of computer chips (InSb), and there is no substitute for it.
In 2006, Japan listed indium as a priority reserve, but only China was the importer. The United States is also one of the largest importers of indium from China. It can be said that the United States, Japan and other countries are now trying to obtain indium, the most precious underground treasure in China. The future world is a high-tech world, high-tech products absolutely indium, there is no substitute. In addition, indium colloids for liver, spleen and bone marrow scanning can not be lacked in low-melt alloys, bearing alloys, semiconductors, electric light sources, medicine, etc. Its strategic value is even greater than that of oil.