Great Power Fighting Falcon

"Hey, hey, eighty, ninety-eight, time to take off." The tower gave the order.

Li Zhan replied, "I received it eight and ninety-eight."

Niu Jun was still excited, even though he had already flown once yesterday. She may be the only non-pilot in the country who has the opportunity to sit in the back cabin of a fighter jet and fly with her. She is very grateful that her usual hobby is photography, because she has achieved some success in this hobby. She is already a member of the National Photography Association, and her skills are reliable.

When he was in school, Li Zhan always liked to look at Niu Jun's photos. The fundamental reason was that Niu Jun was a photography enthusiast, so he had to go with the girls he liked! Not only can Niu Jun take photos, she was also a well-known graphic model in school when she was in school.

Li Zhan pushed the throttle lever, and the two Spey engines of Old Leopard screamed "hehehe" and burst out with powerful thrust to push the fighter plane to start taxiing. There is a very obvious difference between the sound of British-made aircraft engines and Russian-made aircraft engines. The former sounds like a low-pitched sneer, which is more restrained and soft, while the latter sounds like a grumpy old man, roaring and rushing.

To use another analogy, aviation engines from Western countries, including British ones, are characterized by being slow to start but durable in running, while aviation engines made in the Soviet Union and Russia are explosive in power but not durable in running. The two will learn from each other's strengths and develop a more perfect aero engine.

Therefore, our country's aero-engine development work is very slow and difficult.

In the darkness, JH-7 No. 81198 climbed steadily like a passenger plane taking off, turned in the same way as a passenger plane leaving the field, and pointed its nose in the direction of the exercise sea area. The faint tail flame emitted from the engine nozzle is very eye-catching in the irrelevant night sky.

Dai Wenming had already taken off with other fighters, and Li Zhan was the last one to leave.

Climbing to an altitude of 7,000 meters, the sun can already be seen at about four in the morning at this altitude. In the direction of the left wing, the wing tip is almost level with the sun.

"What a beautiful sunrise." Niu Jun couldn't help but raise his camera to take a photo, sighing with emotion.

Li Zhan said, "Flying across day and night can see the rotation of day and night. The disadvantage is that people can easily have visual illusions when switching between day and night. It is not uncommon for the directions of heaven and earth to be reversed."

"Yes, looking at the sea from this height, the darkness is no different from the night sky. If there are no stars in the sky, it would be too dangerous to mistake the sea for the sky." Niu Jun consumed the life of his shutter and took many photos. A high-altitude sunrise from an angle.

She adjusted the camera to photography mode. From the lens, the sky and the earth were like a pot and its lid. The beautiful arcs at the intersection were glowing with light. It started to dispel the darkness, which always made people feel comfortable.

The time of joy is short-lived.

The early warning aircraft called Li Zhan: "Angry Old Leopard, this is the command post. My radar has recognized you. Maintain the heading. Maintain the altitude of 8,044. The planned contact frequency is over."

"Angry Old Leopard received it, maintain course, altitude eight thousand four, planned contact frequency, completed."

Li Zhan gently pulled the lever and climbed to 8,400 meters, maintaining the heading and continuing to fly south. At the same time, he chose wave number one, which was exactly what entered the jurisdiction of the exercise headquarters. The range is nearly a thousand kilometers and takes more than 20 minutes to fly.

Niu Jun has been trained before, so Niu Jun knows what to do when and what to do - that is, do nothing and say nothing except filming. When she needs any angles or additional shots, she needs to report it to the command post, and it can only proceed after the command post approves it.

JH-7 No. 81198 is an early model, and it is the first batch of Bao Ye, the one with the green radome. As long as you see the green-headed leopard, it must be from the navy. The JH-7A later purchased by the Air Force had a black radome. Changed the model of new avionics.

The backward avionics system was one of the reasons why the Air Force abandoned the Feibao. After entering the 21st century, my country's avionics technology has advanced rapidly. The Feibao ushered in the improved Type A, and its performance indicators have improved a lot.

But even though he is an old Leopard, Li Zhan can still feel the confidence that No. 81198 JH-7 gave him. The maximum range of more than 3,700 kilometers gave him great confidence, and the maximum bomb load of 5 tons gave the pilot the strength to single-handedly challenge a maritime squadron.

Many years ago, a magazine cover published a photo of the fully loaded JH-7, which was equipped with four air-to-ship missiles and two air-to-air missiles. From that time on, the name of the Takeoff Leopard resounded throughout the country. It was the most advanced and powerful aircraft at the time. The most powerful domestically produced fighter jet.

Little did they know how much private money the Navy had spent to keep this fighter aircraft. As a result, after the A-type came out, the Air Force brother took a fancy to it, and orders flew to the manufacturer like snowflakes. The result was that the Navy had to let the Air Force get the aircraft first, and then picked up the aircraft itself.

At that time, the Navy did not hesitate to use private money to carry out the Feibao project. In order to ensure smooth operation, it also assigned the FBC-1 foreign trade project title and spent a lot of resources to allow Feibao to join the naval aviation force. The fundamental reason is that the Flying Leopard's ultra-long range is very, very important to the navy. It is simply a weapon to "boil the eagle"!

The combat radius of the Flying Leopard is larger than that of the early model F-15, and it is three to four hundred kilometers larger. There is no need to fight when there is a confrontation between the sea and the air. You can bring the opponent back with just the battery life.

Among HNA's several fighter jets, only the Shuih-5 has a maximum range of more than 3,000 kilometers. This aircraft once shouldered the heavy responsibility of HNA's long-sea cruise. It has reached as far as Zengmu Shoal, but it was a modified seaplane. Bombers even have limited bombing capabilities and cannot truly reflect their military presence.

Before being equipped with the J-11, only the Flying Leopard could do this, and for so many years it was the only fighter that could demonstrate military power in the far sea and airspace to defend the country's territorial sovereignty.

From this point of view, Feibao is of great significance.

The aviation force participating in the "Rejection-2012" live-fire exercise consists of the Su-30MK2, JH-7A, J-8D of the Bald Eagle Division, and four J-15s and one J-11B of the Flying Shark Force. The main point pointed out is that the J-11B driven by Han Hongjun was borrowed from the Air Force. Before the Air Force can deploy a certain number of J-11 and J-10 series fighters, HNA will have to wait.

It can be roughly seen from the composition of the aviation units participating in the exercise that when the superiors requested the Flying Shark unit to participate in the exercise, they may have considered using the J-15 to improve the average technical level of the air unit.

The J-15 has the ability to defeat any carrier-based fighter jet in the world. Unless you encounter a fourth-generation machine, even if you encounter any third-generation machine or a third-generation and a half machine, you still have a very good chance of winning.

Just imagine, if the People's Navy has thirteen 100,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, equipped with thirteen aircraft carrier battle groups, each aircraft carrier is equipped with a fighter brigade and an attack aircraft brigade plus a combat support group. 700 J-15s are cruising in various oceans around the world. If they are fully loaded, they can carry 5,600 tons of ammunition. Just ordinary aerial bombs can cover some small countries in Europe. What a scene!

Not counting the development cost, the project cost of a 100,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is about 15 billion yuan. Including the cost of the carrier-based aircraft and the cost of the frigates, calculated based on the standard single-carrier battle group, it is conservatively estimated to be realized. The price is about 60 billion yuan, and ten aircraft carrier battle groups require about 600 billion yuan!

Are those people who are clamoring to equip ten nuclear-powered aircraft carriers crazy?

In 2012, my country's military budget was only 670 billion yuan. Hey, it doesn't seem expensive to use one year's military budget to buy ten nuclear-powered aircraft carrier battle groups. I support the equipping of ten nuclear-powered aircraft carrier battle groups!

"Angry Old Leopard? This is the command post, please hear the answer." The early warning aircraft called.

Li Zhan wiped his saliva and found that what he touched was an oxygen mask. He came back to his senses and said, "I got it, I was distracted. Please give me instructions. I'm done."

The commander-in-chief of the exercise on the AWACS couldn't help but glared, "You are still distracted while flying the plane. You are not worthy of the title of super ace."

The commander-in-chief issued an order, "The air strike unit is timed to attack. You will immediately form a formation with them as planned. It's over."

Li Zhan quickly replied: "Angry Lao Bao understands! It's over."

He sped up and rushed to the designated airspace. All combat units were flying according to the time points. Li Zhan had also flown according to the plan before, so he quickly sighted Dai Wenming's detachment. A J-11B painted in starry sky gray of the Air Force looks particularly eye-catching among the J-15 aircraft painted in original shit yellow of the Flying Shark Force.

At first glance, apart from the different painting and an extra pair of canards, no other differences can be seen. A closer look revealed that the J-15 is larger and has a larger main wing area.

"Security No. 1, the angry Lao Bao requested to join the formation, over." Li Zhan called Dai Wenming.

Dai Wenming replied, "You can join the formation, that's it."

"I'm joining from the right, over."

"You can join."

Li Zhan turned the control stick to approach the right side of the formation, resumed level flight at a relatively far distance, and then raised the altitude a bit, ensuring a height difference of about fifty meters with the formation. Looking to the left from this position allowed him to be condescending. See the entire air strike team.

His task is to follow the shooting, and naturally he has to find the best position.

Dai Wenming and others kept the attitude of the fighter aircraft unchanged, and kept turning their heads to see the change in the position of JH-7 No. 81198. After confirming that it was correct, Dai Wenming gave a thumbs up, then switched to a hand knife and slashed forward. After Li Zhan got the signal, thumbs up.

The air strike team immediately began to dive in formation, and Li Zhan followed closely. When shooting with a camera fighter, you need to follow the target's movements closely. Not only must you be familiar with the entire strike process, but you must also grasp the advance and lag in order to take photos or videos with different contents.

For example, now, Li Zhan can clearly follow the formation and make movements simultaneously, but in order to allow the Niu Jun in the back cabin to have different shooting angles, he needs to constantly change positions and angles, and in the process, he must always be careful not to cause collisions.

Otherwise, the fighter planes responsible for filming require highly skilled pilots to fly.

In 1992, the Navy took a set of pictures of J-8 patrolling the Xisha Islands to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Naval Aviation Force. The person in charge of shooting at that time was a J-6. It flew to Xisha with two auxiliary fuel tanks and could only stay for three to five minutes. The famous "Xisha Cruise" photography work was shot in just three to five minutes. Completed in minutes.

The photographer is awesome, and the pilot is even better. At that time, a regiment leader was driving the JJ-6 to take on this mission.

Niu Jun has started shooting crazily. There is an irrefutable truth in taking good photos - take as many photos as possible. A good photo is selected from thousands of photos. In the era without post-processing software, photographers were required to have more advanced skills.

Of course, Li Zhan's flying skills are directly related to the most important angle selection.

For example, a panoramic photo was taken from the right side of the air strike unit, looking down from the target at an angle of approximately 45 degrees. You can see the falcon-like lines of the J-15 fighter jet. Here’s another side photo of formation flying at ultra-low altitude and sea skimming altitude. If it weren’t for the shit-yellow original factory paint, wouldn’t the J-15 be just a tiger shark jumping out of the sea to launch a ferocious attack on its target?

Therefore, it has the reputation of flying shark.

Niu Jun made requests while filming, and Li Zhan posed according to Niu Jun's needs. Sometimes they follow the formation and fly across the sea at ultra-low altitude, sometimes they accelerate to overtake and make a zero-altitude turn in front of the formation to allow the cattle army to seize the opportunity to take pictures of the formation's frontal angle, or they rush towards the formation head-on at a slightly higher altitude and then accelerate from behind the formation. Enter to capture video using the pod's downward-looking camera.

Niu Jun had trained Li Zhan before, and the shooting plan had been discussed repeatedly, otherwise Li Zhan wouldn't have figured out how to make it look like a blockbuster. During the joint training the day before, Li Zhan felt that it was not easy to fly a plane to assist in shooting, and he also realized how hard it was to take the domineering and revealing photos that everyone saw.

Sure enough, no industry is easy, there are only invisible hardships.

Niu Jun was shocked by the series of thrilling scenes, and kept taking pictures in various compositions. At 6 o'clock in the morning, the fighter plane was flying at a sea-skimming altitude, and the sun had just climbed out from the line between the sea and the sky. The sunshine that came from all over the place was the best makeup pen, painting the war eagle with the color of armor. And under your feet is the sea level that is within reach. The slightly rippling water surface is sparkling, and the colors from light to dark are the palette of nature.

The old flying leopard was like a nimble fat man, flying back and forth around the air strike team that had entered a state of ultra-low-altitude sea-skimming penetration. Each pilot's helmet was equipped with a camera, and when they looked at the old flying leopard, they recorded the image of the "flexible fat man".

Han Hongjun said, "Angry Old Leopard, don't you consume a lot of fuel when flying like this?"

Of course, Li Zhan is most concerned about the fuel balance. He has encountered fuel exhaustion several times. Once bitten by a snake, he was afraid of well ropes for ten years, so he paid the most attention to the fuel level.

He said, "Everything is under control. I will make an alternate landing at Dachang Station to replenish fuel. You can fly safely and boldly."

"Security No. 1 reports to the command post, prepare to enter the attack route, completed." Dai Wenming confirmed that the fleet had entered the attack range and immediately reported to the command post.

Of course, the early warning aircraft could see their position, and the commander in charge of the air unit issued the order, "The security unit will attack the target as planned, completed."

"Security No. 1 understands and is ready to attack." Dai Wenming suddenly pulled the lever and climbed quickly. Other fighters followed closely and climbed up. At the same time, they powered on the air-to-ship missiles and turned on the airborne radar to search for targets.

The drama has begun. Li Zhan has already occupied an excellent shooting angle, waiting for the air strike team to launch air-to-ship missiles...