After the first rays of sunshine appeared in the Beiku area, the 101st Air Brigade of the Air Force officially kicked off this year's most important live-fire training.

J-11B, J-11BS, J-7E, J-7B, J-8FR, all five types of aircraft installed in the 101st Brigade participated in the live-fire training. The air targets are set up by the target aircraft brigade of the air defense base, and the ground targets are set up by the Tiger Brigade, which has been formally assigned to a certain department of the General Headquarters.

Li Zhan was finally able to taste the taste of live-fire training under high-tech conditions, and when he remembered the scene of shooting a three-leaf target in the Second Division, it was not an exaggeration to say that it was like a lifetime away.

Under the leadership of the director of ammunition, the two types of ammunition were sent to the apron using ammunition transport vehicles, and the maintenance began to be busy rigorously and quickly to check the ammunition and load the ammunition, taking advantage of the beginning of the bright sky.

Cao Fufei, the shooting director, followed Li Zhan to the tarmac and watched with interest as the officers and soldiers of Li Zhan's crew loaded ammunition for the No. 01 J-11B. Two combat empty bombs and two twin 90mm aviation rocket launchers, which were the first wave of ammunition for Li Zhan's secondary attack.

Cao Fufei is as his name suggests, slightly chubby, tall, and bigger, and it is said that his hat is specially customized, and he can't wear it in regular sizes at all. Many people think that he is a northerner, but in fact he is a genuine native of Guangdong Province and a fellow villager of Li Zhan.

"Your planes are a little domineering, especially the livery, your body is a hawk and a few domineering, oh, Zhong has five stars, Ah Zhan, don't you have seven first-class merits? Seven stars should be painted. Cao Fufei pointed to the No. 01 J-11B and said to Li Zhan in his unfamiliar hometown.

Li Zhan said with a smile, "Help Brother Zhong to paint good luck, and make a meal worse than me, and the good luck of Zhong is declining, and he almost hit the street several times, I really don't know what to say." ”

"Good luck is good, a little proud." Cao Fufei laughed.

The officers and men of the maintenance crew muttered: What kind of bird language did the captain and Director Cao say?

Waving his hand, Cao Fufei stopped joking, walked over and checked the combat empty ammunition with Li Zhan, and said, "This is the ammunition in stock, you check it a few more times before you fight, safety first." ”

"Director Cao, what do you mean by this? It's been a long time? Li Zhan raised his eyebrows and asked.

Cao Fufei pointed to the production nameplate and said, "Look, it's been more than ten years, and the model is relatively early, but it's well maintained, and it's okay to take it out and play it." In short, there is no big mistake in being careful. ”

Li Zhan looked at the PL-5C combat missile under the wing and smiled helplessly, the missile is the first close-range combat missile equipped in batches by the Chinese Air Force, and it is also the first combat missile close to the world level, the latest modification has reached the E type, but that was also ten years ago.

The short, concise but heavy PL-5C Li Zhan is the first time he has seen a real bullet, and today is also the first time to hit this thing. If you give two PL-8s, it will not be so unfamiliar, after all, the technology of PL-8 comes from Israel's strange snake, and it is much cooler to fight.

Obviously, the rear loading department has used this live-fire training to consume old stockpiled ammunition.

It's better to knock it out than to scrap it.

Li Zhan said, "If the bomb is fine, I will have no problem, and the propeller drone of the target aircraft brigade of the air defense base will be hit, and the infrared signature is relatively weak. Maybe I'll have to use an aerial gun. ”

"That's not good, if you want to use combat bullets, you have to use combat bullets, otherwise what's the point of shooting with live ammunition. You can't do this by temperament. Cao Fufei turned his head and asked Miao Yu, "Team Leader Miao, this time it is a live missile shooting, and the ammunition is not supplied to the artillery, so you don't have live ammunition in this plane, right?" ”

Cao Fufei knew that Li Zhan's plane was a combat-ready plane, and the magazine of the aircraft gun was often full. This can be seen from the location of the apron. Combat-ready aircraft with standing live ammunition have separate helipads, while others have a slidge of helipads a few hundred away. This is for safety reasons, and there will be no cascading losses in the event of an accident.

Miao Yu said, "Report to the chief, the live ammunition in the magazine has been cleared." ”

"That's good." Cao Fufei was satisfied.

Don't look at him like a senior chef with a fat head and big ears, he was an expert shooter in the Air Force before he was wounded, and won the third place in the big competition in the 90s, and made a first-class meritorious service. After being wounded, he moved to ground handling, mainly engaged in shooting teaching. After the 101st Regiment was upgraded to a brigade, he was transferred to serve as the chief of shooting, and concurrently served as the deputy director of the Flying Staff Reading Office, and the colonel of the regimental cadres.

Li Zhan asked, "Director Cao, I'll start working without other instructions." ”

"You're busy, I'll go around." Cao Fufei waved his hand, got into the commuter car, and walked away, checking on the apron one by one.

With such a large-scale live-fire training, he, the shooting director, naturally attaches great importance to it, and if he plays well, he has a result, and if he doesn't play well, it means that his ability does not meet the requirements. There is a saying that is true, it is the mule that pulls out and slips.

The reason why this live-fire training is highly valued is also because it is the last live-fire training above the scale of the year. Beginning in mid-September, the 101 st Brigade will conduct two successive confrontation drills and participate in the competition and assessment of the all-army aviation units, and after the completion of these military operations, it will be the end of the year.

Therefore, everyone from top to bottom regarded this live-fire training as an annual training summary, and the meaning of the assessment has exceeded the original intention of the training.

At 9 o'clock in the morning, the tower gave the order.

The morning sun reflected the western sky, a red sky, and magnificent clouds spread out on top of each other, resembling the Beiku Mountains. The further east you go, the clearer the sky becomes, and the castle in the sky is as clear and clean as if it has been washed.

Twelve second-hand J-11Bs and J-11BS of the Second Brigade took off in succession and rushed to the training airspace deep in the desert to carry out live firing on the ground. They carried three types of ammunition, air-to-ground missiles, ordinary aerial bombs, and aerial firearms, and were the brigade with the most complete elements of ground-attack live-fire ammunition in this live-fire training.

The Eagle Falcon Brigade usually has the most opportunities for live-fire training, and the weight of the live ammunition they shoot is more than the second team and the three teams combined by two, so the Eagle Falcon Brigade gave up an important role to the second team and the third team in this live-fire training.

The air target detachment led by Li Zhan took off after the second brigade, and they flew northward, crossed the Beiku mountain range, and then entered the training airspace, where they fired at the unmanned target planes released by the target aircraft brigade of the air defense base. The three teams will then take off after the second group starts their return flight and go to the same training airspace to fire live ammunition on the ground. By this time, more than half of the fighters of the Eagle Falcon Brigade were still on standby on the tarmac, some of which were scheduled to shoot in the afternoon, and the other part was to carry out night live-fire training missions.

Judging from the types of ammunition used in today's live-fire plan, it involves all the conventional ammunition it is equipped with, and judging from the types of aircraft dispatched, it involves all the striking forces of the air force aviation units except bombers, and in terms of scale, it can rank first in the annual live-fire training of the air force aviation units.

It is no wonder that Liang Pengfei, commander of the air defense base, personally sat on the tower.

All links were carried out in an orderly manner, and the various departments worked closely together to ensure that the plan was implemented step by step, and the cold faces of the leaders made everyone realize that they could not relax until the moment when the gong was sounded and the troops were withdrawn.

Air-to-air missile live-fire training is probably the most precious. The training plan woven by the brigade shows that a brigade is organized every year, starting with a brigade. That is to say, it takes three years to complete the live-fire training of air-to-air missiles for all pilots in the brigade, and each person shoots two.

Don't think it's a joke, it's a fact. In the past decade or so, some units have never even fired live air-to-air missiles. Air-to-air missiles, which can easily cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of missiles, are undoubtedly the most expensive ammunition, and it is impossible for the number of pilots in the entire army to become a popular live-fire training subject. This distinction is usually given to only a very small number of good pilots. One of the things that Nie Jianfeng often mentioned in the face of Li Zhan was that he had fired live ammunition from air-to-air missiles, and Li Zhan was blank in this aspect. Of course, this situation was changed after Li Zhan test-fired the monster empty bomb.

However, it should also be noted that the current situation is changing, at least in the past many years, it is basically impossible for a division and brigade to organize such live-fire training, and the air division will not be able to pass that level -- if you lose the amount of ammunition that can support a live-fire exercise in one live-fire training, is this still called training?

There is no doubt that the 101 Brigade's live-fire training will be the beginning of the Air Force Aviation Unit's all-round offensive live-fire training. The days to come will get better and better.

Li Zhan led four fighters and flew north over the Beiku Mountains and entered the training airspace located on the north side of the Beiku Mountains. This airspace is still hundreds of kilometers away from the airspace line, and the radius of hundreds of kilometers is all primitive and inaccessible, and it is a good area for live firing.

"Tower, I'm Dongyi, I've arrived at the shooting airspace and asked for a live-fire training, over." Li Zhan, who was flying at an altitude of 8,000 meters, looked left and right at the situation in the surrounding airspace and reported to the tower.

Fang Chenggong, who personally commanded the group, confirmed the location of Li Zhan's detachment from the radar and issued an order, "Dong Mi can be implemented as planned, with a course of three hundred and six and an altitude of five thousand, and it is over." ”

"Understood, the course is three hundred and six, the height is five thousand, and it is over."

As soon as Li Zhan pushed the stick, the No. 01 J-11B began to descend in altitude, and at the same time turned on the airborne radar and began to search. Search for targets, lock onto targets, attack, standard three-step shooting.

The remaining four fighters in the formation were hovering at an altitude of 8,000 meters as planned, waiting for instructions to serve as firing command planes. This is another relatively common mode of warfare, one or two fighters go forward to turn on the airborne radar to search, after detecting the target, assign the target to it, and command the wingman to attack. In this way, the concealment of combat formations can be greatly increased. Once the on-board radar is turned on, even stealth fighters will have nothing to hide.

This batch of J-11B is equipped with a domestic pulse-Doppler fire control radar, which is much more advanced than the J-11A N001 radar that follows the Su-27, the latter is huge and bulky and uses the old Cassegrain antenna, and the former uses a large-caliber planar slit antenna, and the technical gap is not a star and a half.

With the support of the domestic advanced avionics system, the J-11B has obtained a maximum air detection range of 160 kilometers and a ground detection range of XX kilometers, and is capable of tracking 12 air targets at the same time and attacking up to 6 air targets.

The highlight is that it has much better ground detection capability than the N001 radar, which theoretically has a certain ground detection capability, but in fact the effect is very bad. The batch of Su-27SKs that received the second division before was replaced with the domestic pulse-Doppler radar, otherwise the ground strike could only be carried out by aviation fire.

Li Zhan used the J-11B's airborne radar for the first time to apply anti-aircraft detection, and the effect remains to be tested in actual combat.

The radar is displayed on two color displays, the upper and lower displays, which mainly display information that is urgently needed in battle, and the downward display that shows comprehensive and detailed information. Human-computer interaction is not a product of the same era compared to the tattered cockpits of the Su-27SK and J-11A.

Li Zhan kept closing the distance, and the target was 30 kilometers ahead, and it would be a small propeller drone with a radar beam reflection area of less than one square meter, flying at an altitude of 2,000 to 3,000 meters, with an airspeed of between 200 and 300 kilometers per hour.

Typical slow target.

It's not an ideal target.

Hitting such a slow speed with a combat missile is not a very good option, and it seems to be a bit wasteful, but it seems that the superiors did it on purpose. High-speed targets are not easy to hit, and slow targets are also difficult to hit.

Li Zhan was even worried about whether he would be able to search for the target - the radar beam launch area was less than one square meter, and the effective detection range would definitely not exceed 30 kilometers, which was still the most ideal situation.

However, Li Zhan kept approaching the radar at a distance of 20 kilometers and still didn't find anything, and he was beating a drum in his heart, could it be that the domestic pulse Doppler radar carried by the J-11B was a parallel import? This is going to be a joke, you can't even see the target, what's the point?

You can't capsize in the gutter, right?

Throughout every live firing in the past, Li Zhan was able to shoot without missing a bullet, and even the most difficult to master J-7E aerial gun aerial fire to the ground has played a grand slam. If you can't hit a high-end product like a combat missile, then the joke will be a big one.

Li Zhan was muttering in his heart, and the tower called, "Dongyi, correct the target, low-altitude and low-speed small targets, the radar reflection area is much smaller than planned, pay attention to the search, over." ”

"Received by the cave, low-altitude and low-speed small targets, over." Li Zhan couldn't laugh or cry, this must be a deliberate problem in the air defense base.

In the tower, Liang Pengfei said with a smile, "I don't know how Captain Li will deal with this emergency." ”

Fang Chenghe said, "He will definitely have no problem, but as a commander, it is difficult to say how to adjust the operational deployment of the troops under sudden circumstances." ”

They all knew what he meant.

Li Zhan's personal combat effectiveness is already recognized as excellent, so excellent that it is difficult to evaluate it by the current standards, at least no evaluation mechanism can fully reflect Li Zhan's entire combat effectiveness, and Li Zhan's combat effectiveness is not at the limit.

However, as a commander, in fact, many people have not yet fully seen Li Zhan's ability to be as good as his personal combat effectiveness. Such an arrangement between the air defense base and the brigade is not without the meaning of testing.

Li Zhan's command appeared on the radio: "Good luck to come to the detachment to adjust the course of one hundred and eighteen, descend the altitude into the Beiku Mountain Range and stand by, over." ”

The air-target live-fire team led by him was ordered to quickly dive, descend to the south, and accelerate into the Beiku Mountain Range. The mountainous area is conducive to concealment, and the mountains of the Beiku Mountains are towering into the clouds, so the aircraft group can hide its tracks under the condition of having a high altitude advantage, and can quickly move forward to attack according to the orders of the command plane.

At the same time as Li Zhan gave the order, he had already quickly lowered the altitude and continued to search, and the domestic pulse Doppler radar was constantly scanning, and if the target could not be found during normal working hours, the radar should be turned off to prevent overheating and malfunctioning.

There wasn't much time left for Li Zhan.