Ho Weigui Naval Aviation Base on the inner island.

The island is between the Howaii Islands, almost 1,000 kilometers east to Honou Island and about 1,000 kilometers west to Transit Island. As for this naval aviation base, it is named after Admiral Ho Weigui, a heroic pilot of World War II and later the commander-in-chief of naval aviation. It was also one of the main air bases of the Imperial Navy on the Khowaii Islands.

Unlike those aviation bases in the east, the He Weigui base mainly serves patrol aircraft.

In peacetime, 1 detachment of anti-submarine patrol aircraft is stationed at the base, totaling more than 60 units, two-thirds of which are deployed.

It's just that the base certainly accommodates more than a few dozen anti-submarine patrol aircraft.

Prior to the entry of the Nuland Republic into the war, the Imperial Navy had enhanced the deployment capabilities of the He Weigui base, sending a large amount of logistical support equipment to the base.

The point is that the inner island is located right in the middle of Hounu Island and the transit island.

In addition, the inner islands are much larger than transit islands and larger than the other islands to the west, allowing for the construction of large military bases and the deployment of more combat aircraft.

According to the deployment, the inner island plays the role of connecting the transit island with Honou Island.

At all times, the anti-submarine patrol planes deployed on the inner island were the main force to cover the sea routes to Zhenbao Harbor, and they also took on the heavy responsibility of covering Honu Island in wartime.

Only now the task of naval aviation is to cover the transit island to the west.

After checking the dozens of instruments in front of him again, Zhu Tingxuan gave a thumbs up to the orderly standing outside the cabin, indicating that he was ready to take off.

The order chief made a standby sign sign to signal that the fighters behind him were not ready.

There are a total of 4 "Zhan-9", and only Zhu Tingxuan's one is "Zhan-9A", and the other 3 are "Zhan-9B".

This is Zhu Tingxuan's second fighter.

On the morning of 4 July, after escaping a catastrophe in an air battle, Zhu Tingxuan was unable to fly a fighter plane back to Wallace Air Force Base and made a forced landing more than 200 kilometers east of Honu Island. The main thing is that he consumes too much fuel while dodging attacks, and he doesn't get the help of a tanker.

Fortunately, the forced landing went smoothly, and Zhu Tingxuan and his partner Hu Haitao were not injured.

In addition, after about four hours at sea, the two were fished up by a seaplane and returned to Wallace Air Force Base that afternoon.

Subsequently, several more pilots of the crew were rescued.

All of them were forced to make a forced landing on the sea surface on the way back because the fuel burned out.

As for the personnel on board the fighter and AWACS aircraft that were shot down during the battle, they have not yet been found and are temporarily included in the list of missing persons.

According to the arguments given by the Air Force, enemy planes were already approaching the Khowaii Islands and could be bombed at any time, so they did not dare to risk sending out tankers. When Zhu Tingxuan and the others returned, the Air Force was doing its best to evacuate the combat planes deployed at the forward bases. The few tankers were sent to the west to serve those tactical aircraft that were retreating to the rear, not caring for the Navy at all.

The day at Wallace Air Force Base was spent on a physical examination to determine if he had sustained internal injuries during the forced landing.

It was not until the night of the 5th that Zhu Tingxuan and Hu Haitao boarded an air force transport plane and returned from Wallace Air Force Base to Li Mingbo Naval Air Station on Guan Island.

There are several "Zhan-9A" waiting for Zhu Tingxuan and Hu Haitao here.

It's a pity that Hu Haitao has already been appointed, and Zhu Tingxuan has also met his new partner Liu Chengfan, a novice who has just graduated from the Naval Aviation Academy.

In fact, they only stayed on Guan Island for more than 10 hours.

During this period, the two only flew into the sky once, and they had a basic understanding of each other.

After that, on the afternoon of 6 July, Zhu Tingxuan received an order from Zhenbao Harbor to immediately fly a fighter plane to He Weigui's base on the inner island.

Because the transit island was attacked, and the 41st Task Force was not near the transit island, Zhu Tingxuan and his team could only make a detour to the south, not only brought two large auxiliary fuel tanks, but also carried out an air refueling in the southeast of Wei Island, and flew for six hours to reach the inner island.

During this trip, he provided escort services for several transport planes heading to Honu Island.

It was only after arriving at He Weigui's base that Zhu Tingxuan learned from the commander of the aviation unit that he would lead the team to carry out a special mission.

Fly fighter jets to Ebony Air Base in the Aliu Islands.

Of course, it is not a transfer flight, but a reconnaissance mission, focusing on the search of the sea area 1,500 kilometers north of the transit island.

It's just that, it's not that difficult.

The straight-line distance from transit island to ebony island is only more than 3,000 kilometers, while the "Zhan-9A" has a transfer range of 3,500 kilometers after attaching two large auxiliary fuel tanks. Even if you get into some trouble along the way, you can refuel in the air after flying to the Aliu Islands.

Obviously, this operation is not so simple.

Because they were afraid of being intercepted, they had to lower their altitude before reaching the reconnaissance area.

According to the plan, at least 1,500 kilometers of the range must be flown at low altitudes.

This means that you consume almost half as much fuel as you would if you were flying at high altitudes!

Obviously, even with 2 large auxiliary fuel tanks, the "Battle-9A" will not be able to fly so far, and there will not even be enough fuel to complete the search range.

For this, only the necessary changes can be made to the fighter.

The first step was to remove unnecessary equipment to reduce weight, and to make changes to the main hardpoints under the wings so that they could be used to mount drop tanks.

Because of the use of variable sweep wings and stepless control, the "Zhan-9" only sets up a heavy-duty external hardpoint on the lower surface of the inner fixed section, and it is a composite hardpoint, usually hanging on one long-range air-to-air missile and two combat missiles, and can also carry bombs when necessary.

However, the anchor point does not have an oil transfer interface.

The main thing is that there is a special auxiliary fuel tank hanging point under the air intake, and it can be attached to a large auxiliary fuel tank of 2200 liters.

Fortunately, the "Zhan-9" uses a monolithic wing box fuel tank, and the pipe connecting the wing fuel tank passes through the top of the underwing hardpoint.

In other words, only the fuel transfer interface needs to be added to mount the auxiliary fuel tank at the underwing anchorage.

In fact, during the test flight stage, the "Zhan-9" did similar tests. With four large fuel tanks attached, the transfer range reached an astonishing 5,000 kilometers. Because there was no need for this at all, and the "Zhan-9" was already overweight, in the mass production stage, in order to meet the weight reduction target proposed by the Air Force, the fuel transfer interface of the underwing hardpoint with a mass of 25 kg was simply canceled.

Fortunately, the base has been prepared for a long time.

After several hours of busy work, I finally got all 4 "Zhan-9" planes.

In addition to making changes to the underwing hardpoints, at least 2 tons of weight was saved by removing unnecessary equipment, especially Zhu Tingxuan's "Zhan-9A".

This is 1 of the first batch of "Battle-14A", which has been in service with the Imperial Navy for 9 years.

After retiring from the front-line forces, the fighter first served in shore-based aviation for several years, after which it was transferred to the Imperial Naval Aviation Academy.

Not as a trainer aircraft, but in the "Golden Eagle" unit for elite pilots.

To put it simply, it is to act as an imaginary enemy, and to play the main opponent of the "Battle-9", the F-14 fighter of the Nuland Navy.

As a result, the fighter has not undergone any modernization in its more than 10 years of service.

On the contrary, because of the high-intensity use, the life of the fighter body is almost exhausted, and many structural parts have been strengthened in the "Golden Eagle" unit.

There is no way around it, the "Golden Eagle" forces have not yet found a replacement fighter, and the Navy command will not spend money on the purchase of new fighters for it. As long as it can be used, even if it is repaired, it is much better than not having a fighter jet available.

In other words, compared to other "Zhan-9A", the empty weight of this "Zhan-9A" is almost 1 ton more!

Because in confrontation training, the take-off weight can be reduced by reducing the fuel load or by hanging fewer missiles, so even if the air is heavier, it will have no effect.

As a result, after the completion of the transformation, the empty weight of this "Zhan-9A" was reduced by almost 3 tons.

If it weren't for the fact that some structural parts could not be replaced, it would be possible to reduce hundreds of kilograms more.

It's just that after such a transformation, the four "Zhan-9s" have all lost their air combat capability, and Zhu Tingxuan's one does not even have basic air detection capabilities because the radar has been removed. If you encounter an enemy plane on the way, let alone fight back, I am afraid that you will not notice it until you are attacked by missiles.

In Zhu Tingxuan's view, this is not a big deal.

Even if the base commander did not say it explicitly, the pilot could have thought that this trip would definitely be more than lucky.

Since they are holding the idea that they will not be able to come back, or that they will not be able to reach the Ebony Air Base, what else is there to worry about?

As for the purpose of the mission, it was to find the Nuland fleet operating in the Guia Ocean, but it was not a task force, but an amphibious landing fleet.

When arranging the tasks, the commander of the aviation forces made it very clear.

As long as the amphibious landing fleet of the Nuland Navy is found, it can be concluded that the Nuland Navy will attack the transit island in the near future, so the task force of the Nuland Navy must also be looking north and east. Only after this judgment has been made will the Naval Command send the 41st Task Force over.

If anything, the primary purpose of this mission is still to find the Nurant Mixed Fleet with five aircraft carriers.

Otherwise, even if the Nuland army landed on the Transit Island, the Navy Command would not let Task Force 41 risk entering the war.

How important this task is, Zhu Tingxuan knows in his heart.

In a few minutes, the three fighters behind were ready to take off.

The other three crews are also from shore-based aviation, and all three pilots have thousands of hours of flying experience, but they have not participated in actual combat.

It is precisely because of this that Zhu Tingwei was allowed to serve as the leader of the captain.

In fact, this "long machine" identity has little meaning.

According to the arrangement, after takeoff, the four fighters had to be separated before they reached the key search area, so as to expand the search area as much as possible.

That is, before that, they were led by the captain of the long plane, and after that, they flew separately.

In addition, in order to avoid premature exposure, the four fighters had to be kept on radio silence for the entire time unless the Nuland fleet was discovered.

In this way, the long machine is even more meaningless.

In fact, the biggest significance is to burn hundreds of kilograms of fuel oil. That is, in the state of formation flight, the long plane with the flight cannot use the ascending vortex generated by other aircraft, while the fighter following can use the accretive vortex, so the long plane consumes more fuel than other fighters.

Of course, whether or not a few hundred kilograms of fuel is used more, the impact is not great.

When the orderie raised the yellow flag and began to wave it, Zhu Tingxuan started the two engines in turn and checked the main instruments one last time.

To say, the control system of the "Zhan-9A" is much more complex than that of the "Zhan-9B", and there are more than a dozen more instruments alone.

Fortunately, Zhu Tingwei had flown the "Zhan-9A" before and was very familiar with this kind of fighter, so there was no feeling of being in the cockpit and not being able to touch the north.

As the engines reached their maximum thrust for takeoff, the sergeant also raised the green flag.

After saluting the orderly, Zhu Tingxuan pulled down the night vision device mounted on the helmet before releasing the brake.

Amid a deafening roar, the "Zhan-9A" roared and rushed to the runway.

Because the fighting was still going on and it had been bombed before, the lights at the base were controlled at night, and even the lights on the runway were not to be used.

In fact, there is also a "runway" on the beach about 2 kilometers from the base.

It was a fake target temporarily set up by the officers and soldiers of the base, but it was actually very simple, that is, dozens of high-power lights were installed along two straight lines on the beach, disguised as a runway.

Looking down from above at night, it's really easy to make a misjudgment.

Of course, with night vision glasses, you can definitely see the runway clearly.

It took almost 1,000 meters to reach take-off speed.

This is something that cannot be helped, even if the empty weight is reduced by nearly 3 tons, because 4 large auxiliary fuel tanks are hung and special reconnaissance equipment is carried, so the "Zhan-9A" has reached the maximum take-off weight of the design. If there is no catapult, it is necessary to glide long enough.

Behind, 3 "Zhan-9B" had a much shorter glide range.

The main thing is that the "Zhan-9B" uses a new engine, and the thrust is increased by 30% compared with the "Zhan-9A", so with the same take-off weight, the gliding distance of the "Zhan-9B" is definitely shorter. Even on an aircraft carrier, the Battle-9B can lift off at lower deck winds, or appropriately reduce the steam pressure of the catapult, so that the catapult can last longer and extend the interval between maintenance.

However, Zhu Tingxuan is not concerned about these.

After a successful liftoff, Zhu Tingxuan first piloted the fighter to climb to an altitude of 8,000 meters.

Actually, it was not "the first", because while the fighter he was piloting was still climbing, the other 3 fighters had already caught up.

Subsequently, Liu Chengfan, who was in the back seat, got in touch with the navigators of other fighters.

After confirming that there were no problems with the four fighters, Zhu Tingxuan did not delay any longer and gave an order.

According to the plan, 4 fighters turned off all radio communication equipment.

From this moment on, unless they fly all the way to Ebony Air Base, there will be news of these 4 fighters only after the discovery of the Nuland fleet.

In the vastness of the ocean, these 4 fighters are more like 4 inconspicuous specks of dust.

As for whether he can complete the task, let alone Zhu Tingxuan, even Bai Huawei, who arranged the task, has no bottom in his heart.

It would take great courage and good luck to send four fighters deep into the Guia to search for the heavily protected Nuland fleet.

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