Yun Chong's speech only lasted five minutes, which was enough for Wu Linqi and the others to go on a rather important and dangerous mission. At that time, Wu Linyan didn't understand which target he was going to bomb, but he heard one sentence clearly, that is, there will be no fighter cover for their bombing operation this time, that is to say, the target is outside the combat radius of the fighter, and they will go deep into the rear of the enemy's defense area alone, and then complete the bombing mission!

The task of Wu Linch's group of pilots was to seize the time to adapt to the environment in the Americas and reach the best combat condition as soon as possible, and this can only be accomplished through constant flights. The specific combat operations were planned by Luo Yunchong and several senior officers of the Army Aviation who came with him, and the relationship with Wu Linyan was not very large, and it was only before the operation that Luo Yunchong would explain the mission to them in detail. At that time, Luo Yunchong borrowed a lot from the experience of the British in bombing the Ruhr Dam, and the timeline of the combat mission was quite urgent, so he did not invite the pilots to draw up the battle plan together.

The training on 17 July was quite intense, and Wu Linran's first flight lasted nearly six hours, and it was carried out with the bombers carrying eight ballasts, of which three hours were all at maximum cruising speed, and there was another half an hour, and the bombers flew at maximum speed at an altitude of less than 50 meters above the sea surface. When the bomber landed on the airfield and Wu Linfang jumped off the plane, he was already sweating profusely. The rest of the crew was no better, and even their elite pilots were extremely nervous during that half-hour ultra-low-altitude high-speed flight, they had never flown at ultra-low altitude at maximum speed for such a long time before, you know. Heavy bombers fly at high altitudes most of the time, and there is no need to consider the danger of the plane crashing into the sea, while at ultra-low altitudes, as long as there is the slightest mistake in operation, the bomber will crash headlong into the sea, and the crew will also be crushed.

The other eleven crew members were in similar condition, and one pilot even wrung half a pound of sweat out of his flight suit. And Wu Linch, they only rested for less than two hours. In the afternoon, the second flight training began. At this time, these pilots could only pray that the "Peng" bomber they were flying would not malfunction, otherwise they would not even have the opportunity to complain to others.

It can be said that the performance of the batch of "Peng" bombers provided to the top pilot unit at that time was absolutely the best, and the quality of the ground crew personnel assigned to the unit was also the best. The main guarantee that the bomber will not fail mechanically. At the same time, the excellent performance of the "Peng" bomber. It was also unattainable by any other kind of bomber equipped with the Imperial Army Aviation at that time.

Compared with the previous bombers, when Hafei designed the "Peng" bomber, it did not advance in the dark, but had a lot of actual combat experience to learn from. In addition, according to some special regulations during the war, and in addition to the fact that Hafei was still fully developing the "Peregrine Falcon" and "Falcon" fighters at that time, Shen Fei and Nan Fei also participated in the design work, sharing the pressure of Hafei, and at the same time concentrating the advantages of the three aircraft factories. This laid a solid foundation for the development of the "Peng" bomber. It can be said that the design team of the "Peng" bomber at that time was the best heavy bomber design team in the Empire, including 14 academicians of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Engineering, more than 100 senior engineers, and a large number of members who had participated in the design and development of the "Wolf Dove".

However, the research of "Peng" did not go very smoothly, especially before 27 years.= There has been a lack of sufficient research and development funds. In addition, at that time, the air forces of the army and navy were engaged in their own operations. Although the Army Aviation has also purchased a lot of "wolf doves," it has been independently developing new bombers and has not participated in the development of the "Peng" land. And the Navy's key research and development objects at that time were the "Peregrine Falcon", as well as the "Falcon" and other tactical aircraft. Under so many factors, the development of the "Peng" bomber will not go much faster.

Fast has the benefit of being fast, and slow has the benefit of being slow. When the "wolf dove" began mass production, the "Peng" research and development plan was officially launched, and the navy also began to invest in research and development funds. In the next three years, the development of the "Peng" was changed again and again, and as the navy gradually reduced its investment and extended the development time, although the design team continued to complain about this, and even had to try to obtain development funds from various channels, but this also gave engineers more time to modify the details in the design and carry out more model freezing experiments. The most important thing is that in the past few years, a large number of new technologies have been born, and engineers are paying close attention to the progress of various basic science related to bombers, and constantly adding new technologies in the development process. It is precisely because of this that the basic design of the "Peng" was changed five times, during which a large number of new technologies were added, and many new methods were adopted that would not have been used in the bomber design before, so that the "Peng" bomber had excellent performance when it was born. It is also because many new technologies were first used in other fighters, so that when the "Peng" bomber is officially put into production, its cost can be effectively controlled. Relatively speaking, these are actually benefits, and of course, the delay of a few years because of this is the negative side.

If we look at the role played on the battlefield by the "Peng" bomber after its birth, the impact of the five-year development time should be good, after all, before that, the "Wolf Dove" and its many improved models were enough to undertake most of the bombing tasks, and neither the army nor the navy actually had the realistic requirements of better equipped heavy bombers. Soon after the "Peng" was officially put into production, the battle line advanced to the vicinity of the US mainland, and the navy and army also began to seek a new type of bomber that could fly farther than the "Wolf Dove" and could carry more bombs. The most important thing is that at that time, Luo Yunchong had officially become the commander-in-chief of the army aviation, and when Luo Yunchong was still in the navy, he had participated in the work of formulating the basic performance indicators of the "Peng" bomber, and he had a good understanding of the "Peng" bomber. Luo Yunchong directly cut the army's bomber development program and switched to joint research and manufacturing of the "Peng" bomber with the navy

At the same time, it also saves a lot of investment in logistics support and maintenance, and generally reduces the investment required to equip the "Peng" bomber, so that both the army and the navy can purchase more bombers under the same investment.

The addition of the army actually helped to improve the performance of the "Peng" bomber. For example, the technology of a fully airtight enclosed pressurized cockpit, which was added at a later stage, was introduced from the Army's new bombers. At that time, the Navy did not require the new bomber to be able to fly at an altitude of 10,000 meters, and at this altitude, it was necessary to use a fully airtight pressurized cockpit, and it was impossible to rely on oxygen cylinders to provide enough oxygen to the crew. In addition, the turbocharger on the engine used by the "Peng" bomber was also improved after the army joined, thereby increasing the output power of the engine at ultra-high altitude, so that the bomber could reach the maximum ceiling of 12,000 meters, and at an altitude of 10,000, the output power of the engine could still reach the level of about sixty percent of the sea level, which was already a remarkable achievement at that time.

It can be said that the "Peng" bomber was the first major result of cooperation between the army and navy aviation at that time, and it was also the first major change brought about by Luo Yunchong after he became commander-in-chief of the army aviation. At that time, Xifei and Chengfei successively joined the production work, and successively set up their own production lines. The first place to place a large-scale order was also land aviation. In the middle of 27 years, that is, when the first batch of demonstrators of the "Peng" bomber had just been completed and the factory test flight had not yet been completed, Luo Yunchong added the purchase funds of 250 "Peng" bombers to the purchase order in the second half of the year, which provided the basis for the army aviation to first equip the "Peng" bomber. Maybe. When the Navy launched the "Peng" bomber development program, it did not think at all that it was not the Navy that would be the first to buy it, and the most active was not the Navy, but the Army Air Force.

It was precisely because the Peng bomber was the result of the efforts of almost all the Empire's large aircraft designers and engineers that the Peng bomber became the ultimate bomber of the piston era. At that time, the closest in performance to it was the US Army Aviation that began to equip .9 in 27. Although the equipment time of place B is much earlier than that of "Peng". However, its research and development plan was launched nearly a year later than that of "Peng". At the same time, its performance is also slightly worse than that of "Peng". Both bombers eventually had a large number of modifications, and the "Peng" was designed with room for improvement, so the performance of its modification was much better than that of the B-29.

In fact, the advantages and disadvantages of the two bombers can also be seen from the time they have been in service. The last modification of the B-29 was withdrawn from the U.S. Air Force less than 15 years after the war, and the 20-year period of the U.S. Air Force without strategic bombers began. Opposite. A large number of improved versions of the Peng remained in service with the Imperial Air Force until more than 20 years after the end of the war. Of course, the B-29 was decommissioned prematurely. It is also related to the treaty signed at that time. However, in some other countries, the improved version of the "Peng" and its derivatives have been in service for more than 40 years, and it has been in service for the entire century, becoming the world's longest-serving piston heavy bomber.

At that time, some of the performance of the "Peng" was not only not possessed by other bombers, but even by piston fighters of the same era. For example, it reached a ceiling of up to 12,000 (during army test flights. and even flew to the altitude of 13674 with no load), at that time there was not a single piston fighter whose power ceiling was able to reach this height. In addition, its maximum bomb load of 9.7 tons (the maximum bomb load of the army during test flights once reached 5 tons) also surpassed all ground bombers at that time, and even the B-29, which the Americans have been proud of for decades, can only carry a maximum of 9 tons of ground bombs. Yes, its speed of 620 miles per hour at an altitude of 8500 was faster than that of all heavy bombers of the time, and even many fighters could not reach this speed at this altitude.

These extreme performances endowed the "Peng" bomber with extremely strong combat effectiveness. In addition, the excellent design of some details also gives the "Peng" bomber the ability to perform special missions. For example, its super-large bomb bay provided an improved basis for later mounting of super-sized bombs and even atomic bombs. At the same time, huge internal space of the body. The basis was laid for the later conversion into an air tanker, or even an AWACS aircraft. It adopts a full-box wing load-bearing structure. It was possible to mount large bombs or other loads under the wings of the bomber, thus giving birth to several specialized experimental models. Later, the first experimental aircraft to break through the speed of sound in level flight was lifted off under the wing of the "Peng" bomber. It can be said that the "Peng" bomber was later able to derive dozens of models, and the Luftwaffe even secretly seized several "Peng" bombers that were forced to land on its airfield, and then copied a similar heavy bomber, all because of its excellent basic design and some advanced design concepts. It was also through the design work of the "Peng" bomber that the empire obtained a large number of excellent bomber design engineers, thus laying the foundation for the later development of more and better bombers. Of course, that's all for later.

As one of the first pilots to fly the "Peng" bomber, Wu Linchan was quite honored, and when he flew the new bomber into the sky for the first time, Wu Linchan realized that this bomber would change the face of the entire air war and even all future wars. Of course, he didn't know it at the time, but what really made the "Peng" bomber famous was the special bombing operation that would forever remain in the annals of war history. As a veteran pilot, Wu Linchan intuitively felt how much impact this new bomber would have on the war.

Several months of high-intensity training allowed Wu Linfang to master all the performance characteristics of the new bomber, but compared to this mission, this is still not enough, he must not only master the performance of the new bomber, but also must have the ability to skillfully control the bomber in a special environment. This is not only a requirement for Wu Linyan, but also a requirement for all the pilots of his twelve crews, but the time left for them at that time was quite limited, and it can even be said that there is no time for training!