Although the Iranians do not believe that the Celestial Empire has produced advanced fighter jets, it is also worth working hard to enhance relations with the Celestial Empire and even gradually influence the Celestial Empire's military output. During this period, the Celestial Empire military factory basically did not receive any orders from its own country, and its largest customers were Iraq and Iran. The ordnance they produced was also not very technical, and it was mainly a simple-to-use weapon such as the Type 69-II tank and the Type 63 rocket launcher.

There is another characteristic of the weapons sold by the Celestial Empire, that is, they are basically imitation Soviet-style weapons, the Type 69 tank comes from the Type 59 and the captured T-62 tank technology, the Silkworm missile that made a big splash in the war comes from the Soviet Union's Styx anti-ship missile, and the F-7 is evolved from the MiG-21, and the only one that can be regarded as a pure self-produced is the Type 63 107mm rocket launcher, which is known as one of the three major conventional weapons in the world.

Ironically, this small number of early self-produced weapons of the Celestial Dynasty, the king of copycats, was eventually copied by many countries, and appeared again and again in Afghanistan, Syria and other regions, causing a big headache for Western armies, and it is still the "heavy firepower" favored by many guerrillas until the 21st century.

Less than half a week after Qi Yiming's talks with the Iranian ambassador that night, Iran sent a special delegation to evaluate and negotiate the plan proposed by the Chinese side. The delegation was basically half military and half politicians, and in addition to hoping to see the Thunder fighters, which the Chinese claim to be able to reach 70 percent of Tomcat's combat power, they also took on the task of inspecting other Chinese weapons.

Qi Yiming naturally couldn't let the Iranians run to the Dalinol base, so he towed the four FC-1s that were produced a few days ago and were specially designed to deal with the Iranians to the Yangcun Military Airport in Tianjin. This is one of the stations of the 7th Air Division of the Beijing Military Region, and in the refitting some time ago, it was also reequipped with the flying leopard fighters of an aviation regiment.

This batch of fighters is also newly refitted, after the 3?7 battle, the Air Force witnessed the outstanding performance of the Flying Leopard fighters, and at the same time, some of the more radical people believe that the Flying Leopard has no problem in dealing with medium and low-level air combat, and has a super large range and large bomb load that the J-10 does not have, and the ground and sea attack capabilities are outstanding, and the order for the Flying Leopard fighter should be given priority to the 9527 project, rather than giving priority to the purchase of J-10 fighters.

Of course, such a proposal was protested by the air superiority faction, J-10 is an excellent fighter with high-altitude high-speed interception and over-the-horizon attack capabilities, in the face of the threat of the Soviet Union's supersonic bombers in the north, it is a more rational choice to build more J-10 to defend the airspace over the country. What's more, the J-10 is a multi-mission fighter, although the bomb load is about two tons smaller than that of the Flying Leopard, but it can still complete a lot of ground missions excellently.

The debate within the Air Force has nothing to do with Qi Yiming, and they will arrange the production of whichever fighter they want. So far, in addition to the 51st Air Division, which is still stationed in southern Xinjiang, has been filled with two regiments of Flying Leopards and one regiment of Raptors, the Beijing Military Region has received one regiment of Flying Leopards and one regiment of Jian-10s, the Shenyang Military Region and the Lanzhou Military Region have each received one regiment of Jian-10s, and the Nanjing Military Region and the Guangzhou Military Region have each received one regiment of Flying Leopards. These more than 100 new fighters have greatly changed the combat capability of the Celestial Air Force.

When the Iranian delegation entered Yangcun Airport, Qi Yiming, several leaders of the Air Force, leaders of the station, and diplomats had been waiting for a long time. The head of this Iranian expedition was a major general of the Iranian Air Force named Saiyeti. Judging from the fact that a military member is the head of the delegation, Iran's consideration of the actual combat value of this matter must be greater than that of politics and diplomacy. So if the Thunder doesn't satisfy the Iranians, the deal will still fall through.

This Air Force Major General must have a professional level, but his most praised ability is not to fly fighter planes or command the Air Force, but to show his ability to be loyal. After the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the most powerful air force in West Asia suffered a huge blow, and a large number of excellent pilots and technicians either fled to other countries or were directly purged, and the strength of the remaining air force of the Islamic Republic was comparable to that of the past.

It was by virtue of standing in the right line and resolutely implementing Khomeini's purge policy that Saiyeti sat firmly in his position.

Saiyeti said to Qi Yiming, who greeted them, through an interpreter: "I know that your country has been exporting F-7 fighters, unfortunately our enemy is equipped with nearly 100 fighters produced in your country, although it has caused us a certain amount of trouble, but even compared with F-4 and F-5 fighters, F-7 is not enough, if your country wants to change to F-14 in our hands, then I am afraid you have to come up with something better." Oh, and just be clear, even if you upgrade the F-7, we won't want to adopt it. ”

Feeling the distrust of the Iranians, Qi Yiming didn't care, but just stretched out his hand and said: "Your Excellency Major General, please take a look, there is not a single J-7 in this airport, so if you want to see the J-7, I'm afraid it won't be able to satisfy you." J-7 is already a product of the previous generation in our country, because of its low price and mature performance, we are now mainly selling this fighter to the underdeveloped countries of the third generation. And we have begun to gradually withdraw the J-7 and the J-8 of the same generation in active service, and the J-6 of the previous generation. ”

Although Saiyeti is not an expert on China's military weapons, he also knows that the J-8 has obviously been equipped with weapons that China has not been equipped with for a long time, and it is simply unimaginable that the person in charge said that China will gradually withdraw it from active service. Saiyeti selfishly felt that this was a person from the Celestial Empire who slapped his swollen face and became fat and said nonsense, but he didn't expose it, and he was preparing to visit the plane by the airport.

There are different fighters parked on the left and right, a large column on the left is a large number, which should be the original troops stationed at this military airfield, and the fighter planes on the right are smaller, only four.

"Is this the FC-1 Thunder fighter that you are going to provide to our country? It looks a bit like an F-5. Saiyeti said with some disappointment.

Qi Yiming didn't know how the Iranian Air Force Major General associated the Thunder with the freedom fighter, he shook his head and said: "The difference is very big, the Thunder uses the aerodynamic layout of a new generation of fighters, the large side wing has good climbing performance, and the aircraft also uses a medium-thrust turbofan engine, with a thrust-to-weight ratio of 8, well, this is still stronger than the F-14." Although this is a light fighter, but there are its very eye-catching advantages, first of all, it is extremely excellent in the avionics system, although the new Doppler pulse radar we installed is small, but the power will not be inferior to the AGW-9 of the F-14 too much, I think the more excellent thing is that this fighter not only has four redundant fly-by-wire control, but also its cockpit design is very intuitive, with a flat panel display with three flats. The operation is easy to use, and the pilot only needs to grasp the joystick to complete almost all tasks. ”

Sai Yeti nodded, and he didn't know how much he listened, but pointed to a row of flying leopards next to him, and asked, "Is this also a fighter equipped by your air force?" It looks like it should be bigger and more powerful than the FC-1, why don't you give us this kind of plane? ”

"This is the J-7 Flying Leopard fighter of our Air Force, a heavy fighter-bomber, not a pure fighter, and the main task of the F-14 is completely different, mainly used for ground-to-sea bombing, although the air combat capability is there, but compared with the same generation of F-14, F-15, it is still inferior, and even compared to the F-16 such a medium-sized aircraft are inferior. Of course, it can still easily win against second-generation aircraft such as the F-4, F-5 or Mig-21, because the Flying Leopard also has the ability to fight in over-the-horizon air. This fighter has a range of more than 4,000 kilometers on auxiliary fuel tanks, which is more suitable for a country like China with a vast territory and a long sea frontier. It can carry up to nine tons of ammunition, which is basically more powerful than some relatively early bombers, and it also has the ability to strike with precision. ”

After hearing this, Saiyeti nodded again and again, and said: "This fighter is good, it can carry nine tons of bombs, and your country must plan to use it to carry nuclear weapons." ”

Qi Yiming couldn't help but sweat: "Although we have such an ability, we shouldn't use the flying leopard as a nuclear launch platform." ”

"Why don't these two fighters fly up and show us." Saiyeti suggested.

Qi Yiming didn't care that the Iranians fell in love with the Flying Leopard, because the Flying Leopard originally had an export version of the FBC-1 model in later generations, but this thing is really not a weapon that a small country dares to use, the firepower is too strong, and the attack attribute is obvious, so it is not a mainstream weapon, and the export figure has always been 0.

"Remind you that the price of a Flying Leopard fighter is twice that of the Thunder, and if you want to replace the Flying Leopard, our business will have to be renegotiated."

"Zhilu Dao, please arrange an air show for us." Saiyeti doesn't care about authenticity.

The whole tour and evaluation project arranged for the study team began with the air show. Two veteran pilots from the base will demonstrate the specific flight performance of the fighter to the Iraqi side. Although the Flying Leopard was temporarily inserted into the queue, fortunately, the pilot also has the ability to fly the J-7, and there is no problem at all.

The first to be shown is the Thunder Dragon that Qi Yiming most wants to sell, this performance aircraft does not carry any weapons on the wings according to convention, this is to pursue the greatest drag reduction. After sliding a short distance off the runway, the Thunder took to the air and burrowed into the sky.

At this time, a lieutenant colonel of the Iranian Air Force exclaimed: "Such a short take-off distance, not even 500 meters, right?" ”

Qi Yiming explained with a smile: "The take-off of the FC-1 when it is fully loaded is more than 600 meters, and there are no weapons and all the fuel for today's performance, so it can get up in about four or five hundred meters." ”

People in the Iranian Air Force have a lot of discussions, although the short take-off distance of the glide run is not a particularly important indicator, but it still has a certain combat value. On short runways with poor conditions, or runways that cannot be fully utilized by attacks, fighters such as F-4 and F-14 cannot take off at all, but the Thunder can take off freely, which is a real combat advantage.