Watching the Thunder do a flight show, you can't expect it to do anything too amazing like the Su-35 and F-22, in fact, there are no too amazing actions in this era that will appear at air shows and other events.

After the Thunder Dragon went into the sky, it did a few relatively normal flight actions, first a large-angle hovering, which mainly reflected the excellent overload capacity of the aircraft. Then the pilot did another somersault, which of course was not a windmill wheel-like maneuver that could only be done with a vector engine, and the plane would still fly a relatively long distance to avoid entering a stall tailspin. But even so, this somersault is very beautiful, reflecting the excellent maneuverability of the Thunder fighter.

Next, there are actions such as breaking S, lazy 8 figures, vertical rolling and climbing, etc., which are even more smooth and freehand, which of course has the reason why the pilots sent by Qi Yiming are too capable, but it also intuitively shows the maneuverability of Xiaolong.

Since Qi Yiming and Liao Huairen discussed the way to make money by exporting arms, Qi Yiming planned to rely on this famous foreign trade aircraft in China as a breakthrough in later generations. In real history, Pakistan wanted to get a fighter jet to replace the J-6 supplied by China after receiving a grant from the United States. At the beginning, Pakistan's idea was to use the American F404 engine on the basis of the J-7, and then change the nose air intake of the J-7 to the air intake on both sides of the nose, and install advanced radar in the nose. At the time, the project was called Saber-II, and it was largely the responsibility of Grumman, but it was not successful. Later, in order to earn this cooperation fee, Grumman encouraged China to cooperate with Singapore to develop a light fighter based on Saber-II, which is also known as the Super Seven. After the 90s, Sino-US relations took a sharp turn for the worse, and the matter was also closed.

Later, China approached the MiG Design Bureau, which was not very satisfactory, from which it got an improved version of the MiG-29 engine, the RD-93, and then some information about the MiG-33. China re-approached Pakistan, and with the cooperation of China, Russia and Pakistan, the Thunder fighter was finally developed.

The more pertinent evaluation is that the Thunder is a light multi-role fighter with a high cost performance in the early 21st century, and it is especially suitable for small countries with average economic conditions but certain defense pressure. The early model of the Thunder adopts a mechanical-hydraulic control system, equipped with a simple autopilot, uses a dual-redundant line flight controller, and the body is also a large number of duralumin alloys, and the use of composite materials is relatively small. However, as the Celestial Empire became more and more magnanimous, the level of technical skills continued to improve, and the Thunder Dragon continued to improve, with the addition of DSI clam air intakes, the replacement of four-degree fly-by-wire flight control, and the greatly improved avionics level.

But after 30 years, Xiaolong will always be a low-end product in the world's fighter market, relying on cost-effective struggle to seek development space, because it is born with a thin foundation, so it is not enough.

But now Qi Yiming has put the Thunder Dragon thirty years ago, and has made a lot of major improvements to the base in terms of the weakness of the Thunder Dragon. First of all, the whole aircraft uses large-area composite materials to reduce the weight of the aircraft and reduce the RCS (radar reflection cross-sectional area), and then replace the WS-13 medium-thrust engine of the Red Alert base version, with a thrust-to-weight ratio of 8 and a maximum thrust of 86 kN (RD-93 has a maximum thrust of 81 kN and a thrust-to-weight ratio of 7). 9) It looks similar to the RD-93, but in fact the maintainability and longevity have been greatly improved.

In this era, the F-16A/B has not even mastered over-the-horizon attacks, and the AIM-120, an advanced medium-range interceptor projectile, will not be officially launched for several years. The Thunder not only has the ability to launch PL-12 active medium-range projectiles with a range of 120 kilometers, but also has a fairly comprehensive combination of bomb types. Infrared combat air-to-air missiles PL-8 (or PL-9), improved versions of C-705 and C-803 anti-ship missiles (YJ-75, YJ-83) used against ships, precision strike Thunder series guided bombs, Thunderstone series gliding guided bombs, YJ-91 anti-radiation missiles, KD-88 land attack missiles, etc., all make the Thunder Dragon a perfect combat weapon in this era.

If you have to compare him with the F-14, F-15 or Su-27, it must be inferior, but at least with its own over-the-horizon air combat capabilities and relatively flexible body, it can also fight with these heavy air supremacy fighters.

And what does Iraq, its adversary, have for the country of Iran? It's just the end of some second-generation aircraft, or the Mirage F1 of the third-generation aircraft in the Russian-style five-generation division method, and some super military flag attack aircraft. Count it comprehensively, and add those J-7s that flowed out of the Celestial Empire, which one can Xiaolong be afraid of?

In order to attract Saiyeti and the group of Iranians, Qi Yiming specially found the J-7 pilot of the PLA Air Force to carry out an air combat exercise close to actual combat with the FC-1 Thunder. This is very interesting to the Iranians, after all, the J-7 is a fighter with a very large number of equipment for the Iraqis, and it is also very representative, and it can see the direct confrontation of these two fighters, which can directly confirm whether the Thunder can become the main combat aircraft of the Iranian Air Force and take over the baton of the F-14 to protect the Iranian sky.

Before the actual combat exercise, a Thunder also took the lead in showing that it does have the ability to attack beyond visual range, which is not the same as the last time Deputy Commander Wang Hai inspected the J-10, Qi Yiming invited an Iranian pilot to sit on a two-seater Thunder Dragon fighter, which taught him some knowledge of using weapons, all that is needed is to press the button to launch the missile after locking on the target.

At a distance of 80 km, the two-seater Thunder spotted an enemy aircraft and immediately launched a missile. A PL-12 that roared out of the country hit the target plane without any suspense, because of the participation of the Iranian pilot himself, and the people of the delegation also witnessed the scene of the target plane being shot down, so the suspicion of possible cheating on the Chinese side was also ruled out.

Lieutenant colonel of the Iranian Air Force pilot, who was next to Saiyeti, whispered to him: "I didn't expect that the Chinese also mastered the research and development and manufacturing capabilities of over-the-horizon medium- and long-range air-to-air missiles, and we just saw their missile called PL-12, which is almost half smaller than the undead bird and has a range of about 120 kilometers, which is enough for us." ”

Saiyeti nodded, not saying much.

After the two-seater Thunder came down, the Iranian pilot, who was acting as a weapons officer, ran back and excitedly said to his compatriots: "This is an extremely good fighter!" I dare to assure Allah! I feel like I'm now able to operate this plane to fight Iraqi dogs without any more training. The operation is so easy that you don't need to take it off when you press it on the joystick, and the readings on the display are also very intuitive, and there are a lot of auxiliary programs on the plane itself. All kinds of equipment and equipment are very good to the touch and very intimate to use. Basically, all that needs to be done is to drive the plane into the sky, will shake the joystick, will press the button, and our pilots will be able to fight. ”

An Iranian pilot next to him asked: "Is it easy to use the Chinese's missiles with immortal birds?" ”

"I think so, at least at the same level as the undead birds, they are all missiles that shoot and don't care, and it seems that the Chinese's missile overload is greater than that of the undead birds, which will make it more difficult for Iraqi dogs to dodge."

Saiye asked the Iranian who was the first to fly on the Thunder Dragon, "Then do you think the Chinese say that this fighter can reach 70 percent of the combat power of the F-14, is it credible?" Can this fighter be comparable to the F-14? ”

The pilot replied frankly: "To be honest, this Chinese fighter can do all the things that the F-14 does, and if it is mainly used for homeland air defense, there is no problem at all." In addition, this fighter is said to have the ability to attack the ground and sea, which is a little stronger than the F-14. If you talk about a head-to-head battle with the F-14, it will definitely not be as good as the F-14, but you won't lose too much if you lose, and when you go beyond the visual range, the two sides will fight five or five times, and the Thunder Dragon may suffer some losses when you are engaged in close combat, but it may also take the lead with its lightweight characteristics. ”

Saiyeti didn't expect the pilot to have such a high evaluation of the Thunder, in fact, this is a very normal thing, after a lot of improvements, this Thunder can be described as a fool's version of the fighter, try to simplify all the operations, and pursue the highest flight enjoyment and pleasure. The level of Iranian pilots dropped rapidly after the Islamic Revolution, and they were also unable to operate too complex fighters. The Thunder is a relatively advanced, but simple fighter to operate, which makes the Iranians like it very much.

In the ensuing actual combat confrontation between the J-7 and the Thunder, compared with the flexible and lightweight Thunder, the J-7s, which originally seemed to be high-altitude and high-speed, seemed to have become rockets that could not turn. In fact, this is also related to the high level of the Red Alert pilots of the Thunder Dragon, and they are very familiar with the attack mode of second-generation aircraft such as the J-7, but these pilots of the PLA have not had much contact with the battle with the third-generation aircraft, and they have not learned much about the theory of energy maneuvering.

In the end, this confrontation played a disparity of 9 to 0, which confirmed that no matter at close range or beyond the visual range, Xiaolong can use its own way to beat the J-7.

In the weeks that followed, the Iranians conducted more test flights and evaluations at Tianjin's Yangcun Airport, and more and more pilots recognized the Chinese-made Thunder fighter. At the same time, some people in the delegation asked Saiyeti to change some large-load J-7 Flying Leopards to go back, because they were also fortunate to fly this fighter-bomber and thought that it was a fighter with equally excellent performance. At this time, the Iranians were mainly using F-4, F-5 and other fighters as platforms for air strikes, with a small bomb load and relatively poor penetration capability. On the other hand, the Flying Leopard not only has a bomb load that makes Iranians drool, but also has the ability to fire PL-12 medium-range bombs, which is equivalent to doubling the Iranian Air Force's ground-to-sea attack capability.