In the past, cannon aiming was definitely a technical task, and if you could shoot in the sky, then you could operate all kinds of artillery on the ground, because the principle was almost the same. The difference is that when shooting in the air, the shells fly in three-dimensional space, and it is not easy to hit the target.

The old-fashioned sight is called the Active Halo Sight. It relies on the light of the illuminator to pass through the condenser, and through the overlap of the light shield and the leakage lithography line of the ring plate group, it forms a prismatic light point and a ring center composed of a halo; Then through the reflector, through the gyroscope, the reflector is reflected to the objective lens for magnification, and then projected onto the scope, the pilot can see the aiming halo and distance number through aiming.

Every time they fire, it is a great challenge to intelligence and patience, so many pilots are accustomed to firing closely, even from a distance of 300 meters to 50 meters, and the result is that the opponent is volleyed and exploded, and at the same time, their own planes are also hit by flying debris.

Until the Vietnam War, it was in this way, and in 1969, the U.S. Air Force, which could not bear the activity halo sight, put forward a request to the United States to develop a new principle cannon aiming method based on the experience of the Vietnam War.

Don't be too cumbersome, it has to be simple and reliable! This sight with new technology, based on electronic computers, head-up displays, and radars, made a breakthrough in principle in the early 70s and was gradually widely used. This is hot wire aiming, also known as track aiming or continuous hit aiming; But the name that best reflects its essence is rapid-fire aiming.

The traditional active halo sight is very complicated, because both the enemy and the enemy are in motion, and the pilot has to calculate all kinds of data by himself, but now, with the development of technology, it can be completely handed over to the computer!

Therefore, with the electronic computer as the core, the impact point of each shell launched by the fighter in various states (including altitude, speed, angle of attack, sideslip angle, pitch, slope, warhead muzzle velocity, ballistic coefficient, etc.) is calculated relative to the position of the machine, and connected into a dynamic curve, which is displayed on the heads-up display.

This line is the hotline.

The advantage of the hotline is that it is clear and clear, and you can see at once whether it can be hit or not.

The starting point of this hot line is a cross, which represents the muzzle, while the farthest point corresponds to the maximum range in the design of the sight.

In this way, the pilot does not have to effortlessly cut into the opponent's rear hemisphere for stable tracking, and complete the tedious firing action, as long as the nose of the aircraft (to be precise, the ballistic direction of the shell) is accurately pointed at the opponent within the range of the cannon, there is a considerable possibility of completing a successful lethal attack and shooting down the other side.

(Forgive East China Zhixiong for showing off, everyone can't understand the significance of this kind of hotline targeting, you know, when the pilots of our country's 7 masters and 8 masters change to fly third-generation aircraft, how much they admire this kind of hotline!) ）

For the U.S. Navy, the Tomcat was the first fighter to use a hotline to aim, so it was easier to target in the air.

Nathan pushed the lever to the left and pushed the rudder to the right with his foot, and in an instant, the sleek fighter began to rotate around its central axis, as if it were spinning around a bucket.

For pilots, barrel rolling is one of the most common offensive and defensive tactics, when the Tomcat's swept wings are at a minimum angle, and the wings are open, which is the most flexible situation.

During the rotation, the Tomcat fighter approached the target, and for him, it was not only necessary to let the flying missile-target press on his own hot line, but also to see clearly that the target plane in front of him was not pressed on the line, otherwise, the shells would fly to the target tractor.

1,000 meters, 500 meters, 300 meters. Just as the target's trajectory was about to coincide with the hot spot, Nathan pressed the button on the lever.

"Hum, tom..."The hydraulically driven 20mm M61 Vulcan cannon emitted puffs of smoke from the muzzle, and in the firelight, the shells flew towards the target in front!

This kind of built-in cannon is designed with the vibration of the cannon in mind, so although the fire is now at full power, the vibration of the aircraft is not obvious, if the F-4 is hanging the cannon pod, then the bodies of the two crew members in the aircraft at this time seem to be stimulated by the electric current and tremble.

One by one, the cannonballs accurately hit the mop, knocking holes out of it.

Nathan's hand didn't stop.

"The maximum rate of fire, this Nathan, is going to run out of shells at once." Lieutenant Colonel Mark, the squadron leader of the mop in front, heard the movement behind him and couldn't help but say.

Because the M61 cannon is a multi-barreled Gatling method, the rate of fire can be very high. its

The ultimate rate of fire can reach 7,200 rounds per minute, but it is not so high in actual operation, because it is too fast to be useful, it only has 676 rounds of ammunition, if this ultimate rate of fire, it will only take five or six seconds, and it will be gone.

So, in normal times, it uses a rate of fire of 4,000 rounds per minute or 6,000 rounds per minute.

And now, Nathan must have adjusted the cannon to the maximum rate of fire, and he didn't plan to keep the shells, but to run them all in one go.

In air combat, the only one who can be wiped out in one breath is the novice, holding down the cannon button, the veteran did not do this, and the reason why Nathan did this is only one reason.

Everyone only has one chance to hit the target, Nathan wants to get the best result, then he needs to shoot more shells in a short time, and the time to attack is limited, enter and go out, just a few seconds, if you want to project more shells, you must increase the rate of fire.

No wonder Nathan was the last to shoot, because when he finished, the people behind him didn't have to shoot.

Lieutenant Colonel Mark in front of him is not easy to see the target, but the other pilots who have finished shooting the target in the back can see it clearly, the white nylon target in the air, under the attack of the cannon, is violently shaking in the air, it is flying, dancing, one by one holes appear on the target, soon, the target becomes a hornet's nest.

When they were shooting just now, they didn't leave at most fifty holes in the target, and now, Nathan has left at least two hundred holes in the target.

Suddenly, a big hole opened in the target, like a broken parachute, and like a beggar's clothes, and that big hole kept getting bigger!

Oops, played it! Nathan couldn't help but secretly scream in his heart, he was only trying to be happy, and wanted to create a target record, but he didn't expect the target to be unsupportive, so he hit more than 300 shells, and the target seemed to be completely destroyed, and there was no way to count the holes.

What to do?

Simply destroy the evidence, save yourself from going back and being scolded!

Thinking of this, Nathan lifted the nose slightly upward, and in the continuous barrel rolling, the cannonball crossed the arc and actually went straight to the rope that dragged the target!

The rope is only a dozen meters long, in the air, both planes are flying at high speed, this distance of more than ten meters, it is simply an instantaneous thing, when I saw that the tracer trajectory of the cannonball began to move up, someone had already begun to roar on the radio: "Eagle, what are you doing?" ”

Before he could finish speaking, he saw the cannonball sweep through the rope that dragged the target, and the rope was suddenly broken, and the whole target fell downwards like a kite with a broken string.

Everyone was dumbfounded.