The two F-14 fighters preparing to land attracted the attention of many people in the training base.

As the fighters entered and landed, Long Yun's eyes also followed the landing of the two fighters, and saw the F-14's half-buried pylons on the belly and the hanging points under the wing sleeves of the aircraft with chubby, giant crayon-like AIM-54 "Immortal Bird" missiles, and he guessed that this should be a pair of twin planes that came to Beijing Center to participate in the competition, or at least to conduct an exhibition match.

He watched the two full-bodied and huge F-14s land and slide away, until they were blocked by a building not far away and out of sight, and then he turned back and exchanged surprised expressions with Liu Wei.

Whatever the purpose, seeing the F-14 here was a complete surprise to them.

Long Yun's surprise was of course completely justified; However, they didn't know at this time that sooner or later they would encounter this mysterious team on the competition journey of "Chenlong".

"Liu Wei, F-14 is also equipped by domestic teams?"

"I remember it, but it's really rare," he looked back for a moment, and found that there was no trace of the two fighters, Liu Wei returned his attention to the car, and he fiddled with the tablet on his lap, "After all, as a domestic team, the use of domestic fighters is the mainstream." ――However, it is also true that Tomcats are very popular, and although they cannot be used in the final stage of the IFT, it is good to use them to attract popularity. ”

In this way, is there really an aviation team in China that uses this kind of heavy fighter?

This kind of heavy fighter designed and put into production by Grumman and equipped with the US Navy in 1974 is a heavy fighter that is equipped with the AWG-9 radar and fire control system, with the AIM-54 "Immortal Bird" missile and has a certain degree of multi-target engagement capability, and can intercept the incoming Soviet supersonic bomber hundreds of kilometers away from the center of the aircraft carrier battle group. Quite good performance parameters and commendable actual combat records have attracted the attention of the world.

As the world's first third-generation fighter (of course, some people have different opinions, thinking that the F-14 is the strongest second-generation fighter, this is a matter of opinion), the design concept, structural design and technical level of the F-14 are relatively not outstanding, and there is no advantage in the comparison of a large number of late-launched third-generation models.

And I have to say that the F-14 "Tomcat", a very good fighter, uses a very unreliable engine: whether it is the early TF30 or the later P414A, not only the thrust output is not as good as the F100 and F110 series engines used by the F-15 and F-16 fighters of the US Air Force, but also often due to the lack of design margin and various failures, resulting in many F-14 crashes, which drags down the performance of the fighter on a large distance; This did not change until 1988, when the F-14D was equipped with an F110 engine, but the production of the D-type was not very large.

But even so, the F-14 is still an excellent heavy interceptor that can be compared to the MiG-25 due to the variable swept wing design that takes into account both high-speed and low-speed maneuverability, the fire control and firepower configuration that emphasizes long-range interception, and the ample fuel capacity of the large airframe.

At the same time, because of the excellent design of the variable sweep wing and aerodynamic control, its maneuverability and combat ability are also outstanding, which is not comparable to the MiG-25, which is good at rapid interception but is afraid of hand-to-hand combat.

Since entering service, the F-14 has had a good battlefield performance in the Libyan conflict and the Iran-Iraq war (acquired and used by Iran, affectionately called "Persian cat" by many enthusiasts); Of course, in the context of the Cold War, as the original purpose of the design of the Tomcat, the situation against Soviet supersonic bombers has never appeared.

Good performance and high popularity make the F-14 a common model in the world's aviation arena; Even in the Eastern Alliance countries, there are teams that choose to use this chubby-looking, bird-like heavy fighter and take to the skies to fight the sky in the midst of countless cheers.

However, it is a pity that Grumman's F-14 production line has long ceased to undertake the military's fighter production tasks and is no longer running at full capacity; Now the company can only provide the necessary wear and tear parts and maintenance of the fighters.

When it comes to the newly produced F-14s, there are less than ten of them per year, and the price has become quite expensive because the production quantity cannot meet the matching cost.

Therefore, the number of surviving F-14 fighters is limited, and one less is lost, which also makes the procurement and use of F-14 different from many third-generation aircraft with huge production and current production lines, which are particularly troublesome and difficult to serve.

Hehe, but who could have predicted?

The F-14 is such a rare model, but on the contrary, it makes everyone have the psychology that rare things are expensive, and its popularity has become extraordinarily high; This is probably what Grumman did not expect when he decided to restart the F-14 production line and provide spare parts support for the hundreds of Tomcats that exist around the world.

The use of F-14 in China, such a troublesome and expensive fighter, presumably the team is also the kind with deep pockets and not bad money?

"Among the domestic teams that signed up for the IFT qualifiers, there were also F-14s?"

"I'll see...... Yes, there really is; However, this is not surprising, there are hundreds of teams participating in the qualifiers across the country, which is-" Liu Wei searched according to the model, and after skipping a bunch of more niche and strange models, he found the team that used the F-14D to compete, "There are two teams, 'Lian Zhen' and 'Suzaku', probably one of these two teams who came today." ”

Hearing Liu Wei's introduction, Long Yun had no impression of these two teams. Based on his recent background knowledge of aviation competition, it seems that there is no trace of them in the North China Division, right?

He asked Liu Wei and received a positive answer.

"Yes, one of these two teams is in East China and the other is in South China. ――But I don't know what they are doing in Beijing now, is it a friendly match? Oh, probably because the regional qualifiers in East China and South China have not yet started, and it is possible to come and find a few strong teams to play test matches and communicate with each other. ”

Oh. ――Is that so?

Long Yun thought about it, which meant that they would not meet an opponent driving an F-14 in the qualifying stage of the North China Division.

However, if we say that in that parallel world, I think of the commander Samsonov telling him that the American aircraft carriers were already cruising in the Mediterranean Sea for war; Piloting the Su-27S, will he soon encounter such a heavy interceptor and break out into a heavyweight aerial duel?

If the Americans in the south, in addition to the F-15, have this huge variable-swept wing model, then he will have to pay close attention to these "Tomcats" when he goes back.

Before, whether as an aviation enthusiast or joining the "May" team to play simulators, Long Yun's attention to this fighter was not high; Not only that, but probably except for the domestic and Soviet Russian fighters, as well as the opponents he encountered in the skies of Central Europe, he did not particularly know about the other models.

Thinking that a heavy fighter such as the F-14 "Tomcat" is not only a strong opponent that may be encountered on the IFT journey, but also a key equipment model of the US Navy in the parallel world, he feels that it is necessary to pay attention to it; After all, according to his understanding, this heavy fighter with a take-off weight of more than 30 tons is the same as the F-15 "Eagle", which is a formidable opponent that he must face when flying the Su-27S.

Along the way, discussing the situation of fighters and competitions with Liu Wei, Long Yun also cared about the shape of their group.

Through the query of the match records, the two learned that the other match of the day in Group F, the "Star Wars" between the two teams "Saturn" and "Uranus", ended with the victory of the former; After looking at the replay of the game, the "Saturn" using the MiG-29 twin machine played quite well, and finally defeated the "Uranus" 2:1, and now it is temporarily ranked first in the group with "Chenlong".

"The 'Saturn' team, they use the MiG-29?"

"yes, it's not a common choice, but it looks like they're pretty good. - Oh! Our next opponent is this 'Saturn', and I have to focus on it when I go back, I didn't have much impression of this team before. ”

In the next game arrangement, the opponent of "Chenlong" is "Saturn", which makes Long Yun feel very coincidental.

I said goodbye to the MiG-29 in a parallel world and changed to the Su-27S today, and I am about to meet an opponent who uses this model? Not to mention anything else, there is no pressure at all on the performance and control of the MiG, I am afraid that he is more skilled than the players of "Saturn"!

Such a coincidental battle situation suddenly gave Long Yun great confidence, even if he used the J-7, he was sure to try his best to win the next victory.

As for the other teams, "Uranus" and "Tianhe" both lost the first game, accumulated 1 point and ranked third and fourth in the group; In Group F, where there are only five participating teams, there will be a bye in each round of the group stage, in addition to the four teams that have already decided the winner, the "Thunder" is the first round of byes, temporarily accumulating 0 points and ranking last in the group.

For the team with a bye in the first round and temporarily at the bottom of the group, neither Long Yun nor Liu Wei had heard of it, so they didn't pay much attention to it.

Of course, they would not have expected at this time that it was this little-known "Thunder", or one of the players in it, who had not been established for a few years, that would become the strongest opponent of "Chenlong" in Group F and even in the subsequent journey.