Busy doing his own business, Long Yun didn't think much about the reason why these people appeared in the base.

When the formalities were completed, he returned to the barracks with his things and found that Qi Hui was rushing out in a hurry, and only then did he realize that today was an extraordinary day for 3rd_IHFS, and that the fighter plane, which the volunteer pilots had been looking forward to for a long time, had finally been transported to the scene by the guys in charge of equipment after several delays.

"Fighters? I said, 'Green Dragon,'"

Using a secret nickname instead of a name to call the "weirdo" Qi Hui in front of him, Long Yun still felt quite awkward, "This is really a good thing, why, where did the new party finally smuggle a batch of Su-27 fighters?" ”

The reason for this question is that Long Yun is very clear about the geographical shape of the Middle East, the new political power occupies a liberated area in northern Iraq, including the important town of Mosul, and almost all of them are hostile forces, with Turkey, the pawn of old Europe, Turkey, in the west, the Syrian Liberal Party, which has rebelled in the west, and the Iraqi Liberal Party entrenched in Baghdad in the south, leaving only a border in the east to get in touch with the outside world.

Under such circumstances, it is not easy to bring in weapons, ammunition, and other materials that are supported by the New Party armed forces.

Of course, this is not a problem given the general sympathy of the international community for the new regime, neither the transportation channels nor the Security Council's "deaf ears" ban can stop the continuous flow of weapons to the Middle East, and the real factor restricting the survival and development of NATA is the lack of funding.

The so-called "when the cannon goes off, there are ten thousand taels of gold" is even more true in the technology-intensive air force. A Su-27SK, or J-11A twin-engine heavy fighter. The selling price in the international market is more than 100 million yuan. While the price of second-hand fighters will be much cheaper, there are high intermediate costs, such as hiring brokers and bribing officials, and the final price is still beyond the military procurement capacity of the new regime.

So now that he heard that a new fighter plane had arrived, Long Yun had just returned to the base and didn't know the specific situation, but when he came over at noon, he didn't see many fighters taking off and landing over the airport, and only a group of two planes on duty took off and left.

Then these Su-27s, no matter where they were smuggled from. Where are they at this time?

Facing the inquiries of his compatriots and comrades-in-arms, Qi Hui, who was very interested, shook his finger mysteriously, and he beckoned Long Yun to walk with him in the direction of the temporary hangar, while denying Long Yun's guess just now:

"There is no Su-27, Brother Long!

The 3rd_IHFS and independent third squadron we are staying in now were originally all twin-engine heavy aircraft, and it was very expensive to raise this kind of big guy, and the cost of burning oil alone was not a small amount. As for me, I inquired before, and now the Su-27S / SK on the market of second-hand fighters. The transaction price is at least 10 million US dollars, regardless of the identity of the buyer, - and Brother Long. Seriously, don't you think that the Su-27 is already a bit behind the times and quite out of place on the battlefield? ”

"Ah, a-really?"

Hearing Qi Hui say "there is no Su-27", Long Yun felt quite surprised, and then heard this guy come up with two derogatory words, his first reaction was to deny it; However, walking on the dusty base road with the "weirdo" Qi Hui, he thought silently for a while, but he had to admit that what he said also made some sense.

Although the Su-27 fighter has been used to flying in both worlds and has achieved a lot of combat achievements, for the Iraqi New Party, which is attacked on all sides, and even NATA, the Su-27SK/SKM, which is huge and has a long range, is indeed a bit "too big to use", and in all fairness, the Su-27 with congenital oversized body size is limited by the low SEP caused by insufficient engine thrust, and the flight performance has not been completely satisfactory.

Of course, even if he partially agrees with Qi Hui's statement, it is impossible for Long Yun to echo this criticism, but to divert the topic:

"Putting this aside for the time being, then, what kind of new fighter did NATA send us, could it be the "Eagle" or the MiG-31M? ”

"Hah! How is it possible, I still don't say the model is up, -- go and see it, hehe! ”

Seeing that Qi Hui, who was walking briskly, looked cunning, it was clear that he was looking forward to the newly sent fighter, Long Yun was also very curious, what kind of advanced model would this strange-tempered "weirdo" be waiting for, it was not necessarily a stealth fighter like J-21 and F-35, this was almost impossible!

NATA, which doesn't even have the money to smuggle Su-27 series fighters, to say that it is a fantasy to buy fourth-generation stealth fighters, and Long Yun does not have any expectations for this.

With the doubts in their hearts, coupled with some expectations, they really came to the temporary hangar erected on the side of the airport runway, which was actually separated by a curtain and a tall space with a canvas roof, and the two saw that some comrades and ground staff had gathered in the hangar, and at first glance saw the fighter plane parked on the hardened ground, Long Yun felt very familiar, isn't this the J-10B "Raptor", where did the new party get such a thing?

Looking around in wonder, Long Yun and Qi Hui walked into the "hangar" covered by the curtains, he bypassed the messy scaffolding, roller tackles and tools, and circled around the busy fighter planes with several NATA pilots and engineers, and immediately concluded two things.

First, the fighter in front of you does belong to the domestic "J-10" series, which is a single-engine single-seat fighter with a canard layout;

Second, it did not match his first impression, carefully observing the fighter assembly lined up in the open space, waiting to be assembled, did not belong to the J-10B "Raptor", but a new model that has undergone a major facelift, and these details seem to have been seen before.

3rd_IHFS, a squadron of heavy fighters has ushered in the replenishment of several single-engine light aircraft today, which is really a bit surprising!

"Hey, 'Red Dragon' guy, do you see what kind of plane this is?"

"It should be...... Well, this is not an ordinary mass-produced military type, it should be a competitive aircraft! I can only speculate now. ”

"Aha, that's right! Good eyesight. ”

In the Fort Charqat base before, he had long known that NATA was going to add a batch of new fighters, Qi Hui originally wanted to sell a pass in front of Long Yun, but when he saw this guy, he recognized the model at a glance, and did not blurt out a sentence of "J-10B" as he imagined, and he was a little disappointed in his heart, but also a little admired, this brother from "Chenlong" is really well-informed, and even knows the niche improved models that don't show up much.

"This is really a competition machine, and the domestic production number seems to be 'J-10E'."

"'J-10E'? Oh......"

Whispering to Qi Hui next to him, Long Yun greeted his comrades standing next to him, and walked around the J-10 fighter in the tense assembly, and he saw that the NATA ground crew was working on the unidentified technicians to assemble and assemble the fighter parts transported by trucks.

In the advance base with poor conditions, it is said to be "final assembly", but in fact, a series of special tools and consumables are used to firmly connect the main wings, vertical tails and other large parts of the fighter plane that are transported separately with the fuselage; Judging from the traces of the fighter spray paint, these J-10Es that arrived at Fort Scharqat should be second-hand, and the condition looks good, of course, the specific situation has to be tested to know.

While carefully looking at the J-10E fighter in front of him that is close to being assembled, after seeing the overall outline similar to the J-10B "Raptor" at first glance, Long Yun saw the clue from the disappearing tail brace structure and two pelvic fins, a more concise vertical tail configuration, and the tail nozzle with TVC characteristics, only to find that the "Raptor" fighter in front of him is not the common J-10A/B, but should be a special aviation competition, which is nicknamed the "villain" by insiders The facelifted J-10 series fighter.

The J-10E "villain", the name sounds quite strong, and the actual expression in "Freelance" is exactly that.

In the highly developed field of aviation competition in recent years, in addition to high-end competitions such as IFT, there are also various forms of large and small events and championships, including "free competition", pilots will fly modified fighters to fight each other in the competition, in the most common one-on-one single challenge, the combat performance of the fighter itself is crucial.

In order to meet the needs of this market, many fighter manufacturers will introduce various improved models on the basis of standard models, mainly to enhance maneuverability, that is, to make a fuss about combat ability.

Born from the original design of the J-10B "Raptor" fighter, the appearance is naturally nine points similar, these J-10E "villains" from afar, also have a built-in active electronic scanning radar of the sharp nose, simple structure of the belly DSI air intake, sharp triangular canard wings and anti-bending torsion main wing slightly ostentatious, towering a large piece of vertical tail frame on the rear fuselage, the overall line is still very simple.

With neither aggressive overall aerodynamic modification nor a sleek monolithic frameless hatch, at first glance, the J-10E does not seem to be much different from the J-10A/B, which has a large number of holdings.

However, unlike the general similarity of the appearance, as a freelance fighter with high SEP and high thrust-to-weight ratio, the overall design of the J-10E is intended to strengthen the agility and maneuverability that is already very good, and the biggest change is to replace the WS-10B/AL-31FN standard with a WS-15B turbofan engine with an afterburner thrust of 17.1 tons, for which the rear fuselage has been redesigned and the air intake tract has been changed. (To be continued......)