Almost at the same time, two three-plane formations of the Huaxia Naval Air Force had arrived about 400 kilometers away from the mission area.

"Yuejiang, I just received the news that the radar of the Jingjiang has found that the enemy has taken off two planes to go to the 45th direction, and it should be attracted by the North Star."

There was a report from the tower commander on the radio that I hadn't heard for a long time.

Polaris is the code name for that Y-8J.

The ionospheric scattering communication, which had been transited once by stratospheric airship, did not disappoint them, and although it was somewhat distorted, the conversation was still audible.

In fact, this dialogue at a distance of about 1,100 kilometers should have broken the distance record for VHF communications conducted by the Huaxia Air Force.

It's just that no one cares about such minutiae anymore.

What they will do next is something that will go down in the annals of the Navy and even the entire people's army.

"Polaris should be able to handle it, right?"

Zhao Yi, who followed at the end of the team, was obviously a little uneasy about Yun 8J, who was single-handedly and defenseless.

Although it is unlikely that there will be a direct conflict between the two sides, a flexible tactical aircraft actually has many ways to interfere with the movement of large aircraft, and the Sea Harrier fits this requirement, and the Yun-8 Ping is not a platform with excellent flight stability.

"Yuejiang 13, don't be distracted."

Wang Wei quickly reminded on the radio.

However, he added later:

"Polaris doesn't make direct contact with the opposing plane, so that's no problem."

For those of them flying overflights, the fewer planes left on the Excellence, the better it was to complete the mission.

At present, it can be determined that the other side has released 6 planes.

But before Wang Wei could get happy, another message came from the tower:

"The Shizue also reported that the radar had spotted a very low-speed target, presumably a helicopter, circling over the opposing fleet."

"Helicopter ......"

Tang Yiping, the pilot of the long plane at the front, was thinking about the current situation in his mind.

Helicopters hovering over the fleet are often anti-submarine or search and rescue of people who have fallen overboard.

The latter possibility did not mean much to them, and the Chinese Xia Navy did not send submarines to participate in this mission.

"Could it be an AWACS helicopter?"

Wang Wei's voice suddenly sounded on the UHF radio used for short-range communication.

He proposes a new possibility.

In this year, early warning helicopters are quite unpopular equipment, and if Wang Wei hadn't specially read the war history materials of the Royal Navy before taking off, even he might not be able to remember it.

If that's the case, it's not a big problem.

Despite the fact that the AWACS helicopters do not have a long range of action against air targets, they are not going to launch anti-ship missiles today, after all, but to fly over the opposing fleet.

If you really give the other party time to react, it is still possible to make extraneous complications.

"Yuejiang 21, Yuejiang 22, you exchange cover positions."

After a few seconds of short thinking, Tang Yiping made corresponding adjustments to the deployment.

The newly delivered No. 21 aircraft has added a third fixed electronic warfare equipment above the vertical tail, so that it can interfere with the aircraft above the original blind spot, and the function is more comprehensive.

At the cost of a slight weakening of course stability compared to the original, so in the initial plan, it was not allowed to follow the low-altitude formation.

But I can't care about that much now.

At 17:10, in the afterglow of the setting sun, the aviation formation entered the search range of the opposing fleet.

Two electronic warfare aircraft reported at about the same time, receiving an S-band signal from the left front.

It was supposed to be a long-range alert radar above the British fleet.

In order to compensate downward for the far range of the X-band fire control radar and double as a search radar, the Royal Navy's long-range warning radar chose a relatively high frequency.

This compromise eventually proved to be inaccurate enough to replace the search radar, and the effective range of the warning radar was affected.

And today, it shows another flaw.

As a third-party signal source, this higher-frequency S-band will be more conducive to passive search by Huaxia's electronic warfare aircraft.

They "borrowed" each other's radar waves and saw the low-speed signal hovering over the fleet, and at a slightly longer distance, four targets were returning at a speed of 300 knots.

It should be the 4 Sea Harriers that took off before.

It was a bonus.

Since the two warships were being stopped at a slightly greater distance, out of visual contact with the opposing fleet, the two J-7 were even ready to use radar for active search.

But now this way this unnecessary step is omitted.

The location of the Sea King helicopter must be above the fleet.

Tang Yiping quickly calculated the time in his mind, and then issued a new order:

"Yuejiang 12, you guys are speeding up now, it's best to take advantage of the window where the other party is recovering the plane!"

"Roger!"

Wang Wei, who received the order, understood the meaning of the division commander in a flash of light.

It is impossible for the Sea Harrier to take off in a short distance while the Excellence is busy recovering four aircraft, and the bomb load and combat radius in the case of vertical take-off are very limited.

So now is basically the time when the opponent's entire fleet is the weakest.

According to the revised plan, the No. 10, No. 11 and No. 22 planes continued to maintain their original flight status, while Wang Wei led the other three planes to reduce their altitude to completely evade the opponent's warning radar.

……

Inside the CIC of the Excellence, Rear Admiral West looked at the three rapidly approaching target signals on the radar screen, and suddenly had an urge to strangle himself 40 minutes ago and Captain Dennis in front of him.

No matter what has happened in the past five months, in short, the Chinese must have got a kind of plane that can fly here.

Long-range warning radars can only see that something is present and cannot precisely determine the location of the target.

Now the four planes ran out of fuel and needed to land urgently, and they didn't even have enough space for the Sea Harriers on deck to take off.

But no matter what, he's going to have to deal with it.

West knew that although it was Boise who interfered with the command, if something really happened, the man who was behind the blame would definitely be himself as the commander of the fleet.

Now he can only congratulate himself on his old calculations, and just now he kept a Sea King MK2 in the sky in advance.

"Notify the aviation department to let the four planes on the deck take off vertically, and the AWACS helicopter will direct them to intercept the target!"

"Rear Admiral, our electronic detection equipment does not perceive the use of radar by the other side, so they should not be able to determine the exact location of our fleet."

The deputy next to him barely found a piece of good news.

However, before West could breathe a sigh of relief, CIC received another report from an AWACS helicopter.

Their radar can't even see the target!

(End of chapter)