50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 382 Insidious move
The dramatic deaths at Noi Pai Airport made Sun Zhiwei realize that Thang Long Prefecture was about to enter a state of emergency. He didn't dare to linger and headed straight south out of the city.

The largest military airport in the south, Bianhe Air Force Base, is more than 1000 kilometers away and was originally the air force base of the M army.

Most of the M-type aircraft they captured back then are now parked there.

Even a large portion of the aircraft were placed in the exact same positions as when the M army was still in power.

Sun Zhiwei's destination was Bianhe Air Force Base. Time was tight, and he didn't have time to waste on the road; he still had to fly there.

This way, he can get there in time to deal with most of the fighter planes before the big battle begins the day after tomorrow, even if most of them are no longer able to fly.

Two hours later, he drove his jeep to Thanh Hoa City, 130 kilometers south of Thang Long Province.

He remembered that the logistics map he had captured showed that there was a small airport there, a node for short-haul air transport between the north and south, where small planes often transited and refueled.

The airport in Qinghua is located in Shouchun County and is called Shouchun Airport. Locals also call it Jinxing Airport.

Jinxing Airport is a small airport used by both the military and civilians. There is a separate asphalt road leading to it, and Sun Zhiwei found it without much trouble.

He then used a fake document and a letter of introduction to buy a plane ticket to Saigon.

That's the good thing about Annam's small airport; there aren't any strict security checks. You can just buy a ticket and board the plane, like getting on a bus.

This was because, in Annam at that time, only a few people could afford to travel by plane; each of them was either very rich or very powerful.

The staff at the small airport knew very well that they couldn't afford to offend anyone.

Forget about bag checks or body searches at a normal airport; metal detectors are unnecessary because almost all of them carry guns.

Therefore, since we can't afford to offend them, we might as well simplify all procedures.

So, the so-called airport security check procedure has become nothing more than airport staff giving you a warm smile.

Sun Zhiwei entered a small waiting hall with a blank expression and an embarrassed expression. The place was small, but it was luxuriously decorated and the service was attentive.

Not long after, he spotted an Il-14 passing by.

The situation here is similar to that in China more than a decade ago, where Soviet-style transport planes are used as short-haul passenger aircraft, just as we did back then.

However, because our relationship with the Soviet Union broke down later, there was a shortage of parts for Soviet-made passenger planes.

Therefore, as soon as relations with the United States improved, the country began to use American passenger planes on a large scale to replace the Soviet-style passenger planes.

Many domestic civil airports have introduced McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, and other aircraft in recent years.

While the Il-14 was refueling during its temporary stop, Sun Zhiwei and several other passengers who had boarded at Shouchun Airport quickly boarded the plane.

Soon, the plane took off again.

Sun Zhiwei knew that the maximum range of this small plane was only 600 kilometers, and it was impossible for it to reach Saigon directly.

Sure enough, the Il-14 made two more stops to refuel en route. Five hours later, Sun Zhiwei finally arrived at a small airport in a county near Saigon.

After leaving the airport, Sun Zhiwei found a secluded hotel in the small county town and rested for a few hours.

As darkness fell, he took out his small jeep, ate some bread and dry rations in the car, and then headed straight for the Saigon Border Air Force Base.

Bien Hoa Air Base is located north of Saigon, 25 kilometers from Saigon, and covers a large area.

When the US military used this place as a base, they only built a few buildings for personnel to live in, and there were very few hangars. Therefore, when Annam took over the base, although they received many aircraft, most of them were parked on the open ground.

Annan later built some warehouses for indoor parking of some aircraft, but due to the high construction costs, most of the remaining aircraft were still parked in the open airfield.

Several years have passed, and these planes have endured years of wind and rain.

However, the airport lacked both the funds and the technology to perform thorough maintenance on each aircraft.

Most of the aircraft parked outdoors are now rusting inside and out. If they are not maintained, these nearly 1,000 fighter jets will become scrap metal in a few years.

The only aircraft that can be immediately deployed to the battlefield are the hundreds of planes stored in the hangar.

Late at night, Sun Zhiwei arrived outside the Bianhe Air Force Base.

Although this is an air force base, it is located in the south and there are no enemies around, so the base is not very vigilant.

The special open-air aircraft parking area has all the aircraft drained of fuel, so even if there were enemies, they couldn't be stolen, and therefore there are no patrols.

Sun Zhiwei was a little troubled when he saw the huge airport area. It was so big that even driving around it would take more than 5 minutes, let alone placing bombs.

He might not have even reached the halfway point when the grenade, which only had a 5-minute timer, started to explode.

Therefore, he can only think of other solutions now.

With so many planes, leaving them unattended was definitely not an option, and bombing them all wouldn't be enough. In the end, he decided to destroy the key components.

Given that they can no longer import parts from the United States to repair the fighter jets, damaging the critical parts of these aircraft would be no different from blowing them up.

These aircraft include fighter jets, attack aircraft, transport aircraft, and helicopters, but some equipment is shared, such as engines, radar, airspeed indicators, altimeters, gyro horizon indicators, and so on.

Without any one of these critical pieces of equipment, the plane cannot take off.

Moreover, no matter which type of these parts they were, Annan could not manufacture them himself. Although the Russians could manufacture them, they were not compatible with the M-type equipment.

If they can't be bought or manufactured, they can't be repaired, and in the end, they naturally become a pile of scrap metal.

Once this logical relationship is understood, Sun Zhiwei naturally won't need to make a big fuss.

So he quietly climbed over the fence surrounding the airport and came to the open-air tarmac.

They began collecting two key components from each of the fighter jets: the pitot tube and the gyro horizon indicator.

At the same time, he also made a cut on the crankshaft and engine casing of each aircraft.

But this cut didn't completely sever them; it left a little bit so they could run at a low speed.

Only he could pull off such a dirty trick. If any stubborn fools in Annam ever try to cause trouble, then let them go to hell.

An hour later, he had finished dealing with all the fighter jets parked on the open-air airport, and he had collected more than 1100 pitot tubes and gyro horizon instruments of various types.

After finishing these tasks, he prepared to complete the most important task of the day: resolving the issue of the last batch of more than 300 usable fighter jets in the hangar.

Annam has invested heavily in building massive hangars that can accommodate more than 300 fighter jets. These hangars stretch for two kilometers and are divided into several rows.

(End of this chapter)