Great Power Long Sky

"Old Zhao, do you remember that aerobatic maneuver where you suddenly pull up the nose of the plane while it's in level flight and use the bottom of the wing to catch the wind?"

On the JJ-6 trainer jet, Xu Hailiang, who was in the rear cockpit in charge of command and taking photos, saw Li Lu's deceleration maneuver and suddenly asked a question.

Zhao Chaoyang nodded and said, "I remember that Soviet test pilot Pugachev first performed this maneuver at the Paris Air Show. The maneuver resembled a cobra in a defensive posture, and it is also known as the Pugachev Cobra maneuver."

"That's right! It's the Cobra maneuver." Xu Hailiang snapped photos. "Old Liu's deceleration maneuver is a bit strange. It doesn't look like the Cobra maneuver, and I've never seen it before."

They are both seasoned pilots who are proficient in all aerobatic maneuvers. There are only about ten maneuvers in total, and they use only a few of them by heart.

The move Li Lu is doing now is similar to the Cobra maneuver, but the differences are quite significant.

First, the Cobra maneuver is performed in level flight. Simply put, the aircraft maintains a high speed, releases the pitch angle limit safety, and suddenly pulls up the nose, rapidly increasing the pitch angle to 110-120 degrees. In this attitude, all the bottom surfaces of the main wing and ailerons are facing the wind, and the aircraft speed will suddenly drop to close to 0. This process takes about two or three seconds.

It's equivalent to a high-performance car speeding at 700-800 kilometers per hour coming to a stop in two or three seconds.

The Soviets believed that this maneuver was extremely tactically significant, as it could instantly turn the tide of battle when being tailed and pursued, transforming the disadvantaged side into the dominant one.

Westerners believe that this maneuver is just for show, and has no other significance than demonstrating the aircraft's superior maneuverability.

The problem is that Li Lu is not performing this maneuver in level flight, but while turning left to descend, meaning his plane is flying at an angle with its nose pointing diagonally towards the ground.

In this situation, the nose suddenly pulls up, but the angle of attack is not as exaggerated as 110 degrees. It is estimated to be about 70 degrees. It looks like a lying cobra maneuver. At this time, the aircraft has no lift. The engine nozzles are not even pointing towards the ground!

In other words, the probability of Li Lu stalling is much higher than with the Cobra maneuver!

His confidence stemmed from his strong self-confidence in his flying skills and his thorough understanding of the aircraft's condition.

With both engines at minimum throttle, Li Lu only needs to engage afterburner and floor the throttle to quickly gain enough power to maintain the aircraft's forward flight. By trading altitude for speed, he can level off the aircraft before it descends to 2,000 meters.

To be honest, Li Lu's actions carried no risk whatsoever.

However, there are always unexpected situations.

Li Lu had never done such a maneuver before. When he felt the plane's speed dropping to 300 kilometers per hour and still rapidly descending, the efficiency of the headwind braking was higher than he expected.

At this point, everything was still under control.

Until the fuselage structure emitted a teeth-grinding "creaking" sound, which grew louder and louder.

It wasn't an explosion or disintegration; rather, the joints of the fuselage structure exceeded the critical point, also known as the structural envelope. The J-6 aircraft, assembled with rivets, could no longer withstand such immense pressure, and the various components detached instantly.

Li Lu felt a sudden shock before his eyes, his vision blurred, and then he fainted. When he regained his senses and saw the situation clearly, he was numb.

Where is my dashboard?

Where's my joystick?

Where did the rudder and other pedals go?

The wind howled as it rushed in, and Li Lu's view opened up to a vast expanse, with even the canopy gone.

He subconsciously looked left and right, then back.

Everything was gone, leaving him sitting alone in the ejection seat, just like his mother's flight seat...

"I'll fucking shove your nuts!"

As the ejection seat began its freefall, and Li Lu felt his body accelerating downwards, he grabbed the two ejection handles on the left and right sides with both hands and pulled hard.

no response.

The J-6A uses the HTY-1 ejection seat, which is the first domestically produced practical low-altitude zero-altitude life-saving ejection seat and is the main model used by most aircraft at present.

The workflow is as follows: pull handle – eject canopy – ejection – rocket boost – parachute stabilization – separation of person and chair – main parachute opening. This process takes no more than two seconds.

Li Lu no longer has a canopy; he doesn't even have a cockpit anymore. The rest of the fuselage has completely disintegrated and is flying everywhere, leaving only a lonely ejection seat.

The four steps of jettisoning the canopy, ejection, rocket boosting, and parachute stabilization were all completed for him by the vanished J-6 Modified No. 101.

He only needs to separate himself from the seat and escape with the parachute under his buttocks to have any chance of survival.

However, the problem is that when the designers designed the ejection seat, they never considered that this situation would occur. Even if we take a step back, the designers could not have imagined that the entire fuselage would disintegrate and only the ejection seat would remain.

This is something that has never happened since humans invented airplanes.

Li Lu repeatedly pulled the ejection handle. Under the influence of gravity, the ejection seat plummeted faster and faster. After a dozen seconds, the altitude dropped rapidly from three thousand meters to less than one thousand meters.

In about ten seconds, Li Lu will be eliminated.

The ejection handle is the only switch that triggers a series of subsequent procedures. Li Lu could certainly unbuckle his seatbelt (restraint system), but the result of doing so would be certain—he would fall to the ground with a thud, because there was no parachute.

The seat belt and seat are mechanically locked and automatically separate after ejection is initiated. They cannot be manually unlocked, separated, or ejected.

There is a manual parachute deployment device only after the pilot and seat have automatically separated, during the parachute deployment phase.

Unbuckle your seatbelt and you're dead.

Li Lusheng's only hope for survival lies in the ejection handle.

Xu Hailiang and Zhao Chaoyang witnessed the entire scene up close, and the two veteran pilots were stunned for several seconds!

Zhang Fei, who had overshot his target, was unaware of what was happening behind him. He continued to maneuver around the airport according to regulations.

Deputy Division Commander Feng and others on the control tower witnessed the entire sudden scene and were utterly shocked.

By the time everyone came to their senses, the ejection seat and parachute were no longer visible from the control tower, meaning that Li Lu had not separated from the ejection seat and the parachute had not opened.

Xu Hailiang and Zhao Chaoyang, who were in the air, could not find Li Lu anywhere when they looked down. Li Lu and the ejection seat were hidden in the background of the ground, with lush green forests all below.

Deputy Division Commander Feng, his face as cold as ice, roared, "Quickly, find them! Find them!"

……