Great Power Long Sky

Li Lu pulled the lever sharply and simultaneously applied the left rudder steering. Only after he clearly saw the completely severed steel cable falling freely did he report to the control tower.

The H-5 target towed drone immediately flew a low-altitude, low-speed flyby to allow the signalman on the control tower to confirm that there were no problems with the aircraft's appearance before making four turns to land.

Immediately afterwards, Li Lu piloted J-7E No. 037 to land before the weather changed.

He had just taxied back to the tarmac when the rain started, a continuous spring drizzle.

The officers and soldiers of the 7th Air Regiment and the East China Sea Station on the control tower were not at all surprised that Li Lu had successfully handled such a sudden emergency in the air and that each of them had been awarded a first-class merit.

In the minds of many officers and soldiers, there is nothing that Brother Liu cannot do in the field of aviation. As long as Brother Liu takes charge, there is no problem that cannot be solved.

However, the instructors of the 16th Naval Aviation Regiment who were observing the live-fire exercise from the control tower were not calm.

Before Li Lu, the shooting scores of any other member of the tactical test group were all excellent. In the 16th Naval Aviation Regiment, there were very few pilots with the same shooting ability.

Aircraft are constantly affected by wind force and direction when they fly in the sky, so they are not a stable shooting platform. It is also difficult to keep the relative positions of the target shooting drone and the target towing drone relatively fixed. Furthermore, although the target bag has a stabilizing parachute, it is not absolutely stable.

The difficulty of a pilot firing under such conditions is unimaginable.

Artillery shells don't seek themselves; if the aiming point is wrong, the shell will miss. Unlike missiles, which can be fired once the radar locks onto them after entering range, you only need to keep the nose of the aircraft roughly pointing at the target and let the onboard radar keep tracking it. If an active homing missile is used, it can be fired and left alone.

For army infantry units, it is not surprising that a soldier can shoot down four or five enemies in a war. Which soldier who survives the war doesn't have a few lives on his hands?

However, for fighter pilots in the Air Force, if they can shoot down four or five enemy planes in a war, they are considered ace pilots at the top of the combat capability.

This shows how difficult it is for a fighter pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft.

Li Lu's two achievements so far have a certain element of "deliberate strategy against unsuspecting opponents," and the situation on the battlefield is somewhat different from the real battlefield environment, so it is true that luck played a part.

Of course, judging the outcome of a battle depends solely on the result, not the process.

Li Lu used thirty shells to break the out-of-control steel cable, once again slightly shocking Gu Chen and the other three.

This was a skill they had never seen before.

It was a steel cable, about the thickness of a finger, flailing wildly in the air. It was completely invisible from a distance, let alone able to hit.

Li Lu not only hit the target, but also only used thirty shells.

Gu Chen vaguely sensed that the young pilot he had previously looked down upon might keep changing his perception of him.

The in-flight emergency that occurred today would normally be considered a top-level emergency. The military would inevitably need to conduct targeted rectification, identify the problems, and make corrections before resuming flight training.

In the current state of wartime readiness, targeted inspections are inevitable, but other aspects will not be affected.

In fact, everyone's thoughts quickly returned to pre-battle training and constant readiness for war.

In mid-February, just after the first day of the Lunar New Year, headquarters issued specific operational orders, and each unit received specific tasks for the large-scale live-fire military exercise the following month.

This Spring Festival is destined to be extraordinary.

The 7th Air Regiment has two missions. On the first day of the exercise, it must seize air superiority over the No. 3 airspace on the west side of the island. This is a prerequisite mission; if it cannot be completed, subsequent missions will be difficult to carry out.

Subsequently, the 7th Air Regiment was to provide air cover and fire support for the 3rd Army Group's amphibious landing.

The most crucial phase of island warfare is the amphibious landing. Without air superiority, the landing force must take the beach under heavy bombardment from the enemy's air force. Without air support, the army must use its own strength to break through those incredibly strong permanent fortifications and the enemy's powerful coastal defenses.

"In short, the more rockets we can launch at the enemy's coastal defenses and destroy one more enemy fire position, the fewer enemy soldiers will die in the army."

"The casualties of our army will be greatly reduced! The success rate of the amphibious landing will be greatly increased!"

Li Lu succinctly stated this at the pre-battle training deployment meeting of the Second Battalion.

The commander of the Second Flight Squadron was concurrently held by Zhao Chaoyang, the regimental chief of staff, but in reality, Li Lu was in charge of the actual operations.

This arrangement is very strange.

A few days ago, Xue Shuang was appointed as the deputy squadron leader of the Second Flight Group, and Li Lu continued to act as the squadron leader of the Sixth Squadron. However, the training and operations of the Second Flight Group were handled by Li Lu, not Xue Shuang.

Everyone knew very well that Sixth Brother would take over as the captain of the Second Battalion at any time. In the words of Xue Shuang, the king of trash talk, Sixth Brother was more than qualified to be a leader of the regiment.

Of course, he wouldn't dare to fire a shot so easily.

At the training deployment meeting, Li Lu directly pointed out the specific hypothetical enemy: the Kitty Hawk carrier battle group and the Nimitz carrier battle group.

He said, "The Kitty Hawk is our old adversary. In just six months, we've engaged them thirteen times with Carrier Air Wing 15!"

"The 15th Carrier Air Wing is equipped with 87 aircraft, which is the standard heavy aircraft carrier strike force configuration."

"This wing has twenty F-14A fighter jets, twenty-four F-3/A-18C fighter-attack aircraft, sixteen A-6E attack aircraft, four E-2C early warning aircraft, four EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft, six S-3B anti-submarine aircraft, and eight SH-60F helicopters."

"In addition, the wing also carried an extra squadron of F-14D fighter jets, for a total of five."

Li Lu pointed to his combat notebook and said seriously, "Everyone is familiar with the situation of the other aircraft. I want to emphasize the situation of these five F-14Ds."

"There is reliable intelligence indicating that the Tomcat squadron added to the USS Kitty Hawk has undergone several major upgrades in its F-14D fighter jets."

"First, this model of fighter jet uses the same F-110-GE-400 engine as the B model, which does not require afterburner during catapult takeoff, and has higher fuel efficiency, increasing the combat radius by 20 percent."

"Secondly, this model of fighter jet is equipped with the AN/APG-71 radar, which has a maximum detection range of more than 400 kilometers against bomber targets and more than 200 kilometers against fighter targets."

"Third, the radar of this type of fighter jet adopts a digital processing method, which increases the data processing capability by six times! Moreover, more than half of the equipment has been digitized, giving it true precision ground attack capability in terms of mission capabilities."

At this point, Li Lu looked around and said, "In other words, the F-14D not only has greatly improved air combat capabilities, but also possesses very powerful precision ground attack capabilities."

"Previously we encountered the A-type. If we compare the technical parameters, according to the Americans, one D-type is equivalent to ten A-types."

"Whether Type D can fight as well as the Americans say is unreliable based on data analysis; we need to fight it out in real combat."

Li Lu changed the subject and said, "What I want to tell my comrades is that both the A and D models are third-generation fighter jets that are far more advanced than ours."

"Only the J-7E of our fighter jets has limited short-range air-to-air missile attack capabilities."

"Given the disadvantage of being outmatched by our opponents in terms of equipment, what we need to do is to continue to firmly adhere to the operational principle of 'abandoning distant targets and engaging in close combat,' and work hard to improve our capabilities in pre-combat training."

Li Lu held up one finger, "As long as we can close the distance to eye level, we can reverse the disadvantage of being able to only be beaten and not fight back."

"Another one is that our Second Squadron was the first to conduct ground attack training, and now we have assigned two JH-7s to it, which greatly enhances our ground attack capability."

"Next, we will simultaneously advance training in both air combat and ground attack. The fourth, fifth, and sixth squadrons will be reorganized into two training detachments to conduct air combat training and ground attack training respectively. After a period of time, they will switch roles, with the tactical experiment group responsible for teaching air combat training and me personally responsible for teaching ground attack training."

"Furthermore, starting tomorrow, I will begin learning how to modify the Flying Leopard. Chief of Staff Gu, I'll have to trouble you with that."

Gu Chen immediately stated, "Captain Li, we currently hold no official position; we are simply pilots in the 7th Air Regiment's tactical test team. We will resolutely follow your orders!"

This attitude is completely different from when I first arrived.

During this period, Gu Chen learned about free air combat with the tactical testing group. He was in a state of shock every day and deeply understood the meaning of the saying "there are mountains beyond mountains and people beyond people".

He had genuine admiration for Li Lu.

With the addition of two JH-7 fighter-bombers, the number of aircraft in the Second Flight Group reached thirteen. Li Lu, the acting squadron leader, commanded an air force that was almost equivalent to half a flight regiment.

On the third day of the Lunar New Year, the 7th Air Regiment fully commenced training, with the intensity and difficulty continuously increasing.

The airfield is filled with the roar of jet engines every day, and the frequent and continuous flight noise even leaves the bird control team at the airfield with nothing to do.

Every department and position is operating at high speed as if in wartime. The aircraft maintenance support team even puts cots in the field work area, so that when they are tired they can lie down and sleep to the sound of the fighter jets, saving time traveling back and forth between the field and the airfield.

From the day the exercise plan was issued, the higher-ups issued a new adjustment order almost every day, and the exercise plan was different every day, which made the training staff extremely anxious.

This operation is standard practice; it serves both as a means of maintaining secrecy and as an essential process for continuously fine-tuning and improving operational plans based on actual circumstances.

The training content of the troops has not changed. In general, the current tactical mission of the People's Air Force is so simple that it is hard for people twenty years from now to imagine—shooting down enemy planes in the sky.

This is also a natural tactical mission for the Air Force.

While Li Lu was frantically organizing training, he was also closely monitoring the adjustments to the combat plan. Right now, they had only received the combat plan for headquarters; the complete combat plan would usually be issued before the start of the exercise implementation phase.

He had concerns.