I built an armada.

"Hmm... we've collected enough data, so we can consider moving on to the next phase of the experiment."

As they were talking, Su Dingping caught a glimpse of Guo Xueyun's face out of the corner of his eye.

The sunlight swept across her profile, illuminating the fine downy hairs around her ears and the slight furrow in her brow as she focused.

Guo Xueyun seems to have lost a lot of weight due to the intense work she's been working lately.

"Okay, I'll summarize the data right away..."

Guo Xueyun rubbed her eyes and stretched.

……

The basic design work for the Black Bird is almost complete, and so far, two slightly different prototypes have been built.

There are two units because they use different architectures.

Which architecture is more suitable, more cost-effective, and has higher performance can only be determined after actual flight testing.

Today marks the day when two sixth-generation fighter jets will actually take to the air for the first time.

……

The thin mist of an autumn morning deep in the Qinling Mountains has not yet dissipated.

Zhang Hai is a veteran military enthusiast whose online name is Qinling Eagle.

His favorite thing to do is take pictures of all kinds of military equipment.

Of course, these military photos are all publicly available and can be taken.

He wasn't stupid enough to go to a classified military base and secretly photograph military equipment.

At this very moment, he is lying on the roof of his old house halfway up the mountain, adjusting his expensive astrophotography equipment.

For this equipment, he even specially purchased an additional set of accessories, which were extremely expensive, all in order to capture clearer images.

This equipment can not only be used to capture photos of military equipment, but also occasionally to observe celestial bodies.

Today, his original goal was to photograph a series of deep-sky objects in autumn, and by the way, to try his luck and see if he could capture any new fighter jets taking off and landing at the nearby military airfield.

As a seasoned military enthusiast, Zhang Hai is extremely knowledgeable about Longxia's military equipment.

The exact level of the fighter jets currently in service in Kelongxia remains a mystery.

Based on previous performance, it seems that fourth-generation fighters have already been deployed on a large scale, and fifth-generation fighters should also be under development.

Some say that fifth-generation fighter jets have already been deployed to the military on a small scale, and Longxia should now have entered the next stage of research and development.

But these are all rumors, and no one can say for sure whether they are true or false.

Zhang Hai is more inclined to believe that Longxia has already achieved large-scale deployment of fourth-generation fighters, and fifth-generation fighters should be officially entering service soon.

As for sixth-generation fighters... even though he's often called a "little pink" (a derogatory term for young, nationalistic Chinese netizens), Zhang Hai wouldn't dare dream of such a thing.

Even in Western countries, this thing is still just a concept machine on the design drawings; no country has ever actually produced it.

Judging from the Eagle Tribe's attitude, if they had really made a breakthrough in sixth-generation fighter jets, they would probably have shown it off long ago.

Therefore, Zhang Hai believes that the world is still focused on fifth-generation fighter jets, and no country has yet started developing them.

At 8:30 a.m., the morning mist had just dissipated.

Zhang Hai was drinking hot tea from a thermos, her eyes occasionally glancing at the screen as the device was automatically tracked by a program.

The next second, out of the corner of his eye, he saw an extremely blurry shadow flash across the edge of the live feed on the monitor screen.

It blended almost seamlessly with the ambient color and moved at an extremely fast speed. If it weren't for his sharp eyes and the high refresh rate of his device, he wouldn't have been able to notice it at all!

"what?"

Zhang Hai was taken aback, immediately sat up straight, instinctively turned the camera in that direction, and simultaneously activated the high-speed continuous shooting mode.

His vantage point on this hilltop offers an excellent view, allowing him to clearly photograph all sorts of fighter jets emerging from that base.

In fact, test flights like this are practically semi-public, and any photos that Zhang Hai and his team manage to capture are not particularly high in terms of confidentiality.

In other words, this is essentially the country giving these military enthusiasts a window to understand current military equipment.

This base is always surrounded by all sorts of military enthusiasts taking pictures.

Not far away, there is an airport that is specially displayed to the public. Although the airport is closed and no unauthorized people are allowed to enter, a large number of people are stationed around the airport day and night all year round.

He had previously managed to take some blurry photos of new models, but he had never had such a completely different feeling as he did today!

That thing was incredibly fast!
Zhang Hai had a pretty good grasp of the speeds of various fighter jets, if not an exact knowledge of them.

Moreover, because he has photographed all kinds of fighter jets over the years, he can roughly estimate the speed of a fighter jet from the photos he takes with his equipment.

Some fighter jets are so fast that even high-speed cameras can only capture some blurry photos.

Some fighter jets are relatively slow, which makes it possible to get relatively clear photos.

With the upgrade of his equipment, it is now rare to see fighter jets that cannot be clearly photographed.

The speed at which that fighter jet flew by was something he had never seen before!

Most importantly, this fighter jet does not appear to have the exhaust flame of a conventional jet engine!
Even the trajectory of its movement was unusually strange.

Zhang Hai's heart began to pound wildly.

"We've struck gold!"

"Could it be that I've managed to get a picture of some new equipment?"

He held his breath, his hands steadily maneuvering the gimbal, the camera fixed on the airspace where the fighter jet had just appeared.

A few seconds later, the fighter jet that had disappeared into the clouds reappeared, and Zhang Hai subconsciously pressed the shutter.

The next moment, the fighter jet performed a brilliant tactical maneuver and disappeared into the clouds once again.

The entire process, from being noticed to disappearing, takes no more than fifteen seconds.

The sky returned to calm, and if it weren't for the photos in the camera, Zhang Hai would have thought that everything just now was an illusion.

After waiting another half hour and confirming that the fighter jet would not return, Zhang Hai finally slumped onto the roof, his back drenched in cold sweat.

With trembling hands, he played back the photos in the camera buffer.

Most of the photos show an empty sky, with only a few capturing the camera body resembling a ginkgo leaf!

"What the hell is this thing?!"

Zhang Hai couldn't help but swear.

If someone outside the industry saw this photo for the first time, they would probably think that the fighter jet's design was somewhat futuristic.

But as a seasoned military enthusiast, Zhang Hai knew exactly what this ginkgo leaf-shaped fuselage meant!
Most modern fighter jets use vertical tails to stabilize the fuselage, but this ginkgo leaf-shaped fuselage has abandoned the traditional vertical tail and instead uses multiple ailerons to control direction!

This is a revolutionary innovation at the underlying architecture level, an unprecedented attempt in aviation history!
Zhang Hai enlarged several relatively clear photos to their maximum size and used professional software to perform multiple noise reduction and edge enhancement processes.

As the image became clearer, Zhang Hai finally confirmed that he had not misread it!
"What generation of fighter jet is this? What new thing has the military come up with this time?"

"Fifth-generation fighter jet? No, that's not right. Fifth-generation fighter jets have already been test-flown, and there are tons of photos online. This definitely isn't a fifth-generation configuration." "Sixth-generation fighter jet? Surely not? So soon?"

"It doesn't make sense..."

Zhang Hai grabbed the hair on his head, his face filled with shock.

The fact that an aircraft could appear here and be captured by him indicates that it can be displayed to the public.

As for when the official statement will be released, it will probably be some time before we know it.

After hesitating for a full ten minutes, Zhang Hai finally uploaded the clearest photo to the forum.

"Can any experts tell which generation of aircraft this is?"

In addition, Zhang Hai also casually posted these photos to the military enthusiast group he frequented.

"AI can identify it as fake at a glance."

"Is AI really that advanced now? It can even create images like this."

"Which AI generated this image? It looks pretty good!"

Seeing the continuous questioning in the group, Zhang Hai shook his head helplessly.

Recently, the concept of AI has become incredibly popular, with major companies launching their own AI software one after another.

Let alone using AI to write articles, AI-generated images and videos are now everywhere online.

If such a photo suddenly appeared, even if it were him, he might very well mistake it for an AI-generated image if he were unaware of it.

"It's not an AI image; I took it this morning at the old house."

Zhang Hai lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.

"No, why don't you believe me? This really isn't an AI image!"

"Old Zhang, that's not fair of you! You're trying to fool us guys with an AI image!"

"Yeah, I won't say anything else, just tell me, which generation of fighter jets would have this design without a vertical tail!"

Zhang Hai was feeling a bit irritable. He glanced at his own post and saw that most of the comments below were also questioning him.

Left with no other choice, he recorded a short video, capturing all the photos in his camera one by one.

"Now you believe me, right? I really did take that picture just now!"

Most of the doubts in the group disappeared, but there were still some people who refused to believe Lao Zhang's statement.

Until someone forwarded a post from another social media platform.

"Wait a minute, what Old Zhang said seems to be true; other people also took pictures..."

As more and more photos from different angles were released, the members of the group realized that they seemed to have really seen something incredible!

In addition, similar photos were taken at another airport hundreds of kilometers away.

However, the structure of that plane differed slightly from the one Zhang Hai photographed.

Even so, any seasoned military enthusiast can see that the two aircraft share a common design lineage.

Especially the key feature of eliminating the vertical tail and using ailerons in return, couldn't be more obvious!
The group admin, Centurion, had just finished his night shift and was making coffee while slowly scrolling through the messages he had missed.

A minute later, the coffee cup slipped from his hand.

"Fuck!"

He stared intently at the photo for a full minute!

As a seasoned aviation enthusiast and a semi-industry professional, he immediately realized that this photo was extraordinary.

He scrolled down the chat history and confirmed that the image was not generated by AI. He was so shocked that he couldn't express it.

What shocked him most was the aircraft's aerodynamic shape and surface treatment, which completely exceeded the scope of existing publicly available aerodynamics and stealth technologies!
Seeing the debate in the group, the centurion didn't get involved. Instead, he packaged the photo and other pictures from different angles circulating online and sent them to a few friends.

"Brothers, what do you think? Is there anything special about this plane?"

After half an hour of discussion, everyone agreed that this was very likely Longxia's highly classified sixth-generation fighter jet.

Even if it's not a sixth-generation fighter jet, it's definitely a prototype or technology demonstrator of some kind of air superiority platform.

Anyway, the level of technology involved is absolutely astounding!
The centurion took a deep breath and finally slowly sent a message in the group chat.

"Stop arguing, it really could be a sixth-generation fighter jet."

After thinking for a moment, the centurion added another sentence.

"Even if it's not a sixth-generation fighter, it's probably a model used as a technological reserve for sixth-generation fighters!"

Meanwhile, images and discussions about the new fighter jet went viral online.

#Mysterious Flying Machine in Qinling Mountains#
#Longxia's sixth-generation fighter jet suspected of being exposed#
#GinkgoLeaf#
Various terms and phrases have been appearing on major social media platforms like rockets.

Military bloggers and aviation experts jumped into the fray, and within just a few hours, countless videos and articles of varying lengths appeared on major media outlets.

Countless marketing accounts jumped on the bandwagon, reposting the same few photos over and over again.

The funniest thing is that some of the pictures and videos that marketing accounts get are from who-knows-how-many different sources, the watermarks haven't been removed, and they're even worn out.

Even so, these marketing accounts can still garner tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands or even millions of views.

This demonstrates just how popular the sixth-generation fighter jet is.

Experts analyzed these photos repeatedly from various angles.

"Judging from the edge design, it is highly likely that a completely different stealth method was used..."

"The design of this exhaust nozzle at the rear..."

"The lump on your back might be..."

In comparison, some personal bloggers have made much bolder guesses.

"...Is it possible, I mean, that this surface design is intended for future optical stealth?"

"Wasn't it said that sixth-generation fighter jets need to be intelligent? The country is now vigorously promoting the development of the AI ​​industry. Could it be just to prepare for this new fighter jet?"

While the internet was buzzing with excitement, photos and preliminary analysis reports were also rapidly appearing on the desks of intelligence agencies, high-ranking military officials, and aviation giants around the world through various channels.

If we're talking about who's the most nervous person in the world, it's undoubtedly the Great Chief of the Eagle Tribe.

Allen never expected that his boastful talk about getting funding a while ago would actually turn out to be true by sheer chance!

The conference room was filled with distinguished guests.

The chieftain stared at the high-resolution printed photo, his face turning ashen.

Beside the Great Chief sat Allen, whose expression was complicated.

Opposite the two of them was a large group of experts from various airlines and fields.

"Did anyone tell me what happened? Why did Long Xia become someone we can no longer look up to when I woke up?!" (End of Chapter)