Thunder Strikes Back

Chapter 512 The Mach Two Battlefield
Semland tried hard to control the acceleration of the plane in the violent shaking, trying to make it stable.Of course he knew what it meant to make or break a speed boost.He didn't know how far the enemy was from him, and he didn't bother to look back in the general direction, because it wouldn't help; but he was confident that within a few tens of seconds, he could get rid of the damn radar, and then the enemy would retreat angrily.After returning, he must solemnly tell Lieutenant General Meneam that it has become extremely unrealistic to enter Aksai Chin from the same route in the sky.

The plane quickly broke through Mach 1.5, and the enemy's position changed roughly from 7 o'clock to 6 o'clock. The opponent's radar did not complete the tracking. It seemed that it was just a dazed plane that rushed over desperately, trying to catch up from behind 6 o'clock to try its luck. The J-10 or J-11 fighter jets.Against ordinary fighters, it is good to be able to bite to the rear, but against the MiG-25, this position can only eat farts.

The trailing Liu Zhaolin did not easily select the only target to track, he was still waiting for the speed to increase, and he used the radar only for distance measurement.

This radar can quickly track aircraft that are not easy to get rid of like the MiG 25, so he is not worried that the target will suddenly disappear.After withdrawing from Quetta Frontline Airport, he started the task of receiving new aircraft, because he has the qualifications of instructor of the two-seater J-11BS fighter jet, and also has the glorious experience of being hit by a missile and returning to the flight after a single stop. , it is naturally not difficult to master this advanced single-seater aircraft.Of course, what needs to be improved is the new actions and tactics brought by the vector engine, which is a challenge.

As early as half a year ago, when he was dealing with the Su-2MKI of the 30nd Squadron of the Indian Air Force in the mountains, he had experienced the strength of the Su-30MKI with vector nozzles.

To be honest, India's Su-30MKI is the most stupid derivative of the Su-27 series he has ever seen. It may be better than the platypus, but he has never had contact with that kind of aircraft.It can be said that this is an extreme design idea that completely runs counter to the optimization principle of air combat. It should not be used as a fighter at all, but the Indians do use it as a fighter.

The Su-30MKI sacrificed the advantages of the flight performance that the air superiority fighter should have, and piled up a lot of cumbersome equipment.The Chinese Air Force was once very confused about India's positioning of purchasing a large number of such aircraft, until it discovered that the Indian Air Force did send it to the forefront for air combat.The Indians don’t seem to realize that what they bought is a fighter-bomber. Maybe the Russians told them when they were selling that the vector engine can make up for the weak maneuverability caused by the overall thrust drop, so the Su-30MKI is as good as a fighter. Actually Of course this is not the case.

From the actual combat reports collected by the Air Force intelligence department in the past six months, it is concluded that the use of vector engines can theoretically make up for a series of insufficient maneuverability problems caused by too weak power, but Indian pilots rarely do such actions .Known information shows that the Su-30MKI can fly at a high angle of attack using this technology on the vertical plane, or perform over-stall maneuvers on the horizontal plane, but the operation is done through the handle, which is quite dependent on human control, and the movements of the two engines must be Synchronous and symmetrical, with constraints on velocity and initial attitude.This means that the aircraft cannot change the direction of the nose in any attitude, otherwise it may cause a crash.

Obviously, this fashionable flying method is far from being integrated with the flight control, and skilled flying can only exert 15.00% of the theoretical ability.Only Chinese and Pakistani pilots have observed more than a dozen times that the opponent's retreat through vector maneuvers to change the air combat situation has not achieved actual results without exception; no Su-30MKI has quickly grasped after such a mechanical twisting action. On the contrary, the stall caused by this maneuver is often the root cause of the failure of subsequent battles.

In addition, from the perspective of maintainability, the average maintenance time of the early vector nozzles is very short, which is undoubtedly a nightmare for logistics; the first-hand intelligence of the Indian Air Force Staff intercepted by the intelligence department shows that all troops are required to reduce such maneuvers in order to Increase the life of the engine vectoring nozzle. Even so, the attendance rate of the Su-30MKI squadron during the war was still lower than that of the old MiG 29 or even the Mirage 2000.

But Liu Zhaolin's experience on this Su-35 fighter is another matter. The Su-35's vector engine technology is integrated with the flight control to become more mature. During the flight, many actions within the will of the pilot are completed, and the vector action is completely under the control of the computer. Each nozzle changes its action frequently at any time to respond to changes in the attitude of the aircraft, and the pilot does not need to intervene in a hurry.Of course, in today's hunting mission, the higher-ups strictly forbids the use of vector movements, and it seems unnecessary. All he has to rely on is the powerful instant acceleration.

During the slow climb, the enemy plane increased its speed to Mach 1.4, and then the acceleration began to slow down.These changes have always been in Liu Zhaolin's calculations. Although his altitude advantage at an altitude of 1.1 meters has gradually decreased, the advantage is still obvious.The enemy's acceleration tends to be conservative, probably because he is worried that the poorly maintained sealed aircraft will disintegrate. It seems that if he is not given a little pressure, he may not be able to use his full strength.He pushed the throttle harder, closing the distance even further.

This chase has already exceeded 120 kilometers. As usual, the MiG-25 should have escaped long ago. Semland, who has been unable to get rid of the radar scanning in the same direction, sensed that something might be wrong, because the irradiation energy of that radar has not weakened at all. It can be seen that there is no get rid of him.

"Since you invaders risk your life to play with me, well, just run out of fuel and come on."

Samlan couldn't help sneering, he really sympathized with this pursuer who was desperately using afterburner, maybe his political officer was warning him on the channel: Don't hesitate to return the fuel, for the purpose of the motherland, the time has come to give up your life?He couldn't help being a little proud, thinking: "In our world, being loyal and even sacrificing for the country depends entirely on personal enthusiasm, not coercion."

The major finally made up his mind and increased the thrust to maximum.Even in the 1980s, before Triple Sonic Squadron was disbanded, none of the fighters in the squadron tried to challenge the Soviet manual. The Soviet instructors told them that there was always danger in breaking through the thermal barrier, and they should not easily increase to that speed.

Liu Zhaolin found that the enemy's speed had increased a lot, and quickly broke through Mach 1.7, surpassing the speed of Mach 35 maintained by the Su-1.6.With the extreme design, the enemy began to surpass himself in this contest of speed and endurance.However, he could already see with the naked eye the huge condensed water vapor left by the opponent's rapid flight, and it seemed that he had no intention of turning at all.With the rapid diffusion of water vapor, it gradually evolved into straight clouds on the forested snow-capped mountains, like a white blanket.

The target range on the HUD has been reduced to 10 km.If it weren't for the cloud cover, we should have seen the flames of the tail vent.With its afterburner thrust, the Su-35 quickly increased to twice the speed of sound, and at one point returned the acceleration advantage by 2%. He knew that this speed could not last for a few seconds, but he hoped to provide the missile with the highest possible initial velocity.Even if the distance between the two aircraft is expected to not exceed 2 kilometers during launch, it is necessary to shorten the distance as much as possible.

In the cabin of the MiG 25, the sound of the radar contact warning turned into a hasty interception warning, which greatly exceeded Samland's expectations. No Chinese plane could pursue him closely for 120 seconds, and all the enemies should be on his own. After surpassing Mach 1.5, he retreated in the face of difficulties.But is this guy who doesn't know what's good or bad really difficult to deal with?Did they also have some new weapons?The huge body noise and acceleration made his thinking ability decline. He thought that the enemy might have dispatched that kind of black ghostly plane?
It will take time for fighter jets to cross Mach 2.5; however, the reconnaissance aircraft will still have strong (80s-level) electronic jamming capabilities by then, and now is the time to play all the cards.If Semlan knew that the opponent had pursued him within the line of sight and how powerful the radar was, he could have avoided these unnecessary countermeasures, but tried to hide behind the mountain by flying at a low altitude.

Liu Zhaolin's radar quickly "burns through" the chaff jamming. The grandfather's SPS-142 jamming system is almost ineffective against this phased array radar. He can even directly use the jamming source tracking capability of the R77 missile to shoot, but everything depends on Security is the top priority, he did not consider this way.

The Su 35 has crossed Mach 2.2, and it seems that the acceleration is weak, and the fuel in the body is being consumed rapidly.At this moment, he still has a height advantage of about 750 meters. The distance between the two sides is about 7.5 kilometers. He can already clearly see the outline of the enemy plane wrapped in a cloud of mist, and the best shooting window has appeared.

The edge of the target lock box on the HUD, the distance reduction number is slowing down, and finally becomes a jump of the last few digits.In a few seconds, the MiG 25 will regain its speed advantage. Liu Zhaolin launched two R2 missiles towards the target. The missiles flew away from the pylon at a very high initial speed, and after a short ignition acceleration, they reached enough speed to chase down the MiG. 77 speed.Liu Zhaolin slowly reduced the accelerator, waited for the active radar of the missile to turn on and capture the target, and then turned south.According to the plan, once the enemy gets rid of the missile by decelerating maneuvers, he can intercept the second time somewhere in the south with the guidance of the early warning aircraft and the last 25 missiles. Through the chase and attack just now, he has already consumed the excess ammunition and fuel, at that time, he is sure that he can accelerate to Mach 2 and maintain the high speed for a longer period of time; an Il-2.3 tanker is not far behind, and he is not worried about the problem of returning home; but he is very skeptical Will there be such a thing as the MiG 78 being able to maneuver and get rid of missiles at a speed of Mach 25? Although the R2's foreign trade model is not very good, the range at an altitude of 77 meters can be guaranteed.

The old MiG 25 has no idea that the opponent has launched a missile. The warning system left over from the old era has not upgraded the software at all. This system directly turns a blind eye to the active radar missile with negligible radiation energy. Although this old-fashioned aircraft is a reconnaissance type with enhanced combat capability, but cannot respond sensitively to radiation sources other than large ground radars or more powerful airborne radars.

Samland increased the speed step by step, and the airspeed indicator remained unchanged at 1.9 as usual.There is no ground radar to tell him his real speed, and the trailing missiles are chasing him. He is glad that the radar of the fighter plane chasing him has finally disappeared. It seems that the enemy retreated despite the difficulties.During this period, he didn't turn his head to look at the situation behind him. Of course, even if he turned his head, he probably couldn't see the missile that was directly chasing him.

The two missiles approached the target quietly one after the other. Although the engines had stopped working, they still maintained a high speed.They are launched from a distance close enough to launch combat bombs, and they still have an altitude advantage of about 2 kilometer, but it still takes a lot of time to catch up with this enemy plane flying at Mach 1.The entire attack time takes a long 2.5 seconds. For the last distance, the missile flies by inertia. Any extra maneuvering will damage the speed and cause the attack to fail. Fortunately, this stupid target does not move around much.

"Thanks to the gods in the clouds for leading us out of the darkness and confronting the seemingly powerful enemy head-on." Although Semlan was short of breath, he still muttered, "The enemy's full force is just an illusion, because they are only crawling and authoritative, the soul Lack of faith. The war of aggression they waged must end in a profound fear of light and freedom."

When he was silently talking about the light, a bright light flickered on the side of the plane, and then the plane paused, as if it had hit an angel walking in the air.Amid the ear-piercing sound of metal twisting, the fighter plane rolled violently, and the roiling wind poured into the cabin from nowhere, which was a precursor to disintegration. Samlan lost consciousness before the second missile exploded. The plane crashed into a deep valley on the ground at high speed.

"White Bird, hit the target, the mission is lifted." The early warning aircraft told Liu Zhaolin.

"Are you sure he was hit?" he pressed, though completely predictable.

"Yes, it broke into three supersonic fragments, and it slowed down only now. It is impossible for the pilot to survive."

"I heard that they sent some old men to carry out the task of sending them to death?"

"Yes, after the disbandment of the 102 Squadron, these MiG-25 pilots have been disarmed and returned to the field. They should be in their early 50s by now. Some of them have carried out reconnaissance missions that penetrated our country's territory."

"It seems that I really deserved to die." He commented harmlessly, "Am I the first to shoot down a MiG-25 record?"

"It's really beautiful. Other troops have shot down at least 3 MiG-25s in Assam, but as far as I know, the battle just now was the longest and fastest pursuit. And the enemy is always at a speed. Disadvantage."

"Is that so?"

Liu Zhaolin was inevitably a little disappointed.During the period when he left the battlefield to receive the new aircraft, he didn't know the combat situation of the various units, but he knew that the competition among pilots was becoming fiercer, and he had long been left far behind.Of course, he is still in the position of a front-line fighter pilot by virtue of his head-on dealings with gusts and his record of being able to return home with skill after being hit.

He knew that compared with actual combat, previous simulated confrontations were meaningless. Even if he shot down Song Ning 10 times in the air, it would not be worth the fact that he shot down many enemy planes in the air.Before shooting down this MiG-25, Liu Zhaolin's record was to shoot down a Mirage 2000 and a helicopter, and another shot down was doubtful, neither verified nor recorded.

(End of this chapter)