129: Chapter 129 Unexpected Changes

"Drones? They're useful, but I always feel like those things aren't quite reliable enough, and they're easily targeted by the opposition."

Deputy Commander Ran replied with a frown.

"Haha, don't worry, Commander. The drones I'm talking about are a bit different from the current versions—or rather, they're revolutionary. Even if they are targeted, the enemy would have to know how to target them first, right?"

"Haha, you rascal. Fine then. Once these drones are ready, I'll have to go and see them for myself first."

As the three were chatting, the announcer's voice came over the loudspeaker again. Deputy Commander Ran listened for a moment.

"Alright, Russia's performance is over. Now it's time for our fighters to take the stage. Academician Chu, shall we head over to take a look?"

"Alright, we definitely have to see this, haha."

Chu Ge and the others then stood up and walked toward the large screen.

In the distance at the airfield, as the Russian fighter jets landed one after another, the already prepared JJ-10Cs and four F-16 fighters took off in succession, each flying toward their designated exercise airspace.

In free air combat, neither side knows the other's airspace. Excluding the assistance of AWACS and ground radar, it all comes down to the fighters' true capabilities in unfamiliar airspace.

"01, G Country's fighters are the old version of the F-16. This isn't very interesting. If we're going to compete, we should be going against the F-16V."

The chatterbox Dai Lin began his performance again, but this time he was smarter and used the squad channel. The golden helmet pilots had all been deployed, showing that the Air Force took this military exercise quite seriously.

"Knock out your opponent first. It won't be too late to complain then."

"Alright, two minutes until we reach the designated airspace. Enter in a diamond formation. 02, follow me; 04, follow 03. According to the pre-assigned search directions, turn on active search radars after entering."

"02, copy."

"03, copy."

"04, copy."

Without the assistance of AWACS and ground radar, the performance of the fighter's radar was put to the ultimate test. This was also pre-set by the Director Team, as radar performance is one of the primary parameters buyers want to examine.

In reality, such situations rarely occur in modern air combat. During combat patrols, a fighter's search radar is generally not turned on; the task of searching for targets is mainly completed by AWACS, which then guides the fighters to attack.

"Entering the battlefield. Formation, turn on radars. Everyone, stay sharp."

After the team members replied, the lead pilot, Cheng Changkun, turned on his radar. He shook his head left and right to visually check on his teammates before shifting his gaze to the radar scanning interface.

Soon, four bright spots appeared on the radar, and Cheng Changkun's spirits lifted.

"Southeast direction, four enemy aircraft, distance 240 km, altitude 8200."

Cheng Changkun promptly relayed the battlefield information to his teammates. The JJ-10C was equipped with China's most advanced AESA airborne radar, which has a long detection range. While its beyond-visual-range combat capability might not be the absolute best, it was top-tier for aircraft in this class.

"03, 04, once you're within missile range, fire a wave of long-range air-to-air missiles first. Pay attention to target selection."

"03, copy."

"04, copy."

In the G Country F-16 formation, they were completely unaware of the situation, still "strolling" leisurely.

"Lead, why haven't we found any trace of them yet? They couldn't have gotten lost, could they? Haha."

"Shut up and keep an eye on your aircraft. As far as I know, the radar on China's JJ-10C has a longer search range than ours. We're the ones at a disadvantage right now."

"Lead, sometimes data can be faked. You can't fully trust the numbers."

The wingman pilot was an ace from G Country with a full beard. He wasn't optimistic about this trip to China; he just couldn't understand what the officials above were thinking, choosing to come here for a military exercise instead of picking the advanced F-16V.

Just as he finished speaking, the radar lock warning on the aircraft suddenly blared. His first reaction was actually to think it was a ground-based anti-aircraft missile.

"Not good, Lead! I've been locked by an anti-aircraft missile."

"Anti-aircraft missile? Are you joking?"

A few seconds later—

"Oh! Two missiles! Lead, where were they fired from?"

"You idiot, that's the JJ-10C locking onto you! Hurry up and maneuver to break the lock! Or release flares! There's still a chance while you haven't entered the No-escape zone of their air-to-air missiles."

"Copy."

Tens of seconds later—

"Lead, I've been judged as shot down. I feel like I've been played."

"What? How is that possible? They fired missiles from such a distance. It's one thing to hit an AWACS, but for a fighter jet, the probability of breaking the lock is actually quite high."

"That's why I said I've been played."

"Alright, withdraw from the exercise for now. We'll talk about everything once we're on the ground."

As the temporary leader of this squad, this G Country pilot possessed high tactical proficiency. Since the exercise wasn't over yet, he had to continue.

"Copy."

...

Chu Ge looked at the combat information on the display, a slight smile appearing on his face.

"Academician Chu, what do you think?"

Deputy Commander Ran turned and happened to see Chu Ge smiling, so he became interested.

"It fully leveraged the advantages of beyond-visual-range combat. This batch of old F-16s is indeed lacking in radar performance. Their detection range is insufficient, so they couldn't spot our JJ-10Cs in advance. In this situation, whoever spots the other first has already gained the upper hand."

"Haha, exactly. Anything else?"

"I'm guessing your Director Team required half of the opposing fighters to be taken out; otherwise, the exercise would already be over."

After Chu Ge finished speaking, he turned to look at Deputy Commander Ran.

"Haha, nothing can be hidden from Academician Chu. Beyond-visual-range combat is one aspect, but close-quarters combat is also very important. Anything else?"

"Anything else? Well, then there are the air-to-air missiles. They must use Dual-pulse motors, right? The ignition motor works for a period and then cuts out, coasting for a distance before igniting again. By that distance, the opposing aircraft has basically entered the missile's No-escape zone."

Chu Ge blurted out after a moment's thought.

"Academician Chu, Commander Leng wasn't exaggerating just now. You really do understand the Air Force."

This time, Deputy Commander Ran didn't continue questioning. Instead, a glimmer of affirmation and appreciation appeared in his eyes.

The aerial exercise continued. With two aircraft from the F-16 formation withdrawn, two JJ-10Cs also automatically withdrew to ensure fairness. Now it was a 2v2.

The distance between the two sides had closed significantly, and Cheng Changkun switched the air-to-air missiles to short-range dogfight missiles.

He stared at the "enemy aircraft" information in his helmet-mounted display system, his right hand flicking open the protective cover of the launch button.

"02, cover me. I'm entering the attack position."

"02, copy."

Cheng Changkun input the flight parameters of the opposing aircraft and then began pre-cooling the short-range air-to-air missiles. This so-called pre-cooling is actually powering up the infrared missiles, with the remaining seeker cooling work handled automatically by the missile's built-in program.

A similar set of operations was also taking place among the G Istanbul pilots. Close-range dogfighting is very thrilling; it's a test of both aircraft performance and pilot skill.

Missiles were launched almost simultaneously from both sides, and the JJ-10C utilized High off-boresight launch conditions, the missiles screaming forth.

In the G Istanbul F-16 formation—

"Lead, I've been judged as shot down! What about your missile?"

"Mine... my missile was launched too, but I feel like something's not right."

"What do you mean?"

"Exercise missiles usually only operate for five seconds before self-destructing, but this missile has been working for ten seconds and is still moving forward. And the direction it's heading in is wrong! It's out of control."

"Ah?"

...

Inside the Weapon Experiment Base, Soul Blade's glowing red eyes suddenly switched to blue. The next second, an alarm blared.

"Oh no! Quick, get out of that area! Soul Blade is about to activate flight mode."

Just as the words were spoken, Soul Blade soared into the air and quickly disappeared. Yu Yiyang hurriedly ran over to help up his colleague who had fallen to the ground, checking for injuries. Fortunately, it was just a scrape.

He looked up at the open sky above, his brow furrowed.