The strongest pilot ever

Chapter 336 Refueling in the Air
336 Air Refueling
Fade Chen and Li Li were the last to take off.

They also operate in the same way, take off directly with afterburner and high elevation angle, which is simple and rude, but extremely efficient.

It is no exaggeration to say that if the 404th Brigade hadn't taken off first, one-third of the planes of the two brigades would have failed to take off within the specified time, thus losing the opportunity to continue participating in the Red Sword Exercise.

After Chen Fei took off, he joined the formation 404, waited for a while, and waited until the pilots of the other brigade also flew up, then he contacted the control tower by radio: "Tower, the 404 brigade has already formed formation, please instruct us on the next step! "

"Adjust the frequency to XXXXX, contact Hongzhi, follow the command of Hongzhi, it's over!"

"Understood, contact XXXXX, and obey Red Finger's command!" Fade Chen re-entered the radio frequency, and then began to call the Red Army Command Center: "Red Finger, I am the 404th Brigade, and I accept your command now!"

"Brigade 404, accept the new route, enter according to the new route, and enter airspace 34 on time at [-]:[-] am!"

"Understood, accept the new route, and enter according to the new route!"

Fade Chen received the chart of the new route, and took a closer look at their route. He was a little surprised, because their current route was different from the route issued before. It was more than 1000 kilometers longer, and they had to make a detour from the southeast direction. Big circle, so if they follow the new route, they don’t have enough aviation fuel to fly to the Red Army Base, because if they want to reach Airspace 34 on time at eight o’clock, then they must fly at supersonic speed, and supersonic flight is very fuel consumption.

Thinking about it this way, Fade Chen knew the intention of the higher authorities, and they must be required to conduct aerial refueling training.

This is unlikely to be a request from the Red Army command post, and it is likely to be an order issued by the director's department.

This kind of exercise is really a huge test for the Red Army, because they not only have to face the harassment of the Blue Army, but also have to honestly accept the difficulties of the director department, such as the previous attack from the tactical box egg, such as the current Sudden increase in aerial refueling!
"There are all of them, fly on the new route, altitude 7000, speed Mach 1.1, over." Fade Chen ordered by radio.

"Fly according to the new route, the altitude is 7000, the speed is Mach 1.1, the first team understands!"

"The second team understands, fly on the new route, altitude 7000, speed Mach 1.1!"

Everyone reported one by one. Afterwards, the six squadrons separated from each other, followed the formation that had been rehearsed countless times before, turned the rudder together, and flew towards the target airspace.

The flight route of the other brigade at the Red Seal Base was different from that of Chen Fei and the others. They flew to the Red Army Base from another direction, and they seemed to be going to another airspace to complete aerial refueling.

Not a while after the sun rose, Chen Fei and the others were running out of aviation fuel. Although their fuel tanks were filled with aviation fuel before departure, because everyone was fully loaded, and their flying speed could not be too fast. It's slow, and you have to fly at supersonic speed, so the consumption of aviation fuel is huge!
Sure enough, at this time, Red Finger issued an order: "Brigade 404, go to Airspace 34 for aerial refueling!"

"Received, aerial refueling in airspace 34!" Fade Chen said.

Aerial tankers are known as "flying fuel tanks" and "air fuel depots", which are equivalent to gas stations in the sky.

After the birth of the aircraft, due to the limited capacity of the fuel tank, the time it can fly in the air is limited, and it is very troublesome to land and refuel. It is usually fine, but during the war, it may be related to the life and death of the pilot and the victory or defeat of the battle. Therefore, be aware Zhishi has long wanted to refuel in the air.

August 1923, 8, is destined to go down in the history books, because on this day, people conducted the first aerial refueling test.

On that day, over the San Diego Bay in California, USA, two planes appeared, flying in formation one above the other, and suddenly a hose hung from the plane above. Aircraft fuel tanks.

After a while, the fuel was poured from the plane above into the fuel tank of the plane below. At this point, people finally completed the first aerial refueling. Although the refueling process seems very funny and dangerous today, it has become a great pioneering work in the history of aviation.

After the emergence of aerial refueling aircraft and technology, many countries have paid attention to them, and have invested heavily in upgrading and improving them, making aerial refueling aircraft another prominent flying family after fighter jets, bombers, and transport aircraft.

The advent of aerial refueling aircraft has brought changes in at least three aspects of air combat: increasing the combat radius of fighter jets and bombers; increasing the number of bombs and bombs loaded by fighter jets and bombers; Penetrate the oil spilled aircraft.

But mid-air refueling is a relatively dangerous thing. A little carelessness or operational error by the pilot will cause disaster.

One day in 1965, a KC-135 tanker of the U.S. Air Force was ordered to refuel a B-52 bomber. During the docking process of the two planes, the pilot of the B-52 bomber made an error and crashed into the tanker.

The development of our army's aerial refueling aircraft started relatively late. It was not until the late 80s that the Ministry of Aviation Industry of the People's Republic of China began to develop aerial refueling aircraft.

In 1988, on the basis of repeated demonstrations and tests, my country chose the H-6 as the first-generation tanker.With the help of the United Kingdom and Israel, after hundreds of aerial docking tests, my country finally successfully realized the first aerial refueling of the H-1991 and J-12II on December 23, 6.

Six years later, my country's first aerial refueling regiment was born in the Guangzhou Military Region, marking a revolutionary leap for the Chinese Air Force.

However, due to the insufficient load and volume of the H-6, its fuel supply capacity is only about 18 tons, which can only supply the needs of three J-3 fighters, and is limited to light fighters such as J-8 or J-8 , unable to refuel large bombers, patrol aircraft, long-range radar warning aircraft and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft.

In order to change this situation, in 2006, China and Russia reached an agreement to purchase 15 Russian Il-30 transport aircraft and 76 Il-8M refueling aircraft at a price of US$78 billion.However, due to various reasons, these aircraft were not delivered in the end.

直到2014年，中国从乌克兰购买了三架伊尔78空中加油机。伊尔78重型加油机供油能力达到了60吨，足以为8架战斗机提供燃油。如果把伊尔78空中加油机和苏30或者歼11B搭配使用，我国的战机就能实现覆盖全南-海巡航，实现远程作战能力的倍增。

Of course, if the Chinese Air Force wants to rise strongly, it is impossible to rely on the purchase of foreign advanced tankers for a long time. It must have a large-scale aerial tanker independently developed.The emergence of Yun-20 just filled this gap.

At this time, the tanker modified from the Yun-404 platform came to refuel with Fade Chen and his 20th Brigade in the air.

After receiving the instructions from his superiors, Fade Chen immediately pulled up the fighter plane. After the altitude rose a little, he pressed the lever and rudder, turned left and left. After flying to a certain distance, he began to command the formation to refuel.

Their fleet of 26 planes naturally had to be refueled one after another, and it was impossible to rush them all at once, which required someone to direct them.

At this time, there are two Yun-34 tankers in airspace 20, and Chen Fei and the others will divide into two teams to refuel separately.

"Team one, team three, team five, tanker on the left, team two, team four, team six, tanker on the right."

The 404th brigade immediately separated from the left and right, lined up in a row, and then flew to the tanker one after another, and started to refuel!
At present, there are two ways of aerial refueling for military aircraft in various countries, namely hose refueling and hard pipe refueling.

Among them, hose refueling is the most common aerial refueling method, while hard pipe refueling is currently only used by the U.S. Air Force.

Hard tube refueling, when the tanker is ready to refuel the oil receiver, it will release the retractable hard tube from the tail.When the receiver plane flies into the refueling position behind the tanker, the operator in the control cabin at the rear of the tanker will manipulate the wing surface on the refueling pipe to move the refueling pipe so that it is aligned with the refueling pipe on the refueling plane.When aligned, the operator locks the filler tube and receiver tube, and refueling can then be performed.When refueling is complete, the operator withdraws the refueling pipe and the receiver disengages.

Chen Fei and the others used hoses to refuel.

Hose refueling equipment is simpler than hard pipe refueling equipment.It is composed of a winch, a tens of meters long hose and a drogue sleeve.

After the other pilots finished refueling, Fade Chen and Li Li started to refuel in the air.

Fade Chen flew his fighter plane to tens of meters below the tanker plane.

At this time, the most important thing is to keep the speed of the two aircrafts consistent.

The fuel dispenser has released the soft fuel pipe, and the drogue will remain stable under the action of air resistance.

Fade Chen carefully drove the fighter plane into the refueling position, then manipulated the plane to slowly approach the drogue sleeve, and then inserted the oil receiving pipe at the nose of the aircraft into the drogue sleeve at the right time.The locking mechanism in the drogue automatically locks the oil receiving pipe port immediately, and then starts to refuel.After the refueling is completed, the refueling machine decelerates and disengages the taper sleeve, and the refueling machine starts the winch to retract the hose.

When refueling, with the transfer of fuel, the weight of the tanker will decrease, and the weight of the receiver will increase. Therefore, the pilots of the two aircrafts need to fine-tune the aircraft at any time;

After refueling, the refueling machine decelerates, and then performs a disengagement action to leave the refueling machine.

(End of this chapter)