The military-industrial scientific research system of the academic master.

Almost at the same time, two three-aircraft formations of the Chinese Naval Aviation Force arrived about 400 kilometers away from the mission sea area.

"Yuejiang, we have just received news that the Jingjiang's radar has discovered that the enemy has taken off two more planes heading towards direction 45. They must have been attracted by Polaris."

The tower commander's announcement, which I hadn't heard for a long time, came over the radio.

Polaris is the code name of the Y-8J.

The ionospheric scatter communication, which had been relayed once through the stratospheric airship, did not disappoint them. Although there was some distortion, the conversation could still be heard clearly.

In fact, this conversation at a distance of about 1100 kilometers should have broken the distance record for VHF communications by the Chinese Aviation Force.

But now no one cares about such minutiae.

What they will do next is something that will be recorded in the history of the navy and even the entire people's army.

"The North Star side should be able to handle it, right?"

Zhao Yi, who was following the team at the end, was obviously a little worried about the athlete who was alone and had no ability to defend himself.

Although there is unlikely to be any direct conflict between the two sides, a flexible tactical aircraft actually has many ways to interfere with the movement of large aircraft, and the Sea Harrier just meets this requirement, and the flight stability of the 8-level plane is not very good. platform.

"Yuejiang 13, don't be distracted."

Wang Wei quickly reminded on the radio.

However, he later added:

"Polaris will not be in direct contact with the opponent's aircraft, so there is no problem."

For those of them who perform overflight missions, the fewer aircraft left on the Excellence, the better it is to complete the mission.

At present, it can be confirmed that the other party has released 6 aircraft.

But before Wang Wei could get happy, another news came from the tower:

"The Jingjiang also reported that the radar detected a very low-speed target, which should be a helicopter, hovering over the opponent's fleet."

"Helicopter..."

Tang Yiping, the lead pilot at the front, was thinking rapidly about the current situation.

Helicopters appear hovering over the fleet. A common situation is anti-submarine warfare or search and rescue of people who have fallen into the water.

The latter possibility makes little sense to them, and the Chinese Navy did not send a submarine to participate in this mission.

"Could it be an early warning helicopter?"

Wang Wei's voice suddenly sounded on the UHF radio used for short-distance communication.

He proposed a new possibility.

In this day and age, early warning helicopters are quite unpopular equipment. If Wang Wei hadn't read the Royal Navy's war history materials before taking off, even he might not be able to remember them.

If that's the case, it's not a big trouble.

Although the early warning helicopter has a short range against air targets, after all, they are not launching anti-ship missiles today, but flying over the opponent's fleet.

If you really allow the other party time to react, there may still be complications.

"Yuejiang 21, Yuejiang 22, you guys exchange covering positions."

After a few seconds of thinking, Tang Yiping made corresponding adjustments to the deployment.

The latest delivery of aircraft No. 21 adds a third fixed electronic warfare device above the vertical tail, so that it can interfere with the aircraft above the original blind spot and has more comprehensive functions.

The price is that the course stability is slightly weaker than before, so in the initial plan, it was not allowed to follow the low-altitude formation.

But I can’t care about that much now.

At 17:10, in the afterglow of the setting sun, the aviation formation entered the search range of the opponent's fleet.

The two electronic warfare aircraft reported almost at the same time that they had received an S-band signal from the left front.

It should be the long-range warning radar on the British fleet.

In order to compensate for the far range of the X-band fire control radar and also serve as a search radar, the Royal Navy's long-range warning radar chose a relatively high frequency.

This compromise ultimately proved that the accuracy could not meet the needs of replacing the search radar, and the effective range of the warning radar was affected.

And today, it exhibits another flaw.

As a third-party signal source, this higher-frequency S-band will be more conducive to passive searches by China's electronic warfare aircraft.

They "borrowed" each other's radar waves and saw the low-speed signal hovering over the fleet, as well as four targets returning at a speed of 300 knots in a slightly farther distance.

It should be the four Sea Harriers that took off before.

This was an unexpected surprise.

Since the two warships were being held at a slightly greater distance and out of visual contact with the opposing fleet, the two JH-7s were even ready to use radar to actively search.

But now this way, this unnecessary step is eliminated.

The location of the Sea King helicopter must be above the fleet.

Tang Yiping quickly calculated the time in his mind, and then issued a new instruction:

"Yuejiang 12, you speed up now, it's best to pass by while the other party is recovering the aircraft!"

"Roger that!"

After receiving the order, Wang Wei understood the meaning of the division commander in a flash of lightning.

It is impossible for the Sea Harrier to take off in a short distance while the Excellence is busy recovering four aircraft, and the bomb load and combat radius in the case of vertical takeoff are very limited.

So now is basically when the opponent's entire fleet is at its weakest.

According to the revised plan, aircraft No. 10, 11 and 22 continued to maintain their original flight status, while Wang Wei led the other three aircraft to lower their altitude to completely avoid the opponent's warning radar.

……

In the CIC of the Excellence, Rear Admiral West looked at the three rapidly approaching target signals on the radar screen, and suddenly had the urge to strangle himself 40 minutes ago and Captain Dennis in front of him.

No matter what happened in the past five months, the Chinese must have got a plane that can fly here.

Long-range warning radar can only see the presence of something, but cannot accurately determine the location of the target.

But now the four planes have run out of fuel and are in urgent need of landing, not even leaving enough space for the Sea Harrier on the deck to take off.

But no matter what, he had to deal with it.

West knew that although it was Boise who interfered with the command, if something really happened, he, as the fleet commander, would definitely be the one to take the blame.

Now he could only be thankful that he was cunning enough to keep a Sea King MK2 in the sky in advance.

"Notify the aviation department to let the four aircraft on the deck take off vertically, and the early warning helicopter will direct them to intercept the target!"

"Rear Admiral, our electronic detection equipment did not detect the opponent's use of radar, so they should not be able to determine the accurate position of our fleet."

The deputy nearby managed to find a piece of good news.

However, before West could breathe a sigh of relief, CIC received another report from an early warning helicopter.

Their radar couldn't see the target!