"Is there any interesting news in the country?" Batra, who was sitting on the maza, asked his partner boredly, "Read it out and listen to it." ”

"Oh~" A lazy voice came from the side: "You don't know, the newspaper that can be delivered to us is the last one a month ago, how can there be any 'new' news." ”

"Well, what interesting news a month ago." Batra rolled her eyes and said helplessly.

"What else could there be? There is a war of scolding between the domestic media and the British. Putting down the newspaper that had blocked his head, Peterson looked at Batra and said boredly: "Basically, this is the main content of the newspaper I have this month. ”

Batra sighed, he was now in Tubrug, in Cyrenaica, North Africa, the land of the Ottoman Empire, and although it was close to the sea, the base was surrounded by a vast desert.

The Red Flag Base, although I don't know why it is called this name, but I heard that it was personally set by His Majesty the Emperor, and this base was established in the name of training air force pilots for the Ottomans. The reason why Tubrug was chosen is because the port here has good hydrological conditions, which is convenient for domestic transportation of supplies and accessories, and there are not many locals living here, so it is easy to prevent the outside world from prying eyes after the base is established, but this also leads to a serious lag in the information of the outside world within the base.

It is even said that the base was built in such a place because it is surrounded by a flat and open area, and even if the plane falls, it is easy to find the wreckage and facilitate recovery to avoid leakage.

In addition to the telegraph station and radio station inside the base, the only way to get information from the outside world is through newspapers brought from home or letters sent by family members when supplies are delivered, and even if you can leave the camp on vacation, you don't expect to get any new news in the backward town of Tubrug.

Although the troops were the same as here in the northern outlying areas of East Prussia for the purpose of cold resistance, it was the German mainland. It's always much better than this hellish place, at least the newspaper is new every day!

"Do you want to hear the good news?" Battra's thoughts were interrupted by his partner's words. After being a partner for so long, just looking at the expression on Peterson's face can tell what Batra is thinking.

"Tell me about it." Batra nodded.

"I heard that there is a canopy in the new accessories this time, so we finally don't have to eat that damn sand!" Peterson said excitedly: "Those uncles above have finally done a good thing!" ”

Although it is close to the sea, it is just south of the Sahara Desert, and North Africa is dry and rainless. The dust from the propellers during take-off or landing makes the open cockpit miserable for pilots in the open cockpit, and the canopy is the most practical improvement for them, even if it is not designed to keep the sand out out of the air.

"That's really good news." Batra nodded, it seemed that it wouldn't be long before his landline would be equipped with this thing, and he had confidence in the experienced mechanics in the base.

Although the Red Flag Base was nominally set up to help Ottoman air pilots, the small mixed flight wing of Batra and Petersen was tasked with conducting violent tests of warplanes. The performance of the aircraft was tested under the devastation of wind, sand and scorching sun. As for helping the Ottomans train pilots, it was instead used to play cover. After all, the Germans' planes flew indiscriminately in Ottoman land, and there must always be a reasonable excuse, why can't you train pilots if you want to train them?

The pilots in this mixed flight wing are drawn from the Field Air Force (FFA) and the Single-Seat Fighter Force (KEK). Assemble Germany's best pilots. However, this unit also has a nickname, called the Thorn Head Flying Team, because in addition to their excellent flying ability, a large part of these pilots are also sabotage experts who make ground crews gnash their teeth, such as people like Peterson. Many of them were sent to this unit for roughly the same reason: "Since you like to wreak havoc on your planes so much, go to a unit that specializes in sabotage!" "And then he was kicked to this place.

So every time a transport team arrives at the base, everyone is as happy as a holiday. That means newspapers, letters, news from the country, and their own new toys. However, every time the recipient responsible for transporting the damaged equipment back to China could not laugh, it was less than a year ago. These guys sent back hundreds of scrapped engines and dozens of broken machines to the mainland, and the logistics department must have wanted to cry without tears.

This is also the reason why Batra has full confidence in the mechanics in the base, because the skills of these veterans have long been trained to the full level in the process of fighting various failures.

"If only these things had arrived sooner, so maybe Carl wouldn't have died." Peterson's voice rang out, and there was an instant silence in the wide hangar.

Pilots in the wing are paid more than all their peers. Flying the latest and greatest aircraft in Germany, but at a greater risk. A violent test flight unit, the pilot mortality rate is naturally much higher than that of other units, and Peterson refers to Carl had an accident in a flight a few days ago, and the engine wheezed when landing. The main landing gear bounced off after smashing on the ground, and then the plane bouncing on the ground lost control and took the big top, the plane that was upside down on the ground was not damaged, the engine and propeller were replaced, and the tinkering was still able to continue flying, but the pilot broke his neck in the collision between his head and the ground. In Peterson's view, perhaps the arched metal stiffeners on the canopy would have kept Carl's neck.

Such sad accidents are not uncommon here, and it is not the first time that the bodies of comrades have been sent to China with the convoy carrying supplies and then loaded back to China, but in any case it is a depressing thing.

"I'll tell you, when I ran straight towards those rookies, I could see that guy's face was scared, and he didn't roll away until he was about to hit me." A smug voice came from the hangar door, and several guys in flight suits walked in, and one of them posed with his hands as he walked to explain his flight movements as he played tricks on others in the sky.

"Marty, are you bullying those Ottoman rookies again? Is it fun to drive the Me-5 to bully the guys who are still driving the monkey version of the Me-4? Batra looked up at his comrades and said angrily, but the arrival of a group of people broke the oppressive atmosphere in the hangar just now.

"We're fighter pilots, and it's uncomfortable not to fight in the air." Marty smiled and said, "And how can it be called bullying?" I didn't let my wingman do anything, I was going to take them alone in a 4-plane formation. Their instructors cooperated, and they wanted to besiege me with those rookies, but I still rode each of them at 6 o'clock. The words are full of pride.

"Oh, you're miserable, it's not long before there will be a protest." Peterson gloated, "Just wait to be punished." ”

"Isn't it just cleaning the toilet? It's not the first time anyway. Marty shrugged his shoulders with his hands outstretched, an American gesture that was well known in Germany because His Majesty the Emperor himself liked to do it. The pilots also liked the maneuver because of the effort.

It's important to have fun in this boring base, and it's not the job of this test unit to explore air tactics, their daily routine is to get on a plane, fly, break it, wait for repairs, and then fly again. So the most popular thing fighter pilots in the mixed flight wing do is to go to the aviation school next door to stir things up. As for the penalties? Isn't it just a week to sweep the toilet?

As Batra said, it was no challenge to bully the monkey-powered Me-4 with the latest Me-5. The Me-4F fighters sold to the Ottomans were armed with only 150 horsepower engines, which were even inferior to the Luftwaffe's own version. The latest version of the Me-5 is fitted with a new BMW aero engine, an eight-cylinder engine with a V-cylinder arrangement for the first time and a 270 hp output. Shock shrouds were installed on the propellers, and for the first time, aluminum skin was used for the nose engine position to make it smoother, although the rear fuselage was still covered in canvas.

The plywood wing frame structure is strong, so it can withstand the flight load only by relying on the main spar, so the tension between the wings is eliminated, and only the pillars between the wings are retained, becoming a cantilever wing...... This further reduces flight resistance. With the addition of the belly radiator, the line shape is quite similar to the British Hawker Fury fighter. A strong 30's biplane style.

Using this kind of thing to bully the Ottoman group of rookies is simply slaughtering young people. So in order to increase the difficulty, 1VN, and even the trouble of going to German colleagues who served as instructors became commonplace. What's more, he directly intervened in the simulated air battle of two groups of 4 planes, and then was besieged by 8 enemy planes, and finally capsized in the gutter and became the laughing stock of the whole team.

Of course. Neither plane had a firing coordinator on board, although this technique was not difficult, and it was the French who first tried it, but in any case, at least until 1915. None of the Entente powers used this technique, and Jochen didn't want to leak secrets from the Ottomans.

However, the Germans did not go to the Ottomans by using the inclined installation method like the oblique music or using the machine gun mount at the top of the curved upper wing, and the wing gun arrangement of the machine gun in the middle of the lower wing allowed the machine gun to avoid the propeller. The machine gun was fixed to the wing surface and had a fairing on the outside, which looked like a bulge on the wing. The two machine guns on the left and right sides were arranged at a certain angle, and the ballistics converged at a distance of 800 meters. Although it is not as accurate as the original two machine guns with a dense arrangement of machine guns in the nose, it can be regarded as having reliable forward firepower.

However, in this way, the German version of the Me-5 actually had 4 front-firing firepower, including wing guns. In addition, I heard that in order to deal with the large aircraft of the local bomber unit (KG), it was possible to use the space between the V-engine cylinders to arrange the barrel of a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun, that is, the shaft gun design, and this firepower was simply praised.

The Me-5's excellent performance is all due to the hard work of pilots like Peterson, Batra, Marty, and the sacrifice of pilots like Karl. The original batch of Me-4Fs brought here was also constantly fed back to China while the results were constantly being fed back to China, and the tensile tension between the light wings was canceled, and the pillars were changed from parallel to V-shaped, all of which have been improved several times. The results of these improvements have all been applied to the design of the new aircraft, as have the canopy improvements.

But it's not just the KEK guys who have new toys. (To be continued......)