Sanya, Hainan Island, a city that began to build a seaport not long ago, has become the anchorage of the future South China Sea Fleet, and the powerful engineering capabilities in the northwest are like blowing up balloons, and a modern port has appeared here, which can not only accommodate 10,000-ton cargo ships to dock here, but even large warships can also dock here.

In the core of the port, several peaks are artificially piled up to build a land-based battery, where 16-inch or even 18-inch artillery will be protected, at a unique angle, so that it can protect the entire port, on the inside of the port, and in the vast area on the other side of the city, which will be used as a core military base and airfield in the future.

It is truly realized that the strength of the air force, both in terms of distance and timeliness, is much more powerful than the fleet, and the efficiency of the fleet is far higher in terms of protection and attack, and a large airfield will be built in every military base.

Hainan Island, as the core of the entire South China Sea, will play a strategic role, and the entire South China Sea will be included in China's scope in the future.

318 meters, this is the length of the flight deck of the future aircraft carrier, this distance, for the average ordinary fighter, is almost enough, some light monoplane fighters, may only need 300 meters, or even 250 meters is enough, but the four-engine bomber, if you want to board the aircraft carrier, it is almost impossible, now the main four-engine aircraft in the northwest, with a full take-off weight of more than 10 tons, the runway gliding distance. At least at about 2,400 meters, it is impossible for an aircraft carrier to build such a long runway. So it can only be compromised, on the premise of ensuring that it flies. Increase the bomb load as much as possible.

Of course, there is a clear difference between aircraft carrier operations and army bombers, because it is impossible to use a long runway to take off a heavy twin-engine, or even a four-engine strategic bomber, like a land-based air force, with a take-off weight of more than 10 tons or 20 tons, such a bomb load is enough to carry out carpet bombing, aircraft carrier-based aircraft. We can only find some balance between horizontal bombing and precision bombing.

Finally, after scientific calculations and discussions, the light wooden aircraft, which was proposed by Yang Yuanzhao and based on the concept of the British mosquito bomber in World War II, added folding wings to facilitate parking on the aircraft carrier, and due to the light body, his minimum take-off distance could be reduced to 280 meters. The runway of 318 meters is enough for it to be only fully loaded, and the bomb load reaches about 1.8 tons, which is really nothing compared to the land-based air force. However, it is the largest bomb load that can be achieved in the navy.

In addition to horizontal bombers, there was also a dive bomber. This is the main fighter of the aircraft carrier battle group, and the horizontal bombing of the land base. The difference between carpet bombing and dive bombing is that dive bombers are highly accurate. Strong ability to break defense, strong sea attack, these aspects, has become the focus, high-speed dive aircraft, can put an aerial bomb, accurate projection on the ship, and in order to pursue survival rate and protection, it is impossible to choose a horizontal bomber like the wooden structure, preferably metal materials, enhance the level of protection in front, in the dense array full of anti-aircraft machine gun fleet, so the bomb load of the dive bomber, the maximum is 900 kg, It can carry 1 900 kg aerial bomb or 2 450 kg aerial bombs.

Yang Yuanzhao actually put forward the concept of a torpedo machine, although it is said that the bomb-carrying capacity of the carrier-based aircraft can carry 800 kilograms of torpedoes, but it is a pity that the torpedo from the ship, modified to the aircraft, the work required is huge, compared with the other two levels and dive bombers, the difficulty coefficient is the largest, conservative estimates, it will take at least a year and a half, until the middle of 1915, or even the end of the year, to be able to put into active service, for the time being, everyone is flying horizontal bombers and dive bombers.

On a long runway, a separate runway is bounded, this is all the pilot training ground, these future naval aviation, here has been a half-year training, and even the training aircraft, from the early Northwest type, gradually transformed into the present, more mature aircraft, although it is not yet the most ultimate finalized product of carrier-based aircraft, but it is almost the type of modification to the extreme.

Boring take-off and landing, these pilots are selected from the tens of thousands of pilots in the northwest, the huge China, not only for the army to provide enough soldiers, but also for the air force to provide a large number of reserve pilots, the establishment of flight schools throughout China, training almost 700,000 prospective pilots every year, they through 200 to 500 hours of flight training, initially mastered the flight method of light aircraft, as for the next, is from the middle.

From light aircraft to ordinary transport aircraft, civil aircraft, which is hardly too much of an obstacle, as long as it goes through about 100 hours of professional flight training, it can be quickly and completely converted, of which the ratio is greater than 80%, but fighters, strategic bombers, and even carrier-based aircraft, it is more difficult, according to the comparison of difficulty, the proportion is greatly reduced, especially carrier-based aircraft, he is different from ordinary aircraft, only 300 meters of flight distance, at sea, under the situation of changeable circumstances, take-off and landing, Every take-off and landing is like a ghost gate, and what they need is the elite of the elite.

Having seen the Pacific War during World War II, Yang Yuanzhao clearly knew that the future showdown with the United States, perhaps, would develop into a protracted war, at this time, a steady stream of troops was indispensable, otherwise, there was a strong manufacturing capacity, but there were not enough people to start warships and take off planes, that was the greatest sorrow.

In fact, this is also the fundamental reason for the defeat of Japan and the United States in the Pacific War in history, in the early days of the war, the United States and Japan, in fact, in the number of aircraft carriers, the performance of carrier-based aircraft, the number of pilots, on the same level, in the use of aircraft carriers, the Japanese still have the upper hand in the war, so from the beginning of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, although Japan did not sink the United States aircraft carrier, but at the beginning of the war, it occupied a huge advantage, this time. Japan and the United States are fooling the winner, but next. In the stalemate phase, the two sides fought endlessly. The number of aircraft carrier losses is not large, but the loss of carrier-based aircraft pilots is huge, and after the lack of mature pilots, the combat effectiveness of aircraft carriers is greatly reduced, and even in the later stage, Japan is not even able to compare with the United States in aircraft carriers, and defeat is inevitable.

At a time when the whole world did not notice the aircraft, China had already begun large-scale cultivation with the advantage of a massive population. Hobbyist clubs, flight competitions in various places, and even training through formal channels have given pilots a huge base, among the base of 700,000 per year and even 4 million in the next five years, it is really not easy to choose 10,000 or even 20,000 carrier-based aircraft pilots.

Temporarily. There will certainly not be so many of them, and the new batch of carrier-based pilots are all carefully selected from the Air Force, and they all have more than 1,500 flight hours. Proficient in at least 3 types of aircraft Class A pilot.

But even so, the training of aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft has made these pilots miserable. Familiar with army take-off and landing, the runway can reach up to 5000 meters at length. It was the runway used to take off the largest experimental aircraft, at least 3,000 meters or more. It can take off and land 4 heavy strategic bombers, and it has suddenly shrunk by more than 10 times, from 3,000 meters to 300 meters, and it cannot be extended.

Theory is theory, practice is practice, before the formation of a set of theories through practice, everything is groping, 300 meters of runway, any deviation, it is easy to go out, take-off is good to say, as long as you fly, generally speaking, under the premise of enough lift, you can successfully fly, but landing, when, what speed needs to be reduced, to the end, you need to hang the hook on the rope, any point of error, will go out of the line, on the ground, out of the line is nothing, just a mistake, But on a ship, qualifying means flying out of the flight deck, which means the plane is destroyed and people are killed.

Those who can be selected to the naval aviation are all the elite of the air force, and they are just unfamiliar with failure, and they are looking for reasons in failure, and with the help of aircraft designers and some theoretical research scholars, they gradually sum up experience, and in the process of continuous failure and research, reduce failure, and finally, succeed more and more, and now the top pilots, piloting fighter planes, can achieve two-thirds of the degree of success in take-off and landing, which is already a qualified standard.

Half a year of training, finally came to an end, most of them qualified, and finally stayed, after the first batch of training carrier-based aircraft pilots are a total of 198, they will carry out the second phase of training, in the open sea of Sanya, a strange-looking ship, quietly anchored at the sea, the top, the huge flight deck is particularly eye-catching, the second stage of training is nothing else, is to take off and land on the ship.

Due to the relationship between design and construction, the real main force of the northwest is still under intense construction, the current progress is a little slow, it is expected that it will not be able to be completed until 15 years, directly refit fast merchant ships, to be a little faster, but those aircraft carriers, at most, can only become the escort of the merchant fleet, the speed can not keep up with the main warship, the number of carrier-based aircraft is much less than the main aircraft carrier, the most important thing is that the length of the flight deck is also a little less.

At present, most of the escort aircraft carriers are still in the process of intense refit, the first batch is 24, and more modifications will be carried out in the future as needed, and the fastest progress among them may not be completely refitted until the end of 1914, but it can not be delayed on board, so it is temporarily refitted one, only the flight deck, and nothing else is a temporary ship, not even sailing, only able to anchor where it is fixed.

As long as there is a flight deck, the first batch has completed the training, and they are looking forward to going on the ship, and they are full of anticipation for this day.

However, among the 198 people who passed the first batch of training, only 19 of the best are qualified to board the ship, even if the training ship is in a state of anchorage, even if the flight deck of this training ship is about 30 meters longer than the flight deck of a regular aircraft carrier, but after all, it is not as good as on land.

Northwest of the value of life, not to the difference in status, even if it is an ordinary soldier, the pension is quite high, but the pilot can not be compared with ordinary soldiers, every pilot is under a certain number of flight hours of training, become a qualified pilot, the larger the aircraft, the greater the consumption when flying, similar to the 198 people who have passed the training, each flight hours are more than 1500 hours, such a person loses one, not only the biggest loss in strength, but also a huge loss in time, so, It's important to stay safe.

The total length of the flight deck is 380 meters, in fact, it is deliberately strengthened, he can't even start, because once it moves, not only the speed is extremely low, and even the balance is not easy to master, but more than 50 meters, it will leave room for the trainers, and the 19 people who were selected, each training on the runway, the longest one can also be guaranteed to stop at about 250 meters, almost half of the margin, for the safety performance has been taken into account the highest.

But after all, the ship is different from the runway, not only more intuitive, but also has a huge pressure, in the first training, even if they have completed the training of the prescribed actions on the runway, under the tension and pressure, it is easy to make mistakes, almost a day of training is over, 19 people, have completed 3 rounds of take-off and landing, and finally stopped at the limit of 318 meters, only 11 people, the remaining 8 have gone out, and even one 380 meters has not completely stopped, almost the whole plane flew out, Fortunately, this pilot is an experienced pilot, and in the second half of the journey that can no longer stop, he accelerates directly, which is equivalent to pulling up again and taking off, which is easier to take off than landing, and after barely getting up, landing again is considered successful. At the end of the day, even confident pilots know that this is not an easy training and must be given their all.

In Hainan, when the new members of the naval aviation are sweating and even sweating and even blood and tears in order to master the technology and intense training of carrier-based aircraft, a big war is gradually starting in Mongolia in the north, and the million-strong level has a bearing on the entire battle situation, and it is about to break out. (To be continued.) )