The alarm sounded. The Naval Aviation personnel waiting in the combat readiness duty room grabbed the helmets beside them and ran toward the fighters on the deck, ready to launch.
Liu Jun had only taken a few steps when he remembered that his fighter was still in the hangar. He hurried after his mentor Zhang Peng, sprinting toward J-15S 139.
When he reached 139, he saw that an external fuel tank had been added to the J-15S's belly rack. He immediately realized this operation would cover a long distance, and they needed the tank to carry enough fuel.
"Sit in the back."
Zhang Peng spoke to Liu Jun, then climbed into the cockpit via the front-seat ladder. Liu Jun watched his mentor take the front seat before climbing into the rear cockpit. After adjusting his helmet, he began checking the instruments and making sure there were no loose or unsecured items in the cockpit.
In the two-seat J-15S carrier-based fighter, the front seat was for the pilot and the rear seat for the weapons officer. One handled the flying, the other controlled the onboard weapons. This division of labor reduced the pilot's workload. In a single-seater, the pilot had to attack while controlling the aircraft, which was mentally draining. Human energy was limited.
As a veteran pilot, Zhang Peng had far more flight hours than Liu Jun and was much more familiar with handling the fighter, making him far less likely to make mistakes in intense combat. Letting Liu Jun operate the weapons system meant he only had to follow his training step by step to launch the missiles.
But that was only the surface reason. There was another, deeper one: if danger forced them to abandon the aircraft and eject, the tandem ejection system in a two-seat fighter would eject the rear seat slightly earlier than the front. In a crisis, that tiny fraction of time could mean survival.
Once everything was confirmed to be in order, the ground crew started the tractor and towed the J-15S to the launch position. Amid the sound of machinery, the three jet blast deflectors behind the aircraft slowly rose. 139 entered launch preparation, and the mechanical wheel chocks in front of the wheels locked the rear landing gear in place.
The tractor drove away. A ground crew member beside it bent down to inspect the exterior of the J-15S. After confirming there were no abnormalities, he signaled to Zhang Peng that everything was fine.
As the engines began to shriek, one engine of the J-15S started. Several seconds later, the other started as well. The instrument panel began showing normal engine status. The folded wings unfolded, and with the aircrew checking every aerodynamic surface of the Flying Shark—the canards, ailerons, horizontal stabilizers, and elevators—
After confirming the airframe was in good condition and checking the instruments once more, Zhang Peng rested his left hand on the throttle and gripped the control stick tightly with his right. He nudged the throttle forward, and the engines blasted out high-temperature exhaust, which the deflectors scattered upward.
The J-15S showed signs of lunging forward, but the wheel chocks in the launch area held it in place as it began building the energy needed for takeoff. The engines' shriek continued without pause.
Once the Flying Shark was ready, Zhang Peng looked toward the yellow-shirted deck crewman and signaled that they could launch.
Whoosh! The wheel chocks blocking the rear landing gear retracted into the deck, and the J-15S, long poised to strike, surged forward. Zhang Peng kept pushing the throttle. As the fighter ski-jumped up the carrier's 14-degree bow ramp, he instantly felt as though his body had slammed into a wall. Before that sensation could fully reach his brain, the J-15S, its flaps extended, had flown off the carrier deck along the incline.
The Flying Shark dipped a few meters, and the familiar sensation of weightlessness washed over him. Zhang Peng pushed the throttle to the limit. Once the J-15S stabilized, he pulled back on the stick and climbed toward the sky, retracting the landing gear and flaps. From the rear seat, Liu Jun watched his mentor execute a textbook carrier launch. No wonder the Chief Engineer had said Zhang Peng really knew his stuff.
Next, Zhang Peng handled the Flying Shark almost brutally as he drove it higher into the sky. Liu Jun noticed that their wingman, 140, had also taken off. The two J-15Ss formed a two-ship formation, heading 030 and climbing to an altitude of 8,000.
The distant air situation showed that one of their electronic reconnaissance ships was being tied down by three unidentified aircraft. 139, 140, your mission is to cover 815A's retreat.
The air traffic controller's voice sounded over the communications channel, explaining their combat mission.
Be advised, these unidentified aircraft are armed.
139 received.
140 received.
After acknowledging, the two-ship formation climbed toward high altitude. Through the radar's IFF Identification, they could see several other Flying Sharks standing guard in the waters around the Liaoning. Their fuel had been significantly depleted, and since the combat area was far away, only the four J-15Ss aboard the Liaoning could carry out this mission.
This was Liu Jun's first nighttime mission, and it was a combat mission at that. Of course he was nervous. He checked the J-15S's loadout: two PL10 dogfight missiles on the wingtips, four PL12 medium-range missiles, and 150 rounds for the cannon.
The J-15S could carry far more than that, but the Liaoning's ski-jump launch method prevented it from taking off fully fueled and fully armed. They could only sacrifice some weaponry to increase their range.
"Xiaojun, are you nervous?"
Once the J-15S had reached sufficient altitude and stabilized, Zhang Peng asked over the internal channel. This live combat mission was stressful not only for Liu Jun; even he, an old hand, felt immense pressure.
Satellite remote-sensing imagery, airborne early-warning radar, and battlefield intelligence relayed by the WJ7 drones that arrived later showed that although no ships in the USA's Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group had yet been sunk, they had been mauled badly. Nearly every vessel had taken damage, thick smoke billowing continuously as raging fires scorched their hulls.
This battle won't be easy. Zhang Peng raised his guard inwardly. His years as a veteran pilot made him instinctively sense danger. He glanced at his apprentice in the rearview mirror, focused intently on the radar.
"A little."
Liu Jun answered honestly. After all, this was his first real combat mission, and the enemy was a group of aircraft of unknown origin.
The data link showed severe electromagnetic interference in the mission area, with radar signals being suppressed. In such a complex environment, even PL12 medium-range missiles could not be guaranteed to hit the enemy with complete certainty. This was especially true while the enemy remained at low altitude, where multipath clutter could also affect the missiles' seekers. At the center of it all, the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group was being beaten mercilessly by those unidentified aircraft.
If the enemy had really been that easy to deal with, the USA would have shot down every one of those unidentified aircraft already and proudly publicized it across the international community.
Time passed second by second. The aviation fuel in the external tanks was exhausted, and they had now approached the mission area. According to the data link, 815A was still 30 nautical miles away.
Jettison the external tanks.
Click! The fuel tank on the belly rack detached and fell toward the sea below. An empty external tank was nothing but dead weight to a fighter.
With the hands-on-stick-and-throttle control system engaged, the PL12 seekers mounted beneath the wings powered up and began warming. The onboard radar searched laboriously for signals from those unidentified aircraft. Even knowing that the medium-range missiles had a low hit rate, they still had to launch them!
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