PLA Air Force strategic projection capability covers all territories

PLA Air Force strategic projection capability covers all territories

(Source: PLA Daily) 2012-08-13

The picture shows a large military transport airplane is executing task. (PLA Daily/Tan Chao)

　　The military transport aircraft is a sign of a country’s strategic projection capability. It is learnt that the transport aircraft troop units under the Air Force of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have gone to 23 countries to carry out major tasks more than 30 times in the past nearly ten years, with their air routes extended from surrounding areas and close neighbors to Eastern Europe and North Africa and the south of the equator.

　　The transport aircraft of the PLA Air Force flew over the Karakoram Mountain for the first time and into the sky over South Asia during the “Friendship 2006” China-Pakistan joint anti-terrorism training. The transport aircraft troop units of the PLA Air Force realized China’s first transnational air delivery of forces during the “Peace Mission 2007” joint anti-terrorism military exercise held by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The transport aircraft of the PLA Air Force flew six time zones to Libya to evacuate the Chinese citizens there, setting a record with the longest flying range and the longest flight time of the transport aircraft of the PLA Air Force.

　　The PLA Air Force dispatched 60 transport airplanes to fight against the great Wenchuan earthquake, making a record in dispatching the most transport airplanes which made the most sorties in a single day. In the Yushu earthquake relief work, nine flight crews of the transport aircraft troop units of the PLA Air Force completed night taking off and landing without terrain obstruction lights and taxiway guidance lights in a high-altitude airport for 28 times.

　　If you start the portable computer of the pilots of a transport aircraft aviation division under the air force of the Guangzhou Military Area Command (MAC) of the PLA, you will find that there are all that are necessary, such as the world route map and the intercontinental route map. The multi-functional flight simulation training system of a large transport airplane of the division can simulate the landing training of hundreds of domestic airports and numerous foreign airports, and generate air routes automatically.

　　By Zhang Li and Li Guowen

Editor:Li Meng