PR photos of the day: Golden Helmet 2017

Talk to me Goose -- after more than 31 years, I see those young-and-impressionable PLA Daily photographers are still under the spell of that Hollywood movie.

PLAAF kicks off “Golden Helmet 2017” air battle contest

Source
    China Military Online
Editor
    Li Jiayao

Time
    2017-11-03


BEIJING, Nov. 3 (ChinaMil) -- The “Golden Helmet 2017” air battle contest of the PLA Air Force kicked off Wednesday morning in northwest China. In the next ten days or so, Sixteen Air Force aviation units and nearly 100 pilots from the five Theater Commands of the PLA will compete in hundreds of air combat confrontations for six Golden Helmet and one Skyhawk Cup.

This is the first competitive air battle contest after the restructuring of the PLAAF aviation troop units. In addition to the mid-range air combat confrontation, the close air battle confrontation is added in the “Golden Helmet 2017” to increase the intensity and difficulty of the contest.

The pilots will receive less orders from the ground command posts and make more decisions independently in the contests, which is designed to test the pilots' flight skills and air battle tactics in the real warfare environment.

The Golden Helmet is considered the highest honor for the PLA Air Force fighter pilots. The contest has been held for six consecutive times since 2011. From the same type of fighters to different types of fighters, from single-fighter combat to formation-based air combat, from long-range and medium-and-long-range to medium-and-short-range and short-range, the rules of the contest have been changing to be increasingly adapted to the real air battles.

By Guo Hongbo and Hao Maojin

Still looking for that missile lock....

 Slow-mo walk,  no PR photo shoot without it.