What Fighter is the Flying Leopard ???

What Fighter is the Flying Leopard ???

Found Text below via simhq

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Text of report by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

Shanghai, 19 June: The other day at a naval aviation airfield south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River [Chang Jiang], one after the other the new type of warplane the Flying Leopard [Fei Bao] shot straight into the sky, cut into the combat flight path from different angles and different directions, and took advantage of the cover of darkness and waves as they rushed towards a formation of “enemy” ships on high alert, and then successfully conducted a destructive attack against the “enemy”.

The success of this training exercise in which a group of aircraft penetrated defences at night, at low altitude, far out at sea, demonstrates that the Flying Leopard now has “all-weather” long-range combat operations capability.

The Flying Leopard warplane is a multi-role, all-weather, supersonic fighter-bomber designed, researched, developed, and produced by China on its own. The missions it can carry out include attacking targets on land and at sea, support and assistance [zhi chi, zhi yuan] to combat operations on land and at sea, and attacking large and medium-sized surface ships. Since the Flying Leopard was fielded to naval aviation in 1998, it has distinguished itself by completing more than ten major missions including the 50th Anniversary National Day Military Review, large-scale military exercises, and coordinated opposing forces training exercises with ships and aircraft, winning the title of “airborne iron fist”.

The participants in the training exercise a few days ago were from the naval aviation flying regiment which was the first to be equipped with the Flying Leopard. To give the Flying Leopard all-weather, long-range combat operations capability, in recent years the regiment has exploited the Flying Leopard’s characteristics of a big ordnance payload, long flight range, strong combat capabilities, quite good night vision capability, and fast recognition capability, and the regiment took improving the unit’s ability to fly at extra-low altitude far out at sea as the focus of its training. The regiment gradually intensified training in very difficult subjects such as “long-range, sea-crossing combat, penetrating defences at low and extra-low altitude, and low-altitude attack at night”. The regiment’s overall combat capabilities improved markedly, and most of the regiment’s aviators are now capable of all-weather, long-range combat.

Defence penetration by a group of aircraft at night at low altitude far out at sea can easily result in abnormal situations such as dropping out of flying attitude, becoming lost, and misperception. There is little time to handle these situations, and doing so is difficult. This not only requires that the aircraft have quite good night vision and rapid recognition functions, it puts very high demands on aviators’ flying skills and psychological qualities. To improve aviators’ psychological qualities, the regiment arranges for aviators to engage in technical exchanges and the trading of experiences, and it invites experts in to present classes. Besides that, the regiment has stepped up training in flight actions in ground simulators and simulation training in flight procedures, giving the aviators a clear grasp of night flight over the sea and greater confidence about it. To temper the aviators’ ability to handle emergencies, the regiment incorporated radio silence, electromagnetic jamming, and the absence of command guidance in the process of training to penetrate defences.

Training in these highly difficult subjects greatly improved the technical and tactical skill and the psychological quality of Flying Leopard aviators. In an opposing forces training exercise organized by the navy not long ago, Flying Leopard warplanes crossed a sea area in a long-range raid, setting a record with a hit rate of 100 per cent with a certain type of air-to-ship missile.

Source: Xinhua news agency domestic service, Beijing, in Chinese 0131 gmt 19 Jun 05