The glory and dream of the "Blue Sky Guard of Honor"
2024-08-08
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The six-plane formation of the August 1st Flying Demonstration Team performs a flight show. Photo by Wang Peinan, China Youth Daily and China Youth Network reporter
Recently, the "Air Force Red Landmark Tour" entered the viewing platform of the Air Force's August 1st Flying Demonstration Team. On the day of the event, hundreds of students and mass representatives came to the viewing platform to watch the flight performance, participate in the red landmark check-in, listen to the dialogue between new and old pilots, and feel the spiritual inheritance behind the "Blue Sky Guard of Honor".
As the "China Blue Sky Guard of Honor", the Air Force's August 1st Flying Demonstration Team is a window to a strong country and a strong military, a window to reform and opening up, and a window to military exchanges. This viewing platform, which covers an area of more than 1,000 square meters, has witnessed hundreds of wonderful performances dedicated by the team to guests from various countries, witnessed the team's repeated aircraft model upgrades and action innovations, and recorded the team's flight path from "the birth of national ceremony" to "striving for first-class", reflecting the reform, innovation, and continuous development trajectory of the People's Air Force.
That morning, the viewing platform was crowded with people, and the audience raised their cameras in anticipation of the wonderful flight performance. At around 10:30, amid the deafening sound of breaking through the air, the performance aircraft took off in two batches at predetermined time intervals and formed a formation in the air. At this time, the No. 6 aircraft in the middle of the formation took off at a high angle and kicked off the flight performance with a thrilling afterburner oblique somersault. "The pilot will bear a load of 9G when performing the afterburner oblique somersault, and it is necessary to conduct regular high-intensity training..." Hearing the commentator's explanation, the audience stood up and applauded.
Six aircraft rolled in formation, six aircraft formed into groups, four aircraft rolled synchronously... Under the clear sky, six performance aircraft danced in the blue sky and spread their wings in the clouds, performing 22 thrilling flight performances in more than 20 minutes. The formation flight was extremely precise, and the multiple aircraft formed into groups and opened and closed freely. The "rainbow" composed of red, yellow and blue smoke symbols of the August 1st Army Flag and the Air Force Flag crossed the sky, and the audience applauded continuously. The primary school students wearing red scarves stood up and saluted spontaneously when the performance aircraft passed by.
In the hall of the viewing platform, a "Red Landmark Blue Sky Dance" check-in interactive activity was set up. The audience lined up to stamp the "Viewing Platform" seal on the red landmark tour bookmarks and check-in books, and rushed to receive the theme posters and take photos with the pilots. In the guestbook, a primary school student wrote in a childish handwriting: "I hope the pilot uncles have a smooth flight. My dream is to become a soldier and defend my country."
Teachers and students from Harbin Institute of Technology could not hide their excitement during an interview: "Thank you to the Air Force's August 1st Flying Team for bringing us a wonderful and stunning flying show, which also further strengthened our young students' ambition to defend our country. You have lived up to the blue sky of our motherland, and we have lived up to our youth!"
"Today's flight performance was very impressive. I feel very proud. The young pilots of the new era have good style and traditions!" said Xiao Qingyou, the eighth captain of the Air Force's August 1st Flying Team. In the "Root-seeking, Dream-building, and Flying with More Efforts" time-space dialogue session, four former captains of the performance team had face-to-face dialogues with three pilots who had just completed the flight performance, telling touching stories in the history of the performance team and looking back on the flying road of the "Blue Sky Guard of Honor".
"The seven changes of uniforms by the Air Force's August 1st Flying Team reflect the transformation process of a major country's air force, and also demonstrate the spiritual core of Chinese soldiers in pursuit of excellence, reform and innovation, and hard work and enterprising. The viewing stand is a witness to the transformation and development of the People's Air Force." Military expert Li Shasha introduced that the performance aircraft used by the Air Force's August 1st Flying Team are all domestically produced main fighter jets of various periods. Each change of uniforms fully demonstrates the leap-forward improvement in the country's comprehensive strength and the combat effectiveness of the Air Force. Successive generations of pilots have always fulfilled the mission and responsibility of "the honor of the motherland is above all else", been loyal to the Party, performed for the country, been enterprising and courageous to surpass, from nine aircraft horizontal blooming to four aircraft diamond-shaped blooming upwards, from six aircraft rolling to five aircraft horizontal blooming, they have created one difficult classic stunt after another, and won praise from the Chinese and international counterparts.
Outside the viewing platform, the eight golden characters "National Ceremony, Blue Sky Guard of Honor" shone brightly. In the display cabinets on both sides of the viewing platform hall, hundreds of themed exhibits donated by foreign air forces, such as air show theme commemorative photo frames, foreign air force commemorative plaques, and foreign military flight demonstration team badges, tell the heavy mission carried by this performance team.
The Air Force's August 1st Flying Team was established on January 25, 1962, as the "Air Force Escort Performance Team" at that time. On August 1, 1987, it was officially named the "August 1st Flying Team of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force". Since its debut in Moscow in 2013, the Air Force's August 1st Flying Team has flown abroad 10 times, performing flight shows in seven countries including Russia, Malaysia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Singapore and Saudi Arabia.
"This is the air show themed commemorative photo frame with the Swifts and Warriors flying team as the main images, which was presented by the Russian military when we flew abroad for the first time for a performance." In front of a display cabinet, the team leader Li Bin said that before the flight show, Russian people were not interested in the posters of the flying team placed around the aircrew lounge. After the team finished its first show, the posters around the lounge became popular, and the audience lined up to wait for the pilots' signatures after getting the posters.
In November 2017, the performance team was invited to perform a flying show for the Pakistani people on their way back from the Dubai Air Show. The photo frames and aircraft models presented by the Pakistan Air Force witnessed the historic breakthrough of the performance team's "one trip abroad, two performances in two countries".
In February 2020, the acrobatic team took off in the rain at the opening ceremony of the Singapore Air Show, flying through the clouds and rain between the sea and the sky in single and six-plane dense formations. The commemorative photo frame presented by the Singapore Air Force Acrobatic Team recorded this wonderful "6+1" performance in the Lion City.
In January 2024, the team flew directly to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with aerial refueling. The commemorative plaque presented by the Saudi Eagles team shows the actual combat training level of the Chinese Air Force.
Military expert Zhang Xuefeng said: "As a national business card and a flying envoy, the Air Force's August 1st Flying Team is also a peace and cultural envoy. By flying abroad to perform flying shows, it has enhanced friendship, promoted cooperation, displayed its image, and also demonstrated the strong strength of the People's Air Force's continuous development and growth. The Air Force's August 1st Flying Team will surely fly higher and higher and fly farther!"
"The motherland named us August 1st, and we will add color to the motherland with our flying." Talking about the upcoming flight performance mission, Li Bin is full of confidence, "In the new era of flying, we will definitely live up to our mission and expectations, and strive to fly harder towards the goal of building a world-class flight demonstration team!"
China Youth Daily and China Youth Network reporter Wang Peinan, trainee reporter Li Si, correspondent Zhu Jianghai, Gao Sifeng, Xiao Hang
(Source: China Youth Daily)
