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recently, a brigade of the northern theater air force organized a day-and-night flight. a fighter jet is taking off. photo by zhao peijun

be a pathfinder who walks with fire

■ air force daily reporter dong bin and yang bo

as the car entered the jinggangshan tunnel, the view suddenly became dark.

then, the light strip on the top of the tunnel quickly swept backwards, pulling a piece of golden light into a line of time, light and shadow intertwined.

on the army day of august 1 this year, ye nonan, a full-time instructor at the aviation tactics teaching and research section of the air force command college, took advantage of the school's summer vacation to visit the jinggangshan revolutionary museum.

walking into the museum lobby, ye nuonan saw a dim bronze oil lamp. on the base of the lamp, the eight characters "a single spark can start a prairie fire" drew the thoughts of this soldier born in the 1990s far, far away...

light illuminates the direction and transmits strength. from being a young student enlisting in the army to becoming an air force fighter pilot; from studying for a master's degree to serving as a full-time instructor in a college; from standing at the front line of training and preparation for war to being at the forefront of theoretical exploration... ye nuonan's choices time and time again are precisely because she sees the light of the times and the fire of a strong army, catches up with historical opportunities and the rhythm of the times, and has a new path of training and improvement in her military career, and has gained the acceleration of development and growth.

as a revolutionary soldier in the new era, we should enjoy the support of the times and respond to the gifts of the times. in the interview, ye nuonan said: "i must run my own baton well and strive to become a ray of light that illuminates the future."

from a fighter pilot in a front-line unit to a full-time instructor at the air force command college, ye nonan knows very well that in order to truly preach, teach, and answer questions for students, he must have ideas, passion, and confidence.

therefore, she repeatedly went to the troops for research, actively consulted experts, analyzed relevant concepts from a practical level, matched the course content with the needs of the troops, and explored how to increase the "combat content" of the course. in and out of the classroom, she shared her understanding and experience of life and career with students with enthusiasm and sincerity.

"only by placing ourselves in the times can we accurately identify the coordinates of our mission and the direction of development," "we must see because we believe"... ye nuonan's passionate words resonated with many comrades.

when ye nonan examines her own growth path from a broader perspective, she hopes that her exploration can provide development ideas for more pilots, allowing them to see more path options and a more distant future.

as the reform of the flight talent training model continues to advance and the growth chain of military flight talents is further optimized, ye nonan is delighted to see that many comrades have grown into the backbone of the front line, and more comrades have emerged in major training and exercise missions.

pathfinders, hold the fire and walk; fellow travelers, move forward firmly. ye nuonan said that in fact, everyone can be the one who "holds the fire", riding on the light of the times, becoming a "spark" that sets the prairie on fire and merges into a vast and brilliant galaxy.

ye nuonan, a full-time instructor at the air force command college, teaches students. photo by zhou yu

from the cockpit of a fighter plane to the podium of a military academy——

a female pilot's changing vision

■liu liangliang, dong kai, air force daily reporter dong bin, yang bo

during the summer vacation, ye nonan took a rare vacation back to his hometown in hunan and accompanied his parents to travel along the yuanshui river.

looking up, the sky was clear and a civilian airliner was flying across the sky, leaving a long trail. ye nuonan could not help but silently recite a number in his mind - that was the number of days since he last flew a plane.

in this situation, the desire to return to the blue sky was ignited again in ye nuonan's beautiful eyes. at the end of 2022, she had flown for more than 1,000 hours. as an outstanding officer of a brigade of the air force aviation corps of the northern theater command, she was selected to serve as a full-time instructor at the air force command college for a period of 2 years.

what you see is closely related to the era, position, and depth of thinking of each person. different people must have different "perspectives". for ye nuonan, her "perspective" is particularly rich and colorful——

as one of the first female fighter pilots in the air force with a "double degree" in engineering and military science, ye nuonan has repeatedly flown into the sky, witnessed the clouds in the clear sky, and aimed at the attack targets in the vast blue waves...

as one of the first outstanding officers selected by the air force to serve as full-time instructors in academies, ye nonan has witnessed the in-depth advancement of the reform of the talent training model and the vigorous atmosphere of the troops in solidly advancing training and preparation for war.

the change in "vision" is due to changes in combat positions, thinking, and capabilities, and also reflects an army's ability to proactively recognize, respond to, and seek change.

what did ye nuonan see inside and outside the cockpit, on and off the podium?

inside and outside the cabin

looking inward is to tap potential, looking outward is to make breakthroughs

this is ye nuonan’s favorite photo: the fighter plane’s canopy is raised high, she is wearing a flight suit and a helmet, with her chin slightly raised, looking very heroic.

the open canopy seems to be a metaphor. the growth experience of this soldier born in the 1990s is also a process of continuous "opening".

the road to flying is full of ups and downs. when she first became an air force flight student, she couldn't even fly the simulator of the primary trainer properly, and was once trapped in self-doubt and frustration.

after countless hard trainings, i have learned hundreds of instrument parameters by heart, hundreds of operating actions by muscle memory, and nearly a hundred special situation handling methods by heart...

after flying for a long time, she gradually became addicted to the "sense of control" of the fighter plane. she captured all of these delicately and accurately, such as the roar of the engine when the afterburner was turned on, the slight shaking of the joystick when flying through the clouds, and the strong support of the seat when maneuvering with a large load.

the first female pilot in the same batch to fly solo, the first female pilot in the front cabin of the air force's modified "flying leopard" fighter... over the years, as the flight path of youth has flown higher and higher, ye nonan has more and more eye-catching "labels".

but she was not satisfied with this. she asked herself again and again: "how far can a pilot see? what can he do?"

one day, after the flight ended, ye nonan looked at the slowly rising canopy and seemed to have found the answer: growth is a process of constantly breaking out of the cocoon. looking inward is to tap potential, and looking outward is to make breakthroughs. one must let his vision penetrate the cockpit and look towards a wider world!

opportunities only reveal their true colors to those who are brave enough to seek change. at that time, ye nuonan might not have realized that her series of choices just happened to catch up with the booming times.

in 2017, the military academy graduate student admissions brochure was distributed to the flight brigade, and ye nonan noticed that he met the requirements for applying for graduate school.

after careful consideration, she applied to the organization for the postgraduate entrance examination. before this, due to the full training schedule, few pilots had the energy to take the postgraduate entrance examination, and no female pilots had ever applied.

unexpectedly, the brigade leaders were particularly supportive: "don't worry about taking the exam. we will help you find the information you need." subsequently, ye nonan was admitted to the command department of the air force command college with high scores to pursue an on-the-job master's degree.

the year ye nuonan enrolled, the air force command college was launching a new round of teaching model reforms, and the atmosphere of war research became increasingly strong. coincidentally, the superior assigned a special research task to the aviation brigade where ye nuonan was, and she took the initiative to participate in it.

during his postgraduate study, ye nuonan took this topic as his main research direction, systematically studied theoretical knowledge, and carried out in-depth forward-looking research. his supervisor, professor su yingzhen, said: "xiao ye treats learning like flying, and really flies with his thesis, and flies out of combat effectiveness."

later, she not only successfully obtained a master's degree in military science, but her graduation thesis was also rated as an outstanding thesis by the air force command college.

in 2022, the air force command college will recruit full-time instructors for the first time for the entire air force. upon hearing the news, ye nuonan took the initiative to sign up. professor tao quanming, who was in charge of the interview, recalled: "at that time, she had just come down from the front line of flight and looked a little tired, but there was light in her eyes, she spoke very fast, her thoughts were very clear, and her views were full of war."

opportunity once again favored this young pilot. she was selected as one of the first full-time instructors with excellent results. she also became the first female instructor to stand on the podium since the establishment of the aviation tactics teaching and research section of the air force command college.

the moment he stepped into the gate of the air force command college again, ye nonan made up his mind: he must fly his own track in the airspace without routes and leave his own footprints on the journey without signposts.

on and off stage

if you study well, you will gain what you know; if you study hard, you will open up the unknown.

standing on the three-foot-high podium, ye nuonan, who has excellent eyesight, can almost see the eyes and expressions of every student in the classroom.

however, during ye nuonan's first class, a data in the courseware caused a student to question her. the student asked three consecutive questions, which made her feel a little embarrassed.

afterwards, the students in the audience began to discuss quietly, and the class almost got out of control. ye nuonan calmed down and humbly and sincerely asked the expert professor sitting in the back row of the classroom to provide additional answers.

after class, when the student approached ye nonan to communicate, she said frankly that she admired the student's initiative to seek knowledge and solid theoretical foundation behind his "challenge".

the change in the order of the two words "learn well" and "learn well" has a very different meaning. in class, ye nuonan has repeatedly quoted a sentence said by the school leader: "learning well will get known answers; being studious will open up unknown horizons."

standing on the podium, ye nonan had a different perspective. she seemed to see herself back then - only active choices can lead to growth, and only by actively choosing the times can one achieve further growth.

after a period of teaching practice, ye nonan has a deeper understanding and appreciation of the saying "if you want to give someone a bowl of water, you must first have a bucket of water yourself."

in her opinion, "a bucket of water" should not be a simple accumulation of "a bowl of water", but an exponential growth of cognition.

indeed, ye nuonan used to think that she was very familiar with weapons and equipment, performance principles, and operation. but when she stood on the podium, she found that her theoretical reserves were actually quite lacking.

after extensive and in-depth exchanges with students from command organizations and front-line troops, she realized that she had not been “standing high enough” when thinking about problems.

the role transformation on and off the podium, the close connection between colleges and the military, and the deep integration of knowledge and practice have changed ye nuonan's "horizon" -

she saw that the tide of change was surging. in recent years, the strategic transformation of the air force has been accelerated, actual combat training has been deepened and solidified, advanced combat concepts, iterative weapons and equipment, and a new organizational form... all of this makes people feel fresh and excited.

she saw that the "storm" was unfolding in the students' minds. the next war will first be fought in the minds of soldiers. it is necessary to speed up the iteration and upgrade of the cognition of teachers and students, so that their thinking and cognition can see infinite scenery in the "higher level".

last year, ye nuonan participated in a major exercise as an expert in the assessment team. she was very sharp when she talked about problems and she was very good at explaining theories. the mission commander commented that her understanding of future operations has surpassed that of ordinary pilots, and her depth and breadth of research on cutting-edge concepts are even more unexpected.

individual system

entering the game depends on courage, and breaking the game depends on ability

on the electronic display screen, the crisscrossing attack and defense tracks, the densely packed troop symbols, and the red and blue lines of force application silently demonstrate the high intensity of this exercise.

this was ye nuonan's first time participating in a campaign-level command exercise as a full-time instructor. she used to be a frontline pilot and was part of the assault force in system confrontation. however, the use of forces and situation display in a large system and a large chess game were difficult for pilots at the end of tactics to access in the past.

this huge impact on the cognitive and thinking levels caused ye nuonan to have a strong fear of incompetence. this also triggered her to further think about the joint combat system: who am i? what should i do?

systemic issues naturally need to be answered within the system. ye nuonan said that every soldier needs to be positioned in the coordinates of the times and defined in the cause of strengthening the military.

the prerequisite for positioning coordinates is first to integrate into the entire system.

entering the game often means gaining and giving up, breaking and rebuilding, which requires courage. this is exactly what ye nuonan lacks the most.

in life, ye nonan loves to talk and laugh. she never "makes do" with details, and she is very good at things that young people are interested in.

when it comes to work, ye nuonan goes all out——

she participated in the drill and failed in her first mission. she said, "losing is not scary; being afraid is scary." after reading 27 volumes of materials with more than 1 million words and studying hundreds of videos of fighter planes' precision strikes, she finally mastered the skill of "killing with one sword".

when he first arrived at the college to teach, facing the hundreds of school officials sitting in the audience, ye nuonan, who was in his early 30s, encouraged himself: "i'm young, what am i afraid of!"

a certain air-ground coordination project was an interface for ye nuonan to "enter the game." "only when the 'eyes' on the ground can see accurately can the 'fists' in the air hit accurately." she always believed that the battlefield of pilots is not only in the sky, but also on the ground.

at the theoretical seminar on the subject, she felt a surge of power rising in her chest when she saw comrades wearing different armbands from the cmc, the army, the navy, etc. sitting together and having lively discussions.

after the project entered the actual troop verification stage, ye nonan spent almost a whole year with equipment experts and his comrades in the army, repeatedly conducting air-ground coordination training, unifying standards, improving processes, and calibrating equipment.

when upgrading the technology of a certain software, some experts were not very supportive of this young man in the team. later, ye nuonan gradually conquered them with "data": "all the data was collected by me through my flights..."

the opportunity to witness the strength has come. in july this year, the graduates of the air force command college faced a big test - during the graduation exercise, full-time instructor ye nuonan served as a "simulated brigade commander" and led the students to plan combat plans under the background of actual combat.

sitting in the commander's seat, the female lieutenant colonel has already set her sights on a larger system - how to use troops, how to share information, how to coordinate elements, and a complete set of plans is gradually taking shape in her mind.

in this battle, the simulation brigade led by ye nonan won a great victory.

past and future

become a beam of light, lighting the way ahead

spring goes and autumn comes, and two years of full-time instructor career have passed in a flash. at the end of this year, ye nonan will leave the campus and return to the front line of battle.

in her old unit, ye nuonan had a cool nickname called "special situation lady" because she was calm and composed when flying and had successfully resolved special situations in the air many times by accurately identifying the status of fighter planes.

just like the knights in martial arts novels who practiced martial arts in the mountains and hoped to come down from the mountains to show their skills in the martial arts world, ye nuonan now has a stronger desire to return to the blue sky. she especially hopes that she will get the opportunity to modify a new fighter plane in the near future.

not long ago, a military painter presented ye nuonan with a work of art. in the painting, a team of female pilots, holding helmets, walked towards a new fighter plane with high spirits. ye nuonan placed the work in the most eye-catching position in the instructor dormitory.

on the sofa in the dormitory, ye nuonan had almost read through the thick pile of military and social science books. she had accumulated a huge amount of data on cutting-edge information, advanced concepts, and foreign literature shared by experts and professors...

in addition to the accumulation of knowledge, there is also internal transformation. during her time at school, ye nuonan participated in many major theoretical research, research projects, and training tasks, and was exposed to the most cutting-edge theories and the latest practical explorations. these rich accumulations opened her eyes, while also allowing her to experience repeated reconstruction of cognition, reorganization of theories, and reshaping of abilities.

from a pilot to a full-time instructor, her "biological clock" has also changed. before, she had to get enough rest to ensure she was focused when performing flight missions; now, she often prepares lessons and studies until the early morning.

when she walked out of the office building, she saw that the lights in the teaching and research office were still on. those lights reflected the teachers' urgent need to educate students for war, and would also illuminate the students who were heading for the future battlefield.

although he was very tired from working overtime, ye nuonan often walked back to the dormitory with a smile on his face.

while the harvest brought a sense of steadiness, ye nuonan also felt a little anxious. she was extremely sensitive to time and was keenly aware that everything was speeding up, while she seemed to be standing still. just like live ammunition shooting, she was worried that she would miss the most critical "time window".

sometimes, ye nonan would ask himself: although i am one step ahead in cognition, the flying time is shorter. am i "flying slower"?

whenever she was anxious, she would think of a past event.

one day, it was snowing heavily, and a comrade wanted to walk a straight line in the snow, so he lowered his head and walked forward following his footprints. unexpectedly, the footprints he walked out were zigzag.

when this comrade found a reference point in the distance and walked forward again, he was surprised to find that he really walked in a straight line this time.

ye nonan remembered that a flying senior whom he admired once said that opportunities are reserved for those who are prepared, those who are prepared and dare to do it, and those who know how to make choices.

standing at the crossroads of the past and the future, ye nonan finally figured it out: as long as he anchors his goal, remains calm and steady, he will eventually reach the other side of his dreams.

(source: china military network-liberation army daily)

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