Chapter 52: Fire at High Altitude Aboard the Aircraft

Host: Zhou Zhihan
Intelligence: Peerless, photographic memory
Physical Reserve Level: Tier 1 Reserve +
Skills: Slightly Superior Combat Technique
Secret Manual: Overlord of the Sky
Air Combat Coins: 375,793.

"Huh!"

Looking at the unchanged number of Air Combat Coins in the system, Zhou Zhihan scratched his head. "What is going on? Neither participating in the military academy senior physical fitness test nor competing in grenade throwing with Major General Arthur King increased my Air Combat Coins."

"When the host completes tasks assigned by this system, Air Combat Coins will be awarded as prizes. The host must defeat enemies to earn Air Combat Coin rewards. People like Major General Arthur King, Big Bear, and others have no enmity with the host and belong to friendly matches, so no Air Combat Coins are awarded.

Furthermore, the host's tactile perception only actively detects those who harbor malicious intentions toward the host and wish to harm them. It does not automatically identify people who hold no hostility toward the host."

Zhou Zhihan nodded, realizing how it was. No wonder that except for when he came into contact with Kimiko Kayama and Ryunosuke Sakamoto, where his tactile perception immediately detected their identities and malicious intents, it had no reaction when he interacted with classmates, General Arthur King, Major General Jeff Hunter, and Shu Qin.

Zhou Zhihan entered the [Overlord of the Sky] secret manual. Two hangars appeared before him once again, slowly opening to reveal the Tachikawa Ki-95c trainer and the Stearman PT-17 biplane trainer.

Zhou Zhihan's lips and nostrils twitched simultaneously.

Knowing that protests were futile, he had no choice but to continue flying these two trainers today.

Zhou Zhihan walked toward the Tachikawa Ki-95c trainer. Japanese aircraft possessed unique characteristics; since both trainers were placed here, he needed to spend more time studying Japanese planes.

All operations were familiar and practiced. Once the aircraft's three fixed wheels completely left the ground, Zhou Zhihan pulled back the control stick and applied full throttle, taking off at a steep angle of climb. After the engine emitted a violent roar, the Tachikawa Ki-95c trainer climbed toward the sky with full might.

Since every takeoff consumed 5,000 Air Combat Coins, he might as well put the engine to good use. Only by pushing the throttle to the maximum could he find out where the peak climbing speed of an aircraft lay.

Everything went smoothly. Piloting the Tachikawa Ki-95c trainer felt completely effortless to him. Thinking that one hour of his flight time was equivalent to fifty hours for ordinary people, the feeling was simply fantastic—exhilarating all the way up to high altitude.

Today, the flight area seemed to have changed as well. While the ground below had been barren just moments ago, as he flew forward, villages and lakes began to appear, with undulating mountain ranges faintly visible in the distance.

This felt quite novel to him. During his previous flights, the ground below had been completely empty, with boundless emptiness visible in all directions, just like being in the sky during the primordial era.

Every time he entered the [Overlord of the Sky] secret manual, the position of the sun in the sky was also different. Sometimes it was morning, sometimes noon, occasionally dusk, and sometimes it was raining with a light breeze.

Today, the sun hung obliquely in the east, the sky was calm and tranquil, and white clouds drifted in the distance, looking exceptionally dazzling and beautiful beneath the blue sky!

Zhou Zhihan banked the aircraft and flew westward. Under normal circumstances, he would practice flying directly into the sun, which was extremely important in future air combat.

During World War II, close-range dogfights were the primary battlefield for opposing warplanes, and pilots would scramble to seize the tail-high sun position to launch attacks against each other. Because polarized sunglasses had not yet been invented, pilots defending or attacking while facing the sun would have their vision severely impaired by the intense sunlight, leading to misjudgments of distance and missed combat opportunities.

Today, Zhou Zhihan wanted to admire the scenery on the ground. During the past few days of flying, he had concentrated all his thoughts on practicing aircraft maneuvering techniques. Further to the west were mountain ranges, and he wanted to experience what the mood and scenery would be like when flying over the mountains.

Previously, the most he had done was climb mountains or walk through mountain forests; now, piloting an airplane to fly above the mountain ranges offered a completely different realm of experience.

Looking at the vibrant villages on the ground, the pale yellow crops should be wheat nearing maturity.

Flying further ahead, large herds of cattle and sheep in pastures were grazing on newly sprouted tender grass tips. Zhou Zhihan could even catch the reflection of sunlight gleaming off the iron nails on the boot tips of a cowboy riding a horse.

Seeing the cowboy riding a horse on the ground reminded Zhou Zhihan of the old cowboy at the inn, and he thought that being a cowboy must actually be quite nice—free and unconstrained.

Yet, wearing the exact same cowboy hat, cowboy outfit, and sharp, cool leather cowboy boots, why couldn't Asians pull off the European and American swagger?

Zhou Zhihan chuckled at the thought. Chinese cheongsams, Tang suits, and Zhongshan suits also only looked good when worn by Chinese people.

At this moment, how wonderful it would be if he were piloting an airplane through the skies of China.

And it would be even better if he could fly right over the sky above his own doorstep.

He could wave to his grandparents sunning themselves at the doorway, and greet his parents to let them know he was doing well.

Ah!

If he happened to pass by his doorstep just as his old classmates and buddies looked up in admiration, what an epic flex that would be!

Who wouldn't want to fly a plane past their own front door and be the envy of their childhood friends?

It felt just like a poor child who had wandered afar working odd jobs for many years, finally returning home in glory and fine clothes.

Zhou Zhihan shook his head and smiled again. He wondered when he would finally be able to rein in this relentless urge to show off.

The feeling of flying freely in the sky was simply exhilarating. And this was merely piloting a World War II trainer with a top speed of around 200 kilometers per hour. How incredible would it feel if he could fly third-generation or fourth-generation jets in the future?

Listening to the thunderous roar of the engine, Zhou Zhihan pressed the control stick to the left, kicked the left rudder halfway, pushed the throttle forward with ants' steps, and pushed the rear ailerons in the opposite direction. The Tachikawa Ki-95c trainer's left wing dipped, its wingtips pointing obliquely toward the earth, while its nose cut inward to execute the most basic turning maneuver. After flying a complete 360-degree circle, he leveled the control stick, pulled the aircraft out of the turn, and resumed level flight.

Excited, Zhou Zhihan then jammed the control stick hard to the right, opened the trailing edge flaps to stand obliquely in the opposite direction, and used the axis connecting the nose and tail as the centerline to execute a continuous series of spiral rolls downward to the right. After five consecutive aileron rolls, the aircraft's altitude dropped to 1,100 meters. Zhou Zhihan leveled the control stick, retracted the right rudder, and the aircraft easily recovered into level flight. He then pulled back on the control stick to climb upward, returning to the altitude of 2,320 meters he had held before the roll, and continued flying aimlessly ahead.

By now, basic turns, roll maneuvers, loops, small-angle inward cuts, and small-angle turns—these relatively simple maneuvers—could all be executed by Zhou Zhihan with complete ease and fluency. Compared to contemporary pilots, his current flight time easily qualified him as an old hand.

Zhou Zhihan muttered softly under his breath, "When can I learn barrel rolls, half-loops with split-s, 180-degree scorpion tail hooks, Immelmann turns, S-breaks, falling leaf maneuvers, cobra maneuvers, and so on? That would be perfection."

The system ignored him.

Flying westward for another half-hour, towns, villages, and ranches gradually grew denser from their initial sparse distribution. When flying at low altitude, Zhou Zhihan could clearly see pedestrians on the roads below, each looking like tiny dwarfs who had escaped from the world of Hobbiton, with oversized heads and short bodies.

Flying in the sky afforded an exceptional field of view.

A mountain range appeared in the distant west, undulating continuously from south to north without any visible beginning or end. The mountains were lush and green, and viewed from high altitude in the distance, their peaks were shrouded in mist, resembling a wonderland.

Zhou Zhihan felt it necessary to circle the mountain range once and then fly along it to increase his mountain flying experience.

Right now, whenever he encountered unfamiliar terrain, he had to fly over it a few times.

When all was said and forth, the flight altitudes of World War II early- and mid-stage warplanes were generally around three to four thousand meters. When air combat broke out, many aircraft engaged in dogfights below two thousand meters, where they were heavily influenced by terrain. When pilots fought below two thousand meters, even a slight nose-down dive would cause the ground to exert a strong visual impact on the pilot's vision, bringing immense psychological pressure.

He glanced at the altimeter.

2,330 meters.

This was a very comfortable flying altitude—fuel-efficient, allowing him to see the scenery and buildings on the ground, with air so fresh it felt drinkable.

A few black dots were rapidly approaching not far ahead. Based on experience and distance judgment, these should be large birds; if they were military aircraft, their fuselages would reflect the sunlight.

This was completely normal. With rolling mountain ranges ahead, the number of birds in the nearby airspace naturally increased.

Zhou Zhihan gently pressed the control stick to the left, pointing the nose obliquely toward the southwest to avoid the flock of large birds flying head-on.

Previously, he could only look up at the birds in the sky; now he no longer needed to look up, but he had to steer well clear of them.

Zhou Zhihan had always been curious why reports of birds striking airplanes were so frequently seen in newspapers and on television. Were these birds all blind, unable to see an oncoming airplane?

With the massive noise generated by an aircraft in flight, could the birds not hear it?

Only now did he realize that these birds really did fly straight toward the nose of the plane like blind creatures. As for what caused birds to fly head-on into the nose without dodging, he had no idea.

The white clouds overhead looked somewhat varied in shape. Zhou Zhihan thought the shifting cloud in the northwest corner looked a bit like a girl wearing a bikini at the seaside.

Thinking of the seaside girl, Zhou Zhihan suddenly remembered the underwear and bikinis inside Kimiko Kayama's bathroom drawer.

Why buy so many bikinis?

Suddenly, Zhou Zhihan felt a violent jolt throughout his body, and the nose of the plane bucked up and down fiercely a few times. Following that, he saw a plume of black smoke billowing from the bottom of the engine nose, drifting past both sides of the fuselage underside, leaving a long black-gray dragon trail in the rearview mirror.