On May 8, 2024, the Fujian completed its first sea trial and returned triumphantly, which is the third aircraft carrier built by the mainland, which means that the mainland's naval strength will once again move to new heights.
The extent to which an aircraft carrier can play a combat level depends largely on whether it has enough carrier-based pilots, and the number of carrier-based fighters only needs to have technology and invest enough money, while carrier-based pilots are not so easy.
For aircraft carriers, carrier-based pilots are crucial, and training a qualified carrier pilot is quite complicated, and the training process is very dangerous, and it takes a long time.
In 2021, the number of carrier-based pilots in the mainland has reached more than 13000000, and even then it still can't catch up.
An important factor in the victory of the US Navy in the Pacific War
In 1941, the famous Pearl Harbor incident occurred, and the Japanese Combined Fleet sent nearly 200 planes to attack Pearl Harbor, the US military base in the Pacific Ocean, without the United States being prepared, and the Pacific War officially began.
Subsequently, the U.S. Navy and the Japanese Navy fought fiercely in the Pacific Theater, and carrier-based pilots played a vital role in this war.
At this time, the Japanese side's training system for carrier-based pilots was mainly based on the core task of "elite soldiers and strong generals", so under such a training system, there was a great shortage of carrier-based pilots.
Casualties were inevitable in the war, and when the Japanese pilots were killed, the drawbacks were then revealed, and when more and more pilots were killed, the combat level of the Japanese carrier-based pilots then dropped at a straight line speed.
On the other hand, on the American side, this group of Yankees attaches great importance to carrier-based pilots, especially in terms of pilot reserves.
From 1920 to 1930, the U.S. Navy pilot training camp gradually formed a system, and then the Naval Officer Academy sent many pilots to the U.S. Navy.
In 1934, the construction of the York-class aircraft carrier in the United States officially began, and the US Navy began to recruit a large number of pilots from the naval school in order to reserve carrier-based pilots, in order to lay a good foundation for the aircraft carrier to be built.
During this period, the supply of pilots provided by the US Naval Officer Training School could not keep up with the speed of US recruitment.
In addition, the way pilots are trained has also been revised, shortening the original long training period to 12 months, and although the number of callups has been increased, it still does not meet the expectations of the US Navy.
In order to achieve the conscription goal, the U.S. military finally compressed the training time again, simplified various training processes, and finally reduced the training time to about 10 months.
After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the US Navy trained about 20,000 pilots every year, and during World War II, the US Navy trained about 60,000 pilots, more than twice the number of Japanese pilots.
Most of these US pilots have just learned flying techniques and have no combat experience, and they are basically "cannon fodder" on the battlefield; because of the large number of people, when US pilots are killed, there will be a continuous stream of pilots who will continue to make up for them.
This played a crucial role in the victory of the United States over Japan in the Pacific War.
U.S. carrier-based pilots
At present, the United States has 12 aircraft carriers, 11 aircraft carriers are based on the five major aircraft carriers in the United States, these aircraft carriers can carry more than 750 aircraft, and the number of American carrier-based pilots is about 1,200.
These pilots have the most basic operational ability to fly carrier-based aircraft, and can take off on aircraft carriers to carry out tasks, and since the end of World War II, the US military has paid more attention to the role of carrier-based aircraft pilots.
As a result, the US military began to recruit carrier-based flight cadets from all walks of life, and built 17 flight training bases to maintain the number of carrier-based pilots, and the US flight school recruited 3,800 carrier-based flight cadets every year.
Among these trainees, about 800 people can complete graduation, and then enter the following training stages, these graduates will first go to private schools for the most basic training aircraft flight training.
After a round of screening, the instructor will send the selected students to the U.S. Naval Aviation Base for about a month and a half of flight education, during which the trainees need to master the ability to fly the trainer aircraft and fly in a variety of environments.
At the end of the learning period, the instructor will evaluate the trainees, select the capable students, and then start learning the techniques of flying in carrier-based aircraft.
Only when these cadets accumulate more than 160 hours of flight time can they be eligible for certification of aircraft carrier qualifications, and those who finally come to this point will be assigned to the carrier-based fighter wing.
After the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the US military drastically reduced the number of troops, which also greatly reduced the number of pilots in the US fleet, so the number of pilots in the US military who have the ability to fly carrier-based aircraft has been reduced to about 1,200.
The mainland also attaches great importance to the matter of cultivating carrier-based aircraft pilots, and carrier-based aircraft pilots can be regarded as "pearls in the palm of the hand" on the mainland.
Chinese naval aviation before the reform
Before the reform of the Continental Army, the domestic naval aviation was mainly divided into two major sections, namely, carrier-based aviation pilots and shore-based aviation pilots, which laid a solid foundation for the mainland navy.
The three major fleets of the mainland are distributed in the three major seas of the North Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea, and these three fleets have very complete fighter divisions, carrying a variety of fighters such as J-8H, J-10, and J-11B.
It is particularly important to strengthen the anti-ship capabilities of naval pilots, so the continental navy has established bomber regiments directly under the management of the fleet, and these bomber regiments have bomber 6G, bomber 6J, etc.
These fighters are capable of using supersonic missiles to strike at enemy aircraft carrier fleets with precision strikes, as well as a variety of surface destroyer fleets, and can directly hit enemy vital points in combat.
Before the mainland's first aircraft carrier was put into service, the only aircraft in service with the Navy's carrier-based aircraft unit was carrier-based helicopters, and because of technological limitations, only helicopters had the strength to board ships at this time.
The three fleets all have their own carrier-based helicopter regiments, and the carrier-based aircraft pilots at this time are mainly responsible for escorting and expelling related tasks, and only some warships have the function of carrying helicopters at this time.
At this time, our army did not have aircraft carriers, so most of the ships did not have large ones
The carrier aircraft work on the platform, and the demand for carrier-based aircraft groups is not great, so three carrier-based aircraft regiments are more than enough.
At that time, the task of the mainland's naval pilots was mainly to complete offensive and defensive operations along the coast, and the actual task was to protect the flanks of the mainland's air force, so as to expand the mainland's defense area.
During this period, the main task of the mainland navy was mainly defense, and the navy and air force, which lacked carrier-based pilots, were very difficult to attack, but this phenomenon did not last long.
Chinese carrier-based aircraft pilots after reform
After the military reform of the mainland navy, the positioning of the Chinese navy has undergone great changes in the country, so a long period of naval system reform has begun, and the mainland navy has begun to take aircraft carriers and ocean-going fleets as its core tasks.
At this time, the navy and air force system also ushered in a major change, taking carrier-based pilots as the core development, and began to increase the number of carrier-based pilots on a large scale, which also indicated that the mainland would make big moves in carrier-based aviation.
After a series of naval reforms, the mainland navy and air force formed two new naval and air force units, and first established a carrier-based aircraft wing, which became a supporting force for the mainland's aircraft carriers.
As early as 1987, the mainland began training aircraft carrier personnel, and the mainland carefully selected 10 outstanding pilots with rich pilot experience from the navy and air force.
Subsequently, the pilot captain class was launched at the Guangzhou Naval Academy, and its real purpose was to train these elites to become captains of future aircraft carriers, which was also an important turning point for the mainland's navy and air force.
At that time, the selection of pilots for carrier-based aircraft on the mainland was notoriously strict among the three major armed forces, and in order to pass the selection, they had to go through strict screening, and only after strict screening by multiple departments could they pass the primary selection.
In terms of age, there is a mandatory requirement for carrier-based aircraft pilots to be pilots under the age of 35, which is very young among pilots, because if you want to become a qualified pilot, you must at least go through several years of precipitation and study.
In terms of cumulative flight time, it is even more strict, with more than 1,000 flight hours, at least five different aircraft pilots, and experience in participating in many military exercises.
At present, the mainland navy has about 200 carrier-based pilots, which is completely enough to deal with the pilots needed for the three aircraft carriers, which can be said to be more than enough, and these carrier-based pilots are all elites of the elite.
After listening to how strict the mainland is in selecting carrier-based aircraft pilots, we can know how much importance the mainland attaches to carrier-based aircraft pilots, which also means that the mainland cherishes carrier-based aircraft pilots.
On the other hand, the United States only needs carrier-based aircraft pilots to have the ability to take off, and the rest depends on the fate of these pilots, completely treating these pilots as "cannon fodder" and not paying attention to the safety of the lives of these pilots at all.
This is also the reason why the US military can have so many carrier-based pilots.
In 2021, the number of carrier-based aircraft pilots who signed up reached more than 13,000, covering more than 200 regions in China, and the number of applicants is still increasing significantly every year.
The mainland is making great strides forward in both quality and quantity in the cultivation and development of carrier-based pilots, and it is believed that in a few years, the mainland's navy and air force will be able to have a large number of outstanding carrier-based pilots.