"Are you sure it's two identical aircraft?"
The lieutenant colonel in the car repeated this question over and over again. The lieutenant colonel sitting in the front seat nodded cautiously. "Yes, sir!"
The lieutenant colonel frowned and did not speak again.
In fact, the development of civilian aircraft had never stopped. The military had also funded some civilian scientists to study these things before, but there had been no effective results.
The aircraft they made could indeed fly. There was no problem with this. Otherwise, the military would not spend money everywhere.
But the problem was that these aircraft could not land after flying. This was the biggest problem.
More than half of the aircraft would crash in ten landings. Even seven or eight aircraft out of ten would end up in failure.
The military could not invest more energy and money in this dangerous one-off toy. Instead, they were more inclined to various hot air balloons and airships.
Airships were just an idea that had not been put into practice yet. On the contrary, the technology of various fast-rising hot air balloons had matured.
The most common observation hot air balloon would only need 20 seconds to bring a soldier to a height of at least 15 meters above the ground. If the rope was longer and the time was longer, it would be able to lift a soldier to a height of almost 60 meters above the ground in just a minute!
With walkie-talkies and binoculars, one could effectively observe the range beyond the field of vision of the ground personnel. These things were also very cheap.
Some chemical products combined could send a person to heaven at most for a few hundred yuan.
But aircraft were very troublesome. It required an engine. The engine was not cheap. Coupled with the overall structure, tens of thousands of yuan could crash easily, and the soldier's life would be lost.
Although hot air balloons looked dangerous, they were not particularly dangerous. They had a set of emergency measures to prevent the scout from losing his life due to the rapid fall after the main balloon burst.
They might end up breaking their legs, but there was not much difference between having legs and not having legs for a hot air balloon scout. This referred to when they were in the sky.
It was indeed a little troublesome on the ground, but it was definitely better than losing one's life.
Due to various reasons, aircraft had never been recognized and valued by the military. Although this thing was now developing very quickly and the whole industry was quite prosperous.
The lieutenant colonel was reporting on his work. The highest-ranking officer in the Bubane security area was the lieutenant general of the army. Every day, the colonel had to report the day's work plan to the lieutenant general.
This was routine work. It could be annoying, but it could not be ignored, especially in some armies where the rules were particularly strict.
His subordinates suddenly reported that two aircraft had flown over the warning zone one after another and then turned back. This immediately attracted the attention of the commander of the warning zone.
As he arranged for people to chase after the aircraft, he reported the news here to the Ministry of National Defense and the Safety Committee.
The purpose of the alert zone was to safeguard Bu Payne's safety. Now that there was an unidentified aircraft flying over the alert zone, no matter how one looked at it, it was not a normal thing.
More importantly, according to the reports of the soldiers who witnessed them, they looked exactly the same. This was even more worth pondering.
Many people believed that a master's craftsmanship was valuable because it was impossible to produce two completely identical works in the same design. They believed that those small differences were the embodiment of a craftsman's soul.
If every item was exactly the same, then these items could only be soulless assembly line products, even though people used to crazily pursue the same thing hundreds of years ago.
Assembly line products meant that they could be manufactured on an industrial scale.
Ordinary people's understanding of the "assembly line" might be limited to a place where capitalists exploited workers, but for the colonels who had gone to college and received modern education, it meant a mature design!
No one would let immature things into the assembly line. That was because they felt that they had too much money and wanted to help people who needed work.
A mature design meant that it had at least solved most of the problems of the current similar products, so it could eventually be mass-produced.
The lieutenant colonel even believed that this test flight was likely to be the final preparation for the assembly line, or the first batch of products out of the assembly line.
Even if there were two aircraft or more, as long as they were not exactly the same, the military would not make such a big move!
"They seem to have landed!"
The lieutenant sitting in front of the car holding his weapon exclaimed. The lieutenant colonel immediately stood up and looked at the sky in the distance.
The two aircraft circled in the air twice and began to descend. He was slightly anxious. "Speed up, get there as soon as possible."
When the lieutenant colonel flew out of the dense forest, the two aircraft had already stopped at the end of a runway.
"Who are you people?"
The lieutenant colonel asked loudly. The soldiers also got out of the car. Although they did not raise the weapons in their hands, they were ready to fight at any time.
Not far from him, a group of people stood together. Some "doctors" in white coats surrounded a young man. There were also some guys who obviously had the temperament of a soldier around them.
Their sudden appearance made those who looked dangerous even more dangerous.
This phenomenon made the lieutenant colonel a little nervous. He whispered to the lieutenant beside him, "Request backup..."
He was a little scared, but there was nothing he could do. He perceived an elite aura from the people in front of him. It was... a feeling that was difficult to describe.
Just looking at these people, there was a voice in his head that said, "These people are not to be trifled with."
The young man in the middle of the crowd took out a small piece of paper and handed it to a... lady beside him.
The lady walked straight towards them and saluted when she was about 20 meters away from them.
This salute made the lieutenant colonel feel a little relieved. "I'm the lieutenant colonel of the security district..."
He told her his name.
Austin said in almost the same tone, "Former Federation soldier Austin. My boss asked me to give this to you. He knows why you're here..."
After Austin expressed that he had no intention of hurting anyone and did not do anything that would cause any misunderstanding, he was allowed to approach the lieutenant colonel.
In the end, the lieutenant colonel took a business card from her hand. What followed was a moment of absent-mindedness.
There was only Lynch's name and a few phone numbers on it. Other than that, there was nothing else. Even the name was signed by Lynch himself.
Compared to other people's business cards with various titles, such as managers or company presidents, this business card was a little too plain.
However, no one could really treat it as a plain business card because there was a name on it that no one could ignore.
"He... is Mr. Lynch?"
Austin nodded with a faint smile on his face. "Yes."
It sounded unbelievable that the lieutenant colonel did not know Lynch, but this was precisely the current situation of the Federation Army.
In order to fight against an enemy that had never appeared before, the Army's level of training was not much worse than the Navy's. In order to not let the style of the army corrupt, the inside of the army had become a small society that was independent of society.
They had their own newspaper - The Federation Army Newspaper.
They had their own television programs - Military Observation, National Defense News, and so on.
They had their own series, some series that talked about war.
They did not have much contact with the outside world. Some high-ranking military officers thought that an overly relaxed environment in the military camp would cause the soldiers to become as useless as the Geffra Army.
The Geffra soldiers woke up at nine in the morning, had afternoon tea in the afternoon, and had weekends off to attend clubs and salons.
They used facts to tell the Federation that if they wanted the army to be effective, they had to maintain independence.
This was also one of the reasons why many retired soldiers had to go through the veterans' club before they could return to society.
Therefore, in a relatively closed environment, people did not have the desire to spontaneously pay attention to social information from the outside world, and they also lacked channels.
They might know that recently there was a very powerful young man called Lynch, but they had never been able to associate this name with a certain face in their impression.
Until this moment...
"Mr. Lynch asked me to tell you that if anyone wants to talk to him about the aircraft, you can contact him through the phone number above."
"Then... Goodbye, lieutenant colonel!"
Austin saluted again and left. Then, Lynch and the others directly left.
"Should we stop them, sir?"
The lieutenant looked at the group of people who left and felt a little indignant. They actually dared to leave in the face of the military's obstruction. He was a little angry.
The lieutenant colonel who already knew the "truth" felt that this was very normal. Not only did Mr. Lynch have a very strong network of connections, social status, wealth, and so on, he also had a very close relationship with the military's upper echelons.
As a lieutenant colonel who might be promoted to a general in the future, he knew some inside stories. He had a very good relationship with Colonel Trumann, as well as several lieutenant generals and generals in the army.
Stop him?
They were afraid that the military police would arrest them tomorrow and go through the process. They would have no place to reason. The military was a dictatorial closed society. They could only accept it.
"That's Mr. Lynch..."
The lieutenant's puzzled gaze seemed to be asking him, "Can Mr. Lynch do whatever he wants?"
But very quickly, "Mr. Lynch" and the "Mr. Lynch" in the lieutenant's mind gradually overlapped. His gaze also changed a little.
If it was someone else, they might not have the authority to do so.
But if he was "Mr. Lynch," then doing whatever he wanted was his most basic right!
The group waited for a while, and the reinforcements from the security zone arrived. This time, the colonel personally led the team. They directly came with a company!
But it was very obvious that they were a little oversensitive.
-
As mentioned earlier, Ferrar's father-in-law was the manager of the veterans' club and had been engaged in helping veterans re-contact and integrate into society.