Major General Pham Truong Son directly commanded at the shooting range.

Major General Pham Truong Son, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People's Army, attended and directed the exercise. The exercise aimed to test and evaluate training, combat readiness, quality of weapons, equipment and technical assurance of the units. This is the highest form of training to train and improve the capacity of command organization, coordination, and mixed flight operations of aircraft for regimental-level officers of the entire service; ensuring aviation technology, airport logistics, radio stations, and information stations in performing combat training and combat missions.

Su-30MK2 takes off for Regiment 923

In 2023, the Air Defense - Air Force Service directed units to send young pilots and inexperienced pilots to participate in shooting and bombing exercises to assess the ability to exploit and master new weapons and equipment of the troops. The scale of the navigation competition is larger than previous years, with the participation of the entire Air Force (including the Air Force of the Air Defense - Air Force Service and the Navy Service); The content of the competition requires higher requirements, closer to actual combat.

Units have proactively organized theoretical research, practical training, developed shooting exercises and shooting plans for combat crews to handle situations and achieve the best shooting results: 100% of units participating in navigation competitions and live-fire bomb and ammunition exercises achieved good and excellent results.

Su-30MK2 crew taking off.

The live-fire bombing and ammunition dropping exercise took place in unfavorable weather conditions, due to the circulation of storm No. 1, the sky was gloomy and cloudy... However, the Su-30MK2, Su-27, Su-22 fighter jets, and Mi-17, Mi-8 helicopters of the units practiced attacking ground targets during the day, with the contents of dive bombing, rocket launching, simple mobile artillery firing, complex mobile maneuvering in formation and alone. Right from the first attacks, many young pilots, practicing shooting and bombing for the first time, hit the target right from the first salvo.

Dive attack target

The units participating in the exercise flexibly and creatively applied theoretical content to the practice exercise, quickly familiarizing themselves with the battlefield. With serious and strict preparation, the live-fire exercise of the air defense units took place according to plan, ensuring absolute safety for people and technical equipment, reflecting the actual level and quality of combat readiness training of the air defense units in the entire service.

Destroy the target from the first attack

The navigation competition, shooting and live-ammunition bombing drills have properly assessed the level and ability to fly in combat applications - guide and intercept air targets of the Air Force units of the entire army; the level of using real weapons of the pilots (flight crews) of the air force in the Air Defense - Air Force Service, along with the calculation, command and operation skills, situation handling, and working capacity of Flight Commanders, Pilots, Pilot-Navigators and Navigation Officers.

Mi-17 destroys target from rocket fire

The results of the sports festival and drills are also the basis for the Air Defense - Air Force Service to direct air force units to improve the quality of training work - ensuring flight safety to meet mission requirements in the new situation.

News and photos: HOANG KHANH TRINH