Chapter 287

Outside the forest.

Seeing the raging flames, Zhānmùsī felt anxious!

"Mr. Zhānmùsī, you're so worried—would you like to come in with us? We have fire suits here…"

"No, no thanks."

"What a joke!"

He was worried about the loss of that aircraft and wanted to put out the fire quickly, but that didn't mean he would personally go fight the fire, ah—it was life‑dangerous!

Don't worry, we will certainly do our utmost to extinguish the fire and rescue this crashed fighter jet.

Okay, thank you, thank you……

We said we'd put out the fire, but…… who would have thought the flames would keep growing…… Looking on, the whole forest was about to burn down. This aircraft…… it's probably going to be burned to ashes, right?

When night fell, James could no longer stay; he could only temporarily leave this place and go to a hotel to rest.

Inside the forest, countless people were busy.

If viewed from the direction of the airport, this area was indeed engulfed in a large fire, but if one entered the jungle interior, one could see that a firebreak had already been prepared here.

Only the outer trees were on fire; inside, nothing had ignited, it was merely being baked by the blaze, making it somewhat uncomfortable.

For the big guy, this is nothing at all!

After all, what lies before us is the…… wreckage of an F-16 fighter!

Though called wreckage, it's actually not serious—the American pilots' skills are superb; they were flying ultra‑low, barely fifty meters above the ground, the aircraft's attitude unchanged, landing flat, merely crumpling the belly a bit!

Because of the ventral intake layout, when the plane came down, the belly hit the ground while the nose remained intact.

Crack, crack!

The sound of camera shutters kept ringing; for the East, with its well‑developed copycat technology, of course they had to take photos before dismantling.

After the photos were taken, they began dismantling the circuit boards; the Americans' design was highly advanced, using a plug‑in card system, so the boards could be plugged directly into the interior and removed easily—during logistics maintenance, if a board failed, they simply swapped it out.

Now, take it all away!

The nose radar antenna, too, is taken away!

The circuit board base, too, is taken away!

By the time it got dark, the nose was almost just an empty shell!

"This plane is full of treasure, I think just removing the nose isn't enough; while we still have time, let's take off the rear engine as well!" Finally, someone stared wistfully at the engine.

"Exactly, take it off!"

The others likewise said, let's do it.

In the early morning hours, the intact engine was removed and taken away; afterward, the big guy turned his attention to other parts.

On the vertical tail, the IFF device was removed!

Under the wings, the multi‑function weapons pylon was removed!

This landing gear also looks unusual; take off one side…… probably wouldn't be noticeable, right?

Finally, the whole aircraft was left as nothing but an empty shell!

"If we ignite it like this, won't it…… be easy to notice?"

"Of course it will! Comrade Qin Miao already prepared other substitutes for us, we'll stuff them in and then light it; the fire must be big enough to melt many places!"

"Good! Let's pour more aviation gasoline; the outer shell will burn too."

The next day, morning, nine o'clock.

Upon learning the fire had been extinguished, James then came to the forest,

Few trees remained; some areas still had wisps of unburned smoke, and deep in the forest James saw the wreckage.

The completely burned wreckage only roughly showed the outline of an F-16, burned to a state that was horrific to behold.

"Ah, this just happens to be a pine forest; the pine resin dripping down helped the fire, otherwise it wouldn't have burned like this. Our fire crew did everything they could, yet a few members were burned before we finally put out the fire." Old Lin, standing aside, said helplessly: "By the time we extinguished the blaze and got here, it had already become like this…"

"Ah!" James also felt helpless: "I never expected such an accident to happen; we…"

"You don't need to feel guilty; although you burned this forest, we are friends, and you came to display the aircraft, so we won't ask you to compensate for any loss."

What?

When did I say I wanted compensation?

James felt stifled inside, but couldn't say anything; if the other side demanded compensation, they'd really have to pay!

"Mr. Lin, although this accident happened, it doesn't mean our aircraft performance is poor, so the agreement we previously mentioned…"

"Ah, the previous agreement certainly can't go on; after this incident I'll have to face disciplinary action, Mr. James, although we also wanted to obtain such a fighter, I can only say sorry."

James's face was extremely grim.

He crashed an aircraft and got nothing out of it; on returning, he too is likely to face punishment, ah!

"By the way, will you take away the aircraft wreckage? Transporting it out of here would require us to charge a shipping fee…"

Although it's burned to this state, if they took it back they'd still notice something odd about the wreckage, so…… we might as well ask them for another sum of money! This way…

James shook his head: "No need, we're not taking it."

Take what? Take nothing!

The Americans are rich and powerful; every time they withdraw, they dump large quantities of military supplies.

For example, when withdrawing from Vietnam years ago, they left a large amount of materiel, enabling Vietnam to rapidly expand and consider itself the world's third military power. Likewise, in later times, Afghanistan…

Now, what else needs to be done with this completely burned‑out fighter? Bringing it back would just be trash—America's own waste, exported as pollution to the Third World.

"If you don't want it, we'll just send this wreckage straight to the steel furnace."

"Hmm, do as you please."

Hearing this conversation, someone nearby felt sorry, thinking if they'd known, they would have removed the other landing gear yesterday as well; they only took off one, which is…… wasteful, ah!

James, wearing a bitter expression, boarded a C-130 transport and left this sorrowful place together with the others, leaving behind only a crowd of jubilant people.

Watching the plane take off, Old Lin couldn't help but pat Qin Miao on the shoulder once.

"Great, San Shui, we've gotten the treasure again, and we've also gotten hold of the F-16's engine. You say, should we follow this survey?"

Qin Miao shook his head: "That's impossible!"

Aircraft engines cannot be surveyed just by taking them apart; they use the world's top-tier materials!

There are no corresponding materials domestically; for example, turbine blades—even if you took off a piece and analyzed its internal elemental composition, following that ratio still wouldn't work, because we simply don't know the manufacturing process!

If this engine could be copied, we could obtain a sample from the world and start surveying and copying it—why go to all the trouble to develop our own turbofan ten?