The historical significance of the founding ceremony:
1. Opened up a new era in Chinese history. China ended the humiliating history of being invaded and enslaved for more than a hundred years and truly became an independent country. The Chinese people have since stood up and become the masters of the country;
2. Strengthen the power of world peace, democracy and socialism, and inspire the struggle for liberation of the oppressed nations and people of the world;
3. It is a great victory of Marxism in China and a great victory of Mao Zedong Thought that combines the basic principles of Marxism with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution.
On October 1, 1949, Peiping held the world-famous founding ceremony. When the ground artillery unit and the car tank unit passed in front of the rostrum, a phalanx of aircraft appeared in the sky at the same time. The People's Air Force had a total of 26 sorties of various types of aircraft. Flying over Tiananmen Square.
After the 9 P-51 fighter jets of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd detachments under review passed over Tiananmen, under the command of the air commander, the pilots immediately increased their speed, made a right rear turn over Fuxingmen, and followed Xizhimen and Deshengmen. , Andingmen, Dongzhimen and then turned to Jianguomen. When it arrived over Dongdan, it happened to connect with the training aircraft of the 6th detachment and passed over Tiananmen again. (The P-51D Mustang fighter is also among them.) Today I will introduce the P-51D Mustang fighter in the founding ceremony.
The power system of the P-51D is the Merlin engine (V-1650) produced by the American Packard Company authorized by the British Rolls-Royce Company. The engine is equipped with a two-stage two-speed supercharger, which fully improves the engine performance above 15,000 feet. Power output, after this improvement, the performance of the P-51 "Mustang" fighter jet has been greatly improved, and its maximum speed at high altitude has been increased from the prototype's 614 kilometers/hour to 703 kilometers/hour.
In terms of firepower, the P-51D is equipped with six 12.7 mm machine guns and has 1,880 rounds of ammunition. The two inner ones hold 400 rounds each, and the four outer ones hold 270 rounds each. At the same time, it can also carry 2 bombs or 6 rockets. It can be said that currently it is a multi-purpose fighter. Of course, the P-51 also has an attack aircraft version, which is the A-36 attack aircraft.
The P-51 not only has excellent technical indicators, but also shines on the battlefield. In World War II, the Mustang fighter participated in the Far East and Pacific battlefields. In the European battlefield, this fighter flew 13,873 sorties, dropped 5,668 tons of bombs, and shot down enemy aircraft. 4,950 aircraft, destroyed 4,131 ground enemy aircraft, and even shot down the most powerful jet fighter of the Luftwaffe, and was known as the King of Fighters at the time. It also performed so well on the Chinese battlefield that after 1945, Japanese fighter jets took cover when they saw the P-51. The P-51s were all painted in silver with aluminum skins, which was very different from the P-40 camouflage. When he sees the silver plane reflecting sunlight, he flees away, rarely taking the initiative to fight with the P-51.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the United States provided more than 150 P-51 aircraft of various types to the Kuomintang Air Force in accordance with the Lend-Lease Act. During the War of Liberation, a batch of P-51 aircraft were captured by our army or flown back to our army by insurrectionists. In August 1949 Based on these aircraft, the first flying squadron of our army was formed.
When the People's Republic of China was founded on October 1, 1949, a total of 9 P-51s participated in the founding ceremony. At that time, 9 aircraft passed through Tiananmen twice. In the actual parade, there were 17 aircraft of 5 types, so a total of 26 aircraft were seen during the parade, which boosted the morale of the people across the country. At the same time, in order to ensure the smooth progress of the founding ceremony and protect the safety of the capital of Beijing , 4 of the parade aircraft were flying with bombs. This is not only unique in the history of our military parades, but also has no precedent in the history of world military parades.
