On August 27, the eighth group of female pilot cadets, 35 in all, recruited by the PLA Air Force, underwent a 36-hour-long field survival and confrontation exercise shortly after they passed the parachute jump examination. The exercise was held in a vast battlefield deep in a forest in the Changbai Mountains. Besides lifesaving equipment, they took along with them only 100g of lifesaving field rations and 596ml of drinking water.

　　Although the PLA Air Force has recruited seven groups of female pilots since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the field survival exercise for female pilot cadets has just got started. This time the Air Force Aviation University put 35 female pilot cadets through 7-day-long intensive training under close-to-real-combat conditions, including marching one-hundred-li in a single day, passing through contaminated area, and getting over barbed wire entanglements, etc. Through the confrontation exercise, the female pilot cadets' psychological power of endurance, and their capabilities to deal with emergencies and, to survive independently have been enhanced greatly.

　　By Lai Huangcheng

　　(Aug 29, PLA Daily)