by Ward Carroll
“You’d better be fixed, Punk,” Smoke demanded. “There is no way in hell I’m allowing the CO to lead the interdiction element unbriefed. That’s just plain stupid.”
“How did you plan on stopping him?” Punk asked. “It’s his world, remember? We’re just living in it.”
“This pinball machine is ready to tilt, damn it,” Smoke said. “I’m ready to cancel this whole shooting match and then run up to CAG and tell him . . .”
Punk stopped listening as his jet ratcheted back down and Chief Wixler came into view, sweat-drenched and covered with grease. The chief gave Punk an emphatic thumbs up and then spun on his heel and gave the same sign to the yellow shirt.
“Smoke, we’re up,” Punk passed on quad three as soon as he could get a word in edgewise around the lieutenant commander’s ongoing diatribe. “I’m switching my radio back to squadron common.”
“Oh . . . good,” Smoke replied. “Disregard my last then . . .”
The plane captain passed control of the jet back to the director, and, as Punk started to taxi forward to take his place back in the line for catapult three, he made it a point to catch Chief Wixler’s eye. The lieutenant rendered the chief his best salute, at which point the chief came to attention and solemnly returned the gesture.
In-flight refueling during a normal Operation Southern Watch mission was as difficult as any other phase of the flight, not necessarily because of the skill required for the pilot to plug the tanker with the jet’s probe, but because of the confusion and danger that surrounded getting into and out of the flow of the tanker pattern. Even during the daytime, the sheer number of airplanes on and around the tanker made tanking far from routine, and like the California rule that stated to cars on the on-ramps—“You ain’t shit until you’re on the freeway”—the pattern didn’t yield to planes not yet within it.
Spud painted Punk a radar picture, and Punk compared it to his view through the canopy as he tried to figure out which of the two groups of specks across the sky to join on. He quickly glanced at the kneeboard strapped to his left thigh, and, after reviewing the briefed altitude for their tanker, continued his climb to twenty-five thousand feet while crossing his fingers for the blessing of a KC-10.
Air Force tankers came in two models: KC-10 and KC-135. The KC-10 was the preferred platform from a Navy carrier pilot’s point of view because it was designed from inception to accommodate both Navy and Air Force aircraft: It had both a boom for Air Force jets and a hose and basket for Navy and Marine Corps jets.
The Navy had always designed its aerial refueling apparatus with the receiver as the male in the union with the tanker. The Air Force, mostly concerned with tanking strategic bombers and other larger, less nimble aircraft than tactical fighters, elected to make the tanker male. So, in order to make the KC-135 work for Navy aircraft, a hose with a basket on the end of it had to be attached to the end of the boom, a rig that appeared and acted every bit the afterthought its utility was.
Spud bore sighted the LANTIRN pod in the air-to-air mode and sweetened the view with his thumb on one of the system controller tabs on his left console and reluctantly pronounced, “KC-135 . . .”
Damned Murphy’s Law. All things being equal, Punk would’ve preferred the docility of the KC-10’s friendly refueling rig as he continued to chip away at the rust formed by nearly a month out of the cockpit, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He determined to put on the good face and try to keep from ripping the probe off of his jet in the process.
Punk joined the gaggle as Dash-Eight on the tanker’s left wing, and after playing crack-the-whip for a time with the line of jets to the right of him, he established himself on Dash-Seven, Biff’s TARPS bird. Once the oscillations settled down, he was able to take a couple of glances at the Hornet plugged into the hose and noticed that the two Prowlers on the right wing were now banking away from the pack and steering to the push point ten miles to the north.
One by one the procession through the basket continued. Gassed-up flight leads waited on the tanker’s right wing for wingmen, and then the two-jet sections departed for the push point. Because Punk and Spud were the last crew off the deck, they were last to tank, and, although the skipper was only two jets in front of them, he didn’t wait after he’d received his gas, but immediately headed to the rendezvous.
The whoosh of the probe in the air stream flashed Punk momentarily back to the night of the mishap, and he realized he hadn’t attempted to tank since then. But like an avid golfer surprised by the fluidity of his swing after a long winter layoff, Punk slipped the Tomcat’s probe into the tanker’s rigid basket on his first attempt. Once he saw he was mated he almost relaxed, until the growing bend in the hose caused by the Tomcat’s creeping forward on the tanker reminded him that the ad hoc male-to-female rig of the KC-135 didn’t allow the same amount of movement between parties that the take-up reels of the KC-10 and S-3 did. He focused on the joint between the boom and the hose and flew formation on it in an effort to preserve the shape of the hose he’d managed at the moment.
While staying in the basket was a white knuckler, the KC-135 showed mercy to Navy pilots by pumping fuel at an extraordinary rate. Punk continued to stare just below the apex of the canopy bow on his forward windscreen to the point on the refueling rig where metal boom turned to rubber hose as Spud watched his totalizer roll up. Within two minutes they’d received the four thousand pounds of JP-5 jet fuel they were due. As Spud passed “that’s it” over the intercom, Punk eased back and uncoupled from the basket. After a quick pause on the right wing and a wave to the tanker’s copilot, they were headed for the push point.
Spud checked his watch and cross-referenced some of the chicken scratch on the top card of those clamped to the kneeboard strapped around his right thigh: ten minutes until the package was supposed to start the route. Plenty of time. He switched his radar to the Pulse mode with a mash of his right index finger against the appropriate button and studied the pepper specks on the scope, watching their drift across the screen. After a few seconds of observation, he elected to lock up the left-most of the blips and reasoned, based on relative position to the rest of the radar contacts, it had to be the skipper or one of the Prowlers.
Punk sighted through the diamond on his HUD created by Spud’s radar lock and saw that his trusty RIO had, in fact, locked one of the Prowlers. He slid his Tomcat onto the bearing line and closed with his element at a quick-but-controlled rate until he’d positioned his jet Blue Angel close to the skipper’s left wing. Commander Campbell, who’d assumed the interim lead of the two jammers, either didn’t notice or refused to acknowledge Punk on his wing, and although Einstein looked over at them, the CO stared straight ahead as the four jets flew above but in synch with the rest of the package as they continued to circle the push point.
“He’s fucking with us,” Punk commented to Spud on the intercom. “He knows we’re here. He just doesn’t want to give up the lead.”
“What, one murder attempt and you think the guy’s got it out for you?” Spud cracked as he checked his watch again. “We’ve got just over six minutes until we press out. Humor him for a bit.”
Spud used the time to groom the LANTIRN pod. LANTIRN, short for Low Altitude Navigation Targeting InfraRed at Night, was a precision attack system developed for the Air Force twenty years earlier and used on F-16s. The Navy’s use of the pod on Tomcats came out of the requirement for another precision strike platform following the retirement of the slow-but-venerable A-6 Intruder and a casual conversation between two lieutenants and a contractor at an officers’ club bar. A year and a half later, the F-14 community was given a new lease on life in the form of the LANTIRN pod, and strike planning doors that had been slammed in the face of fighter crews only able to counter air-to-air threats were reopened with gusto. In fact, because the workload was shared between two aviators compared to the Hornet’s one, and because the resolution of the RIO’s ten-inch-by-ten-inch display allowed the Tomcat to pick out
tough targets and was very TV news friendly, the F-14 had actually superseded the Hornet as the Navy’s precision attack platform of choice.
Spud double-checked the coordinates he’d entered into the system and watched the view blur from side to side as he commanded the gimballed infrared lens from waypoint to waypoint. He walked through all of the pod’s modes and magnifications and made sure the laser was ready to fire.
Smoke’s voice cracked over the strike common frequency. “Smoke’s up . . .”
“Biff’s up . . .”
“Soup’s up,” the skipper passed before correcting himself with a laugh. “Sorry, force of habit.” He looked to his left and gave Punk the lead with a toss of his left hand.
Punk assumed the lead with a signal of his own and said “Punk’s up” on the radio before pushing his jet into the lead position.
“Kick AWACS control frequency on primary radios,” Gucci called over strike common from the cockpit behind Smoke’s.
The AWACS frequency greeted them with a series of emphatic transmissions between one of the controllers in the AWACS jet and the F-15s leaving their counter-air stations and returning to Al Kharj.
“Titan shows two groups fifty-five miles north of you, loitering above the thirty-third parallel.”
“Roger, Titan. Watch those groups. Eagle flight is southbound, out of gas, and returning to base.”
“Titan, the photo package is checking in as fragged,” Gucci said, indicating they were at full tasked strength.
“Roger, photo,” the controller returned. “Say call sign of your counter-air package.”
“Diamond,” Gucci answered.
“Copy, Diamond,” the AWACS said. “We have MiG activity at this time; standby for picture: two groups, bearing three-five-five, twenty miles north of the no-fly zone.”
“Roger,” Gucci said as he and the rest of the flight torqued their radars to the aforementioned piece of sky, in spite of the excessive range to the contacts in question. “We’re still feet wet, Titan. We haven’t pushed yet.”
“Copy, recommend you push now,” the controller replied.
“Kodak is detaching,” Bill Thompson called from Biff’s backseat as the two TARPS F-14s started a slow descent to ten thousand feet for their photo run.
“Verify combat checks complete,” Smoke commanded. “Check mission recorders running, weapons armed, and radar warning receivers on.”
“Biff flight copies . . .”
“Punk flight copies . . .”
“Pushing now,” Smoke passed, and the ten Navy jets began to trade the blue Gulf under them for the parched desert of Southern Iraq. As Smoke started a climb to the high twenties, Punk mirrored Biff in his descent, remaining a few thousand feet above him so that he wouldn’t have to crane his head around excessively to keep both the reconnaissance airplanes and the ground in sight. In spite of the excitement on the radio, Punk reminded himself his job was to look for SAMs, not MiGs.
As the package proceeded, things were quieter than the initial scenario had suggested they might be. The airplanes’ radar warning receivers were silent, and the cadence of the AWACS controller’s calls slowed to a near halt as the MiGs well north of them ran out of gas and returned to their bases.
But it was hard to be angered by the ennui of another routine Southern Watch event on a gorgeous day like the one that surrounded them. The sky turned a deeper shade of blue as they worked their way north. Punk marveled at the visibility and tried to make out Baghdad in the far distance. Fully-mission-capable jets, great weather, MiGs teasing them just above thirty-three . . . It was a good day to be flying. And tomorrow they were headed home.
“Kodak’s headed south,” Bill Thompson said as the TARPS jets passed Al Kut and neared the Iranian border. “Titan, verify picture clear north . . .”
“That’s affirm—” The controller cut himself short as several new symbols popped up on his scope. “Negative, negative. New picture: two groups, north-south split, climbing through angels seven, headed two-four-zero, bearing zero-zero-two from Diamond, range sixty-five miles.”
“Roger, looking,” Gucci replied.
“The second wave must’ve just launched,” Smoke said to the rest of his element on their discrete frequency.
“Two’s clean,” Turtle called from behind Fuzzy.
“Brick’s clean,” the Hornet pilot returned.
“Bird’s clean,” the other Hornet pilot passed.
In Operation Southern Watch, the thirty-third parallel defined the northern end of the playing field. Any Iraqi military jets that flew south of it were considered free game by their mere presence. Conversely, American fighters had to remain south of the thirty-third parallel. These simple rules made a fighter pilot’s job a lot harder than it otherwise would have been. Spud had summed up the challenge after their first ROE brief months ago with, “If you’re going to shoot a burglar, you’d better make sure he falls in your house.”
“We’re getting too close to the thirty-third to run a good intercept,” Smoke said. “Let’s bring it south and start again.” Without waiting for a response, he banked the jet sharply to the left and tugged the stick back until he had five Gs on the aircraft. “Titan,” he said into his oxygen mask as he tensed the muscles in his stomach and legs in an attempt to keep blood flowing to his brain, “Diamond is nose cold.”
“Roger, bogeys are now level angels two-five, headed two seven zero.”
“They’re paralleling the upper limit of the no-fly zone,” Smoke said to Gucci over the intercom. “Where are we relative to the known SA-6s?”
Gucci hopped the cursor on his tactical display over several different symbols and then replied, “The closest one bears three-zero-zero for thirty-five miles.”
“Diamond, let’s float it west,” Smoke said over their discrete freq. “I’ve got a feeling these guys might make a move south.” He started the nose to the right across the horizon, followed dutifully by his three wingmen. “Titan, Diamond is coming nose hot to the northwest.”
“Roger, Diamond. Picture now: two groups, east west split, heading two-zero-zero, bearing three-five-zero at sixty-three miles. Titan shows their speed accelerating through 700 knots.”
“Seven hundred knots?” Smoke mused over the intercom.
“Foxbats,” Gucci returned. “They’re going too fast to be MiG-29s. They’ve gotta be Foxbats.”
The MiG-25 Foxbat had been introduced by the Soviet Union early in the Cold War. It was designed as a supersonic interceptor, ready to defend the homeland by shooting down strategic bombers, spy planes, and even low-flying satellites. The Foxbat wasn’t very maneuverable for a jet fighter, but it was fast—over two Mach’s worth, and the concern for aviators in an Operation Southern Watch scenario was that, due to the geographic constraints of the no-fly zone, a Foxbat could rage south, stirring shit up for a short time, and then exit untouched because of its speed. In this type of arena, success for the Americans against a MiG-25 would depend heavily on the proper use of geometry. Smoke understood that fact, and now it was his job to mentally wrestle with the angles.
“Biff, call your posit,” he said over the AWACS frequency, focusing himself on his primary mission of protecting the reconnaissance birds.
“Biff’s approaching Point Six, southbound.”
Gucci read his pilot’s mind and passed, “That puts them fifty miles east of us,” over the intercom. “They still have five points to hit, about a hundred twenty miles ’til feet wet.”
“Bogey’s now crossing the line,” the AWACS controller reported. “Titan shows two groups now, lead-trail turning left through one-seven-zero.”
“Diamond’s committing,” Smoke replied. “Titan, call our bearing and range to bogeys.”
“Bogeys now bear three-five-five for fifty-five miles.”
“Diamond is contact your call, Titan,” Gucci said as a group of Doppler mode symbols materialized on his tactical display. “Showing two groups, five mile lead-trail, lead group three-f
ive-three for fifty-one miles, angels two-five. They appear to be in a right-hand turn.”
“That’s your bogey,” the controller replied. “Showing lead group turning through west at this time.”
“What’s the range to the nearest SAM site?” Smoke asked his RIO.
“Twenty miles,” Gucci answered.
“Diamonds, let’s bring it nose cold to the right,” Smoke commanded on the discrete frequency before telling the AWACS, “Diamond flight is turning back to the southeast, Titan.”
“Roger,” the controller said. “The bogeys are still in a right-hand turn.”
“I want to redefine the engagement zone,” Smoke explained to his wingmen on the discrete freq. “This may take a little patience.”
In the skipper’s jet, Einstein was getting an earful. The CO, driving away from the action with the interdiction package covering the TARPS birds nearing the final leg of their photo run, only heard the fact that Smoke was turning away from the bogeys. “I knew that guy was weak,” he shot over the intercom. “Nobody’s going to shoot anything down by running away.”
Although Einstein understood Smoke’s methodology as he referenced the symbols on his own tactical display, he elected to remain silent in the face of the commander’s tirade. You have the stick and throttle, he thought to himself repeatedly. You have the stick and throttle . . .
The Diamond element did the crab dance with the Iraqis bracketing the thirty-third parallel for two more rotations, and Smoke noticed that the MiGs came a little more to the east with each pass. As he turned the element away for the third time, he commented to Gucci that he thought they’d be able to commit missiles the next time around as the SAM site wouldn’t be a factor. Wait ’em out, he thought. Let them get sloppy . . .
As soon as he heard Smoke turn away for the third time, the skipper snapped. Without a word to his flight lead or his RIO, he threw the stick against his right thigh and started a hard turn to the northwest.