by Thomas Shaw
“Bring your speed back to 400 miles per hour.” Donny heard as his head was just clearing from the brutal 10g turn.
Quantico, Virginia…
“What in the world is she doing?” One of the technicians said. “Our boy is out flying the MIG ten times over.”
“I think SAM is trying to draw the MIG in closer so he will chase Donny through the canyon,” Dr. Merrill said as they sat helplessly watching their monitors.
Copper Canyon, Mexico…
Dr. Merrill was right; Boras had pulled back on his throttle, to match Don’s turn and was closing the gap.
“Going to guns,” Boras said in his over confident voice, as he leaned into his harness.
“What are you doing?” Came the major’s voice over the Russian’s headset. “Pull up out of that canyon and wait for him to come out the other end.”
“This guy can’t out fly me,” Boras said, “I’ve already closed to within 300 yards.”
Boras pulled the trigger on his Gatling gun and a stream of orange tracers the size of tennis balls streaked about ten feet over the top of Donny’s cockpit. Every seventh round was a phosphorus tipped bullet which meant there was literally a stream of steel passing over Donny’s head.
“Drop down to 100 feet AGL and follow the canyon with your night vision radar,” SAM ordered, as she initiated Code-7. This subroutine would reduce his metabolic activity, giving Donny’s right arm the ability to increase his reaction time so he could enhance his flying skills by a factor of five.
When the MIG tried to drop down low enough for another shot he found that his plane was being peppered with rocks and debris being kicked up by the high speed ground effect of the low flying plane in front of him. He immediately pulled up a hundred feet to steer clear of the problems it created. Boras pulled the trigger on his Gatling gun sending another stream of hot steel over the cockpit of his prey, hoping to rattle him into making a mistake.
Code-7 gave Donny the heightened reaction time to negotiate this narrow canyon at these high speeds.
Boras suddenly realized he was in jeopardy. He was heading straight for a canyon wall. He rolled the MIG over on its side and pulled back hard on the stick. The stall indicator sounded and he quickly added power, recovering from the turn with no more than 20 feet from impacting the wall. Sweat began to roll down his back. He had better focus on flying and wait for a better shot as he knew the canyon would soon run out.
“You’re coming to the end of the canyon in less than a mile,” Boras heard his Russian commander say. “Take him when he pulls up to clear the rim.”
With only seconds to go before they came to the end of the canyon, SAM instructed Donny to move the wings back to their full 45 degree sweep angle and on her count go to full military power with full afterburner while pulling up into a steep 60 degree climb.
“Three, Two, One, NOW!” SAM said with unusually urgency.
Donny slammed the throttles forward, hitting the afterburners at the same instant. He was jammed back into the seat as Black Gold nosed up and broke the sound barrier. There was a huge explosion as the afterburners kicked in and the computers instantly adjusted the burner nozzles to maximum thrust.
Boras was just putting pressure on the trigger when he was startled by the view in front of him. He was only 350 yard behind his enemy when he saw the plane become completely enveloped in a cloud of vapor caused by the compression of the airframe against the humid air in the canyon. A dual trail of shock diamonds, from the exhaust, pointed toward the ground as the plane in front of him literally disappeared from view.
SAM had directed Donny to fly under a natural rock bridge that spans the north end of Copper canyon. The shock wave from the afterburners combined with the sonic boom ripped rocks and debris from the bottom of the bridge as well as the sides of the narrow canyon walls, causing a hail of stone shrapnel to impact the MIG.
Boras never knew what hit him. Small boulders the size of grapefruits to watermelons plummeted through his canopy at 400 miles per hour, smashing through his body and impacting into the armor plate behind his seat. The powerful jet engine ingested 100’s of pounds of rocks and gravel, causing a huge explosion which scattered flaming bits of the MIG to flow like a river of fire along the floor of the canyon.
From 10,000 feet above, Major Bukhara watched the floor of the canyon light up from the torrent of flames. “Are you OK?” He instinctively shouted into his microphone.
“I got him, commander,” came the calm response in perfect Russian.
Something wasn’t right… as Major Bukhara watched what appeared to be a black delta-wing streak upward about a mile in front of him. It definitely wasn’t the silver MIG he was expecting to see. His eyes suddenly fixed on the signature identification radar flashing,
*** UNKNOWN AIRCRAFT***.
The realization hit him like a ton of bricks… it was the American. He immediately slammed the throttles forward to full power and engaged his afterburner, pulling the MIG up into a steep climb. Years of training kicked in as Major Bukhara’s subconscious reactions instinctively maneuvered his big jet into firing position.
He selected his Archer missile because of the strong tone he was receiving from the targets glowing exhaust trail.
Black Gold was already 20 miles away from the MIG and climbing through 50,000 feet when Major Bukhara pulled the trigger on his 3,000 mile per hour air-to-air heat seeking missile.
Forty-five minutes earlier in El Paso, Texas…
***
SAM was in contact with the military base in El Paso Texas, issuing instruction to a Colonel “Chuck” Woford to be airborne in less than 30 minutes in America’s newest attack fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor. These orders came as a complete surprise to Colonel Woford as he as just getting ready to head to the Florida Keys for some much needed R & R.
Exactly 20 minutes later, Colonel Woford was wheels up in his Raptor, making 1,800 miles per hour while climbing to an altitude of 30,000 feet. Still unsure what this was all about, Colonel Woford methodically scanned his instrument panel and was surprised to see that he was armed with two of America’s newest radar seeking air-to-air missiles.
He was just about to call “base” when a female voice interrupted his concentration.
“Colonel Woford, I am authorized to issue you a code blue mission. Please key-in 2996 on your transponder to confirm receipt of this message. You will not be using any voice response… I repeat you will not be using any voice response.”
Colonel Woford immediately keyed in the 2996 and pressed the activation button on his transponder.
“Confirmation received,” the voice said in an unusually calm manner. “Come to heading 173 degrees; go to full military power, full afterburner and make your missiles – HOT.”
What the Hell is going on, he thought, as he brought the Raptor up to full power and flipped up the Red Guards covering the missile launch switch. He had never gone this fast with hot missiles on any training mission. Colonel Woford suddenly heard the low growl as his missiles locked onto a target he was not aware of. Without any warning, the missiles automatically ripple fired; they launched about 1/10th of a second apart. Woford was stunned as he watched the contrails of the missiles streak away from his plane into the distant horizon. The sun was just breaking into view to his left but he could see nothing in front of him, just two blips on the outer edge of his radar sweep.
SAM was making 1000’s of calculations per second as she computed the complicated deflection shot on the MIG.
[A deflection shot is made when a missile or bullet comes at the target from a 90 degree angle. This is by far the most complicated situation to hit your target.]
Exactly 11 seconds later, Colonel Woford saw a red/orange ball of light glow just below the horizon and the low growling tone in his headset immediately stopped.
Seconds earlier Major Bukhara was experiencing target fixation and didn’t notice the radar indicating that two missiles were tracking him. The last thing he would eve
r see was the flash of light in his face shield, from his peripheral vision, as the first missile exploded about 20 yards away and slightly in front of his MIG. The ensuing shrapnel field was made up of hundreds of steel rods about 18 inches in length, traveling at over 3,000 miles per hour which sliced through the MIG like a hot knife through butter. The MIG was instantly decimated and exploded into a giant fire ball. The second missile exploded a fraction of a second later sending its shrapnel field through the fire ball. From this altitude it would take a full ten minutes for the final pieces of debris from the MIG to impact the ground.
SAM had been truly multi-tasking for the past several minutes. While talking to Colonel Woford and making the complicated calculations for the missile intercepts she was also issuing orders for Donny to immediately power down his engines to reduce his heat signature and deploy the magnesium decoy flares.
In his rush to power down his engines the starboard engine shut down a fraction of a second behind the port engine. At the rarified altitude of 60,000 feet, the air is so thin that any conventional aircraft loses its aerodynamics and easily stalls if it can’t keep up the required forward speed. This is exactly what happened to Donny’s plane. The slight extra push from the starboard engine as it shut down was just enough to put Black Gold into a flat spin. This means that the plane began to spin on its center axis, like a Frisbee. The air passed forward over the right wing and backward over the left wing, completely negating any aerodynamic lift. The same problem affected the engines to the point that they could not be restarted.
It is virtually impossible to recover from a flat spin. The purpose of turning off the engines was to reduce the heat signature and try to break the missile lock. By inadvertently going into a flat spin the magnesium flares, used for decoy purpose, were dispersed in a descending spiral which confused the onboard computer in the missile, the Russian had fired moments earlier, as it passed harmlessly 100 feet over the top of the modified Lear.
Donny was now spinning like a top, completely out of control, and heading toward the Gulf of Mexico. Without waiting for any instructions from SAM, Donny tried everything he could to recover from the flat spin. He moved the wings back to their fully extended position, lowered the gear, tried to restart the engines, and moved the control handle in every direction, but nothing worked as he plummeted closer to the water.
Meanwhile, SAM was instructing Colonel Woford to maintain full power and come to a heading of nine zero degrees or due East. As Colonel Woford dropped the nose of his Raptor, as instructed by the female voice, he found himself looking directly into the rising sun. He quickly pulled down the sun screen on his helmet and wondered what he was supposed to do now. It only took a few seconds before he found out.
SAM issued new coordinates that completely confused the Colonel. He was heading directly for the blip on his radar screen less than 15 miles ahead. The collision avoidance software was sounding an alarm that immediately invoked a response from Woford. “I don’t know what you’re doing, lady, but I’m on a collision course with something only a few seconds in front of me.”
“Please maintain radio silence,” came the cold response from the female voice. “Do exactly as I say or you could jeopardize this mission.”
SAM was busy computing the course corrections that she fed to Colonel Woford every few seconds. He was already in a steep dive when SAM instructed him to increase the dive another ten degrees.
The collision avoidance alarm was sounding with a steady tone when Colonel Woford reached down and turned it off. Sweat began to trickle down his back as the adrenalin rushed through his body. His onboard computers indicated a collision in four seconds; he could clearly see a plane in a flat spin about 2 miles in front of his aircraft.
“On my count pull up into a 60 degree climb angle,” the voice said with assuring confidence.
“Three, Two, One, NOW!”
Colonel Wolford closed his eyes and pulled back hard on the control handle. He was immediately slammed down in his seat with a crushing 14g force. Even with his G-suit fully inflated, he passed out.
SAM had skillfully directed Colonel Wolford to fly his F-22 Raptor directly under the belly of the doomed Learjet and pull up at the last possible second causing huge turbulence from the vortices off the tips of his wings and a sonic shock wave from the body of his aircraft. Donny’s plane was on a path that led him directly through the aftermath of this violent turbulence, similar to the tail end of a small tornado.
The Lear slammed into the vortices’ with powerful jolts causing Black Gold to bounce violently several times; then it flipped over onto its back. Suddenly the plane nosed down and cart wheeled end over end, stopping in an inverted, and nose down position. All the twisting and tumbling caused Donny to experience vertigo, so for the next twenty seconds he couldn’t tell up from down. With his head spinning and on the verge of throwing up, Donny could hear the calm voice of SAM in his headset. “Apply full left rudder for one second then roll to the left… more to the left… stop.”
SAM had recovered the aerodynamics of the aircraft but it was up to Donne to get it flying again before it impacted into the water.
“Start your port engine,” the voice said calmly.
Donny immediately reacted to the advice and hit the starter button on #1.
Without realizing it, Donny was talking his way through the starting process.
“Engine turning… we have ignition,” his voice was weak.
“#2 turning… we have ignition and going to full power.”
With only a few hundred feet before impact, Don pulled the nose of the Lear up for the first time since his engines had flamed out.
In the F-22 Raptor the onboard computers immediately took over when Colonel Woford’s hand slipped from the controls when he passed out. The fail safe system engaged, slowing the F-22 and guiding it into a normal flight position. Colonel Woford regained consciousness about five seconds later.
After what seemed like an eternity, Donny leveled off at 5,000 feet and was surprised, to say the least, to see an F-22 fighter jet pull up to within 15 feet of his starboard wing tip.
He noticed the pilot in the Raptor was using hand signals indication for him to tune his radio to the low power, plane to plane communication frequency. The FM channel 88.6 would transmit with less than a tenth of a watt of power and could only be heard from about a 100 foot radius.
“How are you doin’, my friend,” came the Mid-Western drawl of Colonel Woford.
“My hands are still shaking… but I think I’ll be alright,” Donny responded. “Where did you come from?”
“Well… I’m not sure. I thought I was going fishing in Florida but the next thing I know I’m setting here talking to you and oh - by the way, I think I just shot down a Russian MIG,” Woford said with smug sarcasm.
“I want to thank you for that or we wouldn’t be having this little chat right now,” Donny said with true emotions.
“Do you know who the little lady is that keeps giving me orders that I have no idea where they are coming from?” Chuck said, speaking more quietly now.
“That sounds like SAM,” Donny said, adding “Why are you talking so low?”
“She told me I wasn’t to say a word while I was on this mission but I have no idea what mission I’m on.”
“I can’t tell you much, but I think she is the brains behind this mission. I can say for a fact that she has saved my butt numerous times,” Donny said emotionally. “It’s a miracle that I’m here talking to you.”
“Well, I just got the word to take you back to El Paso and guess who just ordered me to switch back to our Military frequency. How did she even know I was talking to you? Maybe we can catch a beer later; I’d like to hear about your adventure.”
They flew back to the military base in silence.
Donny landed first at the El Paso base in Texas and was instructed to taxi to a hangar at the south end of the field. As he was being waved into the open hangar he noticed the familiar Gu
lfstream waiting on the tarmac a hundred feet away. It looked like the pilot and copilot were ready and waiting to take off.
He was right.
Donny noticed that his legs were a little shaky as he climbed out of the pilot’s seat, picking up his backpack on the way.
The small group of FBI agents could hardly contain themselves as Donny stepped out of the plane. They were all smiles and seemed to want to do the high five which seemed strange to him but he half-heartedly met their enthusiasm. He was exhausted and looked forward to just sitting down and relaxing for a few minutes but the FBI agents quickly hustled him to the waiting Gulfstream.
Donny looked over his shoulder just in time to see Colonel Woford climb down from his F-22, about 100 yards away.
Their eyes never met.
Donny was soon strapped into a first class type seat and drinking out of a thermos filled with Gatorade. His vital signs were teetering on the verge of exhaustion and SAM was worried that he might go into shock, so she issued a Code-6 which immediately put him into a deep coma like sleep.
This is where he stayed during the three hour flight back to Quantico.
23
Quantico, Virginia…
The arrival scene at the “Ice Plant” was similar to the one in El Paso. The technicians were lined up down the narrow hallway with hoots and shouts like you might see at a party after the big football game. Dr. Merrill stood back and let them have their moment.