"But you're right, she's going to make you pay for this." He sighed, then was back in the room all the way, back from whatever distant place he'd been at when he'd arrived at this decision. "Now get the fuck out of here, Bird Dog. Why is it that you're always in the middle of everything?"
I backed out of the room, moving so fast I damn near ran into the Chief of Staff glowering at the door. I murmured a quick apology, felt his equally icy glare try to nail me to the wall, and then just hauled ass out of there before the admiral had a chance to change his mind.
Like I said, I knew where the skipper learned it from. Talking to her was going to be a piece of cake after this.
As soon as we stepped out the door from the island onto the flight deck, the noise hit us like a tsunami. All those aircraft turning, jockeying back and forth into position whether under their own power or under tow by yellow gear. Not to mention the noise of the ship moving through the ocean at a good thirty knots, generating wind across the decks. "Where is she?" Gator hollered.
Like I should know. I'd just signed the aircraft out, not gotten a parking-lot diagram.
I turned 360, surveying the aircraft in various stages of launch preparation. The weapons were already on the wings, the silver and dark gray ― not the blue practice bombs we flew with too often.
The helos were already turning, getting ready to launch for Flight Quarters SAR. Four thousand yards behind us, the tiny little profile of a frigate dogged our wake, standing by as plane guard in case something went wrong. Surface Navy translation ― in case they had to pull an aviator out of the drink.
Finally, I spotted our aircraft. She was forward, almost to the waist catapult, her brown-shirted plane captain making a close examination of the weapons slung under her wings. A full load out ― two Phoenix, two Sparrows, and two Sidewinders. Personally, I like going with more Sidewinders. And forget the Phoenix ― they're the long-range anti-air missiles, and you usually use those up early to put the other guy on the defensive. Nice concept and planning, but too many of 'em end up with mechanical problems. Besides, I like knife fighting better. The Phoenix requires that you maintain a radar lock on the enemy contact all the way into the last moments, and that just puts too damn many limitations on a pilot. Like I said ― I like a good knife fight. And that meant the radar-guided Sparrows or the heatseeking Sidewinders.
But since we were lead aircraft on this mission, the strike guys had decided to sling us off with the long-range Phoenix so we wouldn't be shooting through the pack if the bad guys showed up. They weigh a helluva lot more than Sidewinders and Sparrows too. And their large bulk interferes with the aerodynamics of your aircraft. Guess that's why they put 'em on the wings of the best pilot around.
"There." I pointed out our aircraft to Gator, and then grabbed Skeeter and shoved him toward the one up near the forward cat. The little shit was flying wing on me again, again the brilliant decision of somebody in Strike. I guess I didn't mind ― but at least they could have made him carry the Phoenix instead of me.
Gator and I went through the preflight checklist carefully, with the plane captain dancing attendance on us as we checked out his bird. Either they hate it when you do this, or they love it. Either they're looking for a chance to show off how well they've taken care of the aircraft, or they're afraid you're gonna find something they screwed up.
Either way, it's my ass that's getting strapped into the four-point ejection harness and taking their little darling up to fight the bad boys. I always do a good preflight ― and Gator feels the same way.
Finally, when we were all the way done, I was satisfied. I saw Skeeter and his backseater starting to mount up, having finished a little faster than we did. For just a second, I hoped the dumb shit hadn't overlooked something that would get his ass shot out of the air.
We climbed up the aircraft and settled into our ejection seats. The plane captain followed us up, double-checked the fixtures, and helped us get settled in. At the last moment, he removed the safeties, the cotter pins, that kept the ejection seat from firing. I counted the strands in his hand carefully, then nodded. "Good hunting, sir," he said. He climbed back down the aircraft and I slid the canopy shut.
A moment later, he appeared off the right side of the aircraft, holding up six red streamers for my inspection. I counted them, then asked Gator to confirm it. They were the streamers that safed the weapons on my wings. I'd be one hell of a constipated Tomcat if he didn't clear those off before I tried to take a shot at a MiG.
Our plane captain turned us over to a yellow shirt, and I followed her directions up to the cat. We settled in, and they pinned the front gear ― those funny little sounds and movements of the aircraft that you get used to. At the yellow shirt's direction, I cycled the flight service, waggling everything that could waggle at him to show him I had a full range of motion on all my control services.
Finally, we were ready. At his direction, I jammed the throttles forward to full military power. He took one step back and rendered a sharp salute. I returned it. The aircraft was mine now, not his. Mine and the catapult officer's.
Two seconds later, it was all mine. There was a small little jolt, the sudden movement of the aircraft, then the gut-wrenching juggernaut down the catapult to the end of the carrier. It came up fast, too fast ― just like it always did.
And thank God. One of my own personal nightmares is a soft cat, a launch where something goes wrong with the steam-driven piston that tosses us off the pointy end of the boat. The result is you don't obtain sufficient airspeed to remain airborne, and you dribble off the end of the aircraft carrier like a wet dream. They don't find much of you often ― if you're lucky, you punch out in those three seconds that it takes to reach the pointy end.
I heard Gator grunt behind me. He always does that ― even after this long.
Then there was the sudden, mushy sinking feeling as we departed the ship. The Tomcat was still screaming at full military power, fighting for altitude and safety. We dipped down below the front of the carrier slightly, and I held my breath as I urged her up.
I love this aircraft. She only made me suffer for a microsecond, then took command of the airspace around her and started gaining altitude at a healthy pace.
I heard the net chatter as Skeeter launched, but was still too busy paying attention to my own altitude, rate of climb, and turn to watch him. I took a straight vector out to about five miles and waited for him to catch up.
Behind us, the carrier was banging an aircraft off the catapults every twenty seconds. Forward cat, waist cat, forward cat, starboard, in a continuous rotation designed to place the maximum amount of metal in the air in the minimum amount of time.
Skeeter was on me like stink on shit, then took his normal glued-to-your-wing position to my right. The rest of the flight was up now too, forming into their combat pairs.
"Viper Flight, Viper Leader," I said into the mike. "You guys ready?"
One by one, they sounded off. A good flight launch, no equipment casualties or other problems to interfere with a full formation.
"Okay, you all know what we're going to do. Let's go do it."
We settled into a loose formation, cruising at seventeen thousand feet, and headed for the coast of Vietnam.
The plan was pretty simple, the way it had been laid out. Some of those weaponeers on board the ship knew what the hell they were doing. Two EA-6B aircraft were going in with us, fully armed with HARM missiles. A couple of us were going to sneak in, buzz around slowly pretending we were E-2s, and wait for the SAM site to light up. As soon as it did, the aardvarks were going to let off with the HARMs to take out the SAM's antenna.
As soon as that happened, we were going to reduce one obnoxious, very, very nasty SAM site to a nice, clean, sterile, smoking black hole in the ground.
Ten minutes off the coast, it lit us up. Gator called Out the warning from the backseat, and I knew every other RIO in the flight was seeing the same threat indications. The EA-6Bs didn't wait to be told �
�� the HARMs were off their wings and headed for their targets so fast the guys must have been riding the button the entire time.
"Viper Flight, Home Plate. We have launch indications probable MiGs." The OS sounded almost excited about it, something unusual for the air-intercept controllers on Jefferson.
"Roger." I just acknowledged the report ― when I needed to know more, I'd ask.
"Great ― just what we needed." Gator was carping again.
"You think I carry these Sidewinders out here for my health?" I demanded. "Not hardly ― we ain't going home with any weapons on the wings, Gator."
"Fine with me."
As I got to thinking about it, I realized that Gator was probably as pissed at the Vietnamese as I was. More so, probably. He's four years senior to me, and had been stuck flying with me ever since my first cruise. He claims he spends most of his time trying to keep me out of trouble. But he and I both know that he's just a passenger, a guy in the back, a scope dope.
Well, not exactly. Gator's pulled my ass out of the fire in the air more than once.
I felt a bit chagrined when I thought about it. He was bound to be just as pissed as I was about losing the E-2C, but he'd never let on. You wouldn't see Gator charging into the admiral's office demanding to lead the flight back. You certainly would not. I made a mental note to skip some of the aerobatics on the way back, just because I knew how much he hated them.
They were on us almost immediately. I saw the first one pop up out of the trees at a ninety-degree angle to the ground, full afterburners spitting fire out his ass as he achieved a rate of climb that my Tomcat would never be able to match. The MiG-29s were faster, and more maneuverable, but the Tomcat had sheer power they couldn't even begin to match.
And more weapons.
"Get that shit off your wings," Skeeter suggested. "The bird will fly better without 'em."
"You think I don't know that?" I demanded. "Just reminding you," my wingman said casually.
Someday, someday, I'm gonna kill that little shit. It pisses me off the most when he's right. The moment to catch those MiGs was when they were fully committed to gaining altitude and thus less maneuverable.
"Fox one, Fox one." I pickled off the first Phoenix and held my Tomcat head-on to the ascending MiG.
My bird jolted to the left as I dropped the Phoenix off the right wing, and I fought her back into level flight. The massive missile seemed to move slowly at first, then quickly picked up speed. One thing I can say for it ― it's a powerful warhead, and if you do hit something, you're gonna kill it.
Skeeter had taken high station on me, eight thousand feet above and behind me. This loose-deuce fighting formation has worked for two generations of Navy pilots, and it's still the best approach in tactical aviation. It's particularly effective against a smaller, more agile aircraft like a MiG. There are basically two types of air-combat fighting styles. Both of them are driven by the performance characteristics of your aircraft and the nerve of the pilot. You take a big aircraft, something like the Tomcat, and you've got all the power in the world. Those engines will pump out a helluva lot of lift, and you can gain altitude over the long run faster than any MiG around.
The MiG, on the other hand, is an angles fighter. He likes to creep inside your turns, pivot around, and drop into position for the perfect tail shot. That's why the two-man Navy formation is so effective ― even as nimble as a MiG is, he can't keep up with two of us.
"Shit shit shit shit shit," I heard the refrain from the backseat.
"What the hell is the shit?" I asked.
"Bird Dog, we're about to get-" Gator never got a chance to finish the sentence. The canopy of treetops below us exploded with what seemed like a thousand sleek aircraft, all arrowing up like they'd been shot out of the same quiver. They were all MiGs, all carrying a full combat load, and all plainly intending to jump into our part of the sky, gain some altitude, and then beat the shit out of us.
"Fuck this." I broke radar lock with the Phoenix, saw it waver off course and fall away harmlessly. I took a shot in the general direction of the aircraft ascending from the trees, just to get their attention, then made my own dash for some altitude.
There were fourteen of us ― seven pairs ― and only twenty-four of them. Not a fair fight ― but then, whoever said they had to fight fair?
"Viper Flight, engage at will. Watch the blue-on-blues, guys ― pick your target."
"This one," Gator said, targeting one of the blips with his radar designator from the backseat. I nodded my agreement.
"Fox two," I said after the steady growl of the missile told me it had a solid radar lock on the nearest MiG.
The Sparrow is a fire-and-forget weapon. Unlike the Phoenix, it graciously lets me go kill other bastards while it seeks out the one I picked out for it. Assuming the Phoenix didn't get anything, I had enough missiles for four kills. Maybe five, if I could catch two MiGs in the same fireball.
"We're about to get in serious trouble," Gator warned. "Bird Dog, those lead three are at altitude. They're maneuvering, coming back down in on us. We got to get the hell outta here."
"Skeeter, you got them?" I queried.
"Fox three, Fox three," I heard my wingman say. Seconds later, a bright fireball obliterated my vision.
"Jesus, that was close!" I snapped. "Skeeter, don't you-?"
"Fox two," Skeeter interrupted, indicating he'd just toggled off a Sparrow. "Come on, baby," I heard him add softly, coaxing the missile along to its intended target.
My Sparrow finally found its target, and I saw the treetop canopy blazing in bright fire. My MiG had tried to go low, tried to break the radar lock by confusing the Sparrow's cute little sensor with the clutter from the treetops. Sometimes it works. This time it didn't.
"Break left, break left," Gator ordered, his voice a pitch higher. "Incoming! It's gonna be close!"
I threw the Tomcat into a hard left-hand turn, stamping down on the pedals and slamming the throttles home into full afterburner. She turned so tight I felt like I was in a dodge-'em car instead of an eighty-million-dollar aircraft.
Behind me, I heard Gator grunting. The G forces that build up in a tight turn are incredible, and Gator was performing the M1 maneuver. You tense up all the muscles, tense your stomach up, and grunt. It forces the blood back up out of your legs and keeps it pumping to your brain. That keeps you from blacking out on a high-G turn.
Harder on him than it was on me. Sitting up front, I know when it's coming. Sometimes you catch the RIOs unawares and knock 'em out before you really know that you're doing it. "You okay?" I asked as the G forces started to ease.
"Got it ― target here." Gator kept radio chatter to a minimum as he fed me another target.
I craned my neck around, trying to see it. He was in front of the sun, hidden from visual by the brilliant glare.
"I don't have him, I don't have him."
"He's up there. I gave you the target." Gator sounded certain. "Take him with the Sparrow."
"Fox two, Fox two." The lighter Sparrow leapt off the wing like a weapon possessed and steered straight up toward the sun. It was the only weapon of choice at that point. Sidewinders become easily distracted by the sun. They see it as a giant, warm and fuzzy target, the mother of all targets for a heat-seeking missile. They wander happily off course, chasing it out of the sky until they run out of fuel.
"Break right," Gator ordered.
We were flying as a team now, the perfect trio. Gator was no longer a separate person but a part of me, a disembodied voice that seemed to be coming from inside my own head as much as through the earphones, and an extra set of eyes that fed me data and radar targets so quickly and seamlessly that it felt I was doing it myself.
And the aircraft that enclosed us ― no more metal and struts and fuselage, but simply power, raw power carrying us back and forth across the sky. We were one entity, one being, with one single purpose in life ― to kill other aircraft.
There were so many of them, so ver
y many. We had the missiles to take them, but the sheer target density and the necessity to avoid a blue-on-blue fratricide constrained our engagements. The chatter on tactical was at a minimum, as it should be. When you've got a MiG on your ass and you need somebody to take him out, you don't want any gossip cluttering the circuit. "Billy, go high! I can't get turned around ― yeah."
"Break hard right, Fred. On my mark ― now."
"Fox three, Fox three."
"Jesus, did you see ― where the-"
I heard six quick engagements, followed by six triumphant cries of "splash, splash."
And one of ours.
"Oh Jesus, they got it. Chutes, chutes ― no chutes. They didn't make it."
The exploding fireball off to my right was one of my own squadron mates, a man that I'd served with since my first cruise. I'd known him well, spent many long hours with him in the ready room or in a sleazy bar on liberty solving the problems of the world over a couple of pitchers of beer.
"Bird Dog, head for the deck." Gator was almost screaming now.
I put my Tomcat into a steep vertical dive without even asking why. When your RIO sounds like that, you don't want to know first.
The Tomcat rolled violently to starboard, buffeted by the force of the missile passing close overhead. I almost wet my pants. It was so close I could make out the small aerodynamic fins of its body, see the deadly, sleek warhead mounted on the missile. It arrowed straight away, headed for another target. Along its flight path, Tomcats were jinking and diving, others jockeying for position on it. "Splash two!"
"Yeah, I got it ― Jesus, there's another one. Chopper, get him off my ass. C'mon, man ― c'mon, c'mon ― thanks."
"Home Plate, where's that backup?" I demanded. I'd put the call in for the all alert aircraft as soon as I'd seen the MiGs, and they still hadn't shown up.
"Hang in there, Viper Flight," the voice on the other end of the circuit said grimly. "Gonna take a few minutes ― you've got to hold the line."
"What the hell is the problem!" I said, keeping my visual scan up trying to keep my ass from getting fried. "Just what the fuck is the problem?"
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