by Dale Brown
Fogelman finished resetting the altitude bug on the altimeter tape, after converting the desired metric altitude to feet. “Altitude bug set, five thousand to level. Radio two backup set to Incirlik tower frequency.”
It was a good thing he was finally acting like a true officer, because the trip across the Atlantic was a real sonofabitch. Rebecca had filled up three plastic piddle packs. But Fogelman didn’t make one remark about her fidgeting or her quiet cursing, never tried to sneak a peek or embarrass her. At one time she thought he was adjusting one of his rearview mirrors toward her crotch, but the wingmen were shifting positions and he was moving his mirrors to keep them in sight. The lack of confrontation was almost a letdown, but a brush with death would probably change even Satan himself.
After leveling off at five thousand meters, then accepting and complying with another descent to 4,200 meters, or about 14,000 feet, Fogelman tuned the backup radio to the Incirlik Air Base ATIS (Automated Terminal Information System) frequency and was about to direct the rest of the flight to the same frequency when they heard: “Thunder Flight, you have traffic at your eleven o’clock, fifty miles, flight of four F-16 aircraft. MARSA procedures are in effect.” Ankara Air Control Center directed the flight of Vampires to go to their frequency and report to them when they were in contact. It was common for fighters of foreign countries, especially in wartime situations, to escort allied planes through their airspace; Furness had been expecting it.
By wagging her wings, Furness directed the flight of Vampires to close up into fingertip formation, then checked in with the Turkish F-16 flight leader and checked in her flight on the new frequency. When the twelve Vampires were back in close formation, the four F-16 fighters bracketed them in, one fighter in the lead and the others above and behind Charlie Flight. The leader then began to descend; Furness had no choice but to follow. The F-16 leader descended below 12,800 feet, the minimum safe altitude for the Incirlik area. The weather was clear and the visibility was good, but it was still very unusual. “Where in hell are we going?” Furness finally asked.
The flight dropped below 12,000 feet, then below 10,000 feet—now the tops of the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey were well above them. “We’re in the Cardasik River valley,” Fogelman said. He reached behind his seat and extracted the Turkey FLIP (Flight Information Publication), scanned it, and then set several frequencies into the navigation radios and into the nav computers. The VOR and TACAN radios centered on a station straight ahead, and soon the ILS (Instrument Landing System) director bars became active. “It looks like they’re taking us to Kayseri,” Fogelman said. “It’s a Turkish training base, north of a very large industrial city. Very high terrain south, a big-ass mountain over 12,800 feet high. Two parallel runways, two-six left and right.” He reached over and set in the runway heading in Rebecca’s horizontal situation indicator to make it easier for her to visualize the runway setup—to her knowledge that was the first time he had ever reached across the center of the cockpit to adjust one of the pilot’s flight instruments. “Northern runway is the longest, main part of the base north. Inertial winds are from the west, so we’ll probably be landing on two-six left. Field elevation 3,506 feet. Normally has only F-5 and a few F-16s stationed there. Defended by Hawk missile batteries—they probably have Patriot by now—but I’m not picking up anything but search radar and navigation beacons.”
“Mark, I’m sorry about all the things I’ve ever said or thought about you,” Furness said. “Your crew coordination on this deployment has been great. After wanting to wring your neck for so long, now I couldn’t stand the thought of you on anyone else’s crew—I mean that. I think you should get smacked in the head more often.”
“Thanks.” Fogelman chuckled. “You saved my life, what can I say?” He scanned around outside until the other planes were in fingertip formation, then pointed out the window straight ahead: “Field in sight.”
The formation of planes flew west of the city, descended to five thousand feet as they swept north of the field, then turned westbound and lined up on the long runway at Kayseri. The F-16s joined up when the Vampires were five miles from the end of the runway, flew to midfield, then executed an overhead break to enter the visual pattern for landing. Furness did a quick wing jab to the left, indicating that each formation line get in fingertip formation on the left side for a right break, then she swept her wings back slowly to 54 degrees and set 350 knots airspeed. This fast tactical approach allowed the crews to survey the landing runway while still protecting themselves from any ground threats that might unexpectedly pop up.
“Formation’s in,” Fogelman reported. “Everyone looks good. Field elevation set in the altimeter bug, and I’ve got radar altitude plus field elevation set for the altimeter setting. Ready with the before-landing checklist. I…” He hesitated, checked his threat indicators and the RHAWS (Radar Homing And Warning System) scope, and tapped it in confusion. “I just picked up an India-band search radar, low PRF, no bearing or identification. Could be another aircraft just hit us with a ranging radar. See anything out your side?”
Furness scanned the skies all around them, then shook her head. “Nope, it’s clear. Nothing locked on to us?”
“It’s gone now,” Fogelman said. “Too short for a missile track.”
“Well, I hope if they got Hawks or Patriots down there, they’ll use them if any bad guys show up,” Furness said. “Let’s go with the checklist.”
As the formation of Vampires passed over the airfield, Fogelman took a moment to scan the field. He saw an enormous number of fighters parked on the northeast ramp—well over a hundred, with service vehicles, trucks, and weapons-loading equipment scattered around. “Looks like we’re not the only ones here,” he said to Rebecca. “Shitload of planes—they look like British Tornados or Jaguars. NATO must be deploying to this base to set up air ops against the Russians. Jeez, I wish they’d tell us what the hell is going on. I see a Hawk missile site, but no Patriots.” He returned his scan to the wingmen as Furness passed midfield and began a 60-degree right break to the overhead pattern for landing. As she continued the break and the airspeed bled away, she eased the wings forward to 16 degrees, and when she rolled out parallel to the runway, she lowered the landing gear handle, extended the slats and one notch of flaps, and began a slow 190-knot descent for landing. Her Bravo Flight wingmen accomplished the same overhead break every five seconds, while Charlie Flight did the same ten seconds afterward.
“I got a green light from the tower,” Fogelman said. Visibility for the pilot out the right side of the cockpit was poor, so she relied on the navigator to scan the touchdown area for her. “Runway’s clear, no arresting cable, no ice or snow that I can see. Couple of planes on the taxiway moving toward the hammerhead … Jesus, what kind of planes are those?”
“Lead, bandits!” someone shouted on the primary radio. “Ten o’clock high!”
Rebecca’s head snapped left and her eyes scanned the sky … and there, diving down at them from very close in, was a Russian Sukhoi-17 fighter-bomber. Its outline was unmistakable—a long, thin frame, blunt nose, sharply swept wings with the outer section swept forward for better slow-speed performance. It was carrying two small air-to-air missiles that resembled Sidewinders. The jet was low and slow, but it had Rebecca right in its sights. “Lead, break right!” Joe Johnson shouted again in the command radio. “It’s rolling into you! We got it locked up!”
“Don’t you dare shoot at me,” a familiar voice came on the frequency in English. “Hold your fire, number two—don’t you dare put a Sidewinder up my tail. We’re just overshooting a little. Stand by.” To their amazement, when the Sukhoi-17 finally rolled out right beside Furness’ plane, they saw none other than Lieutenant Colonel Daren Mace in the rear seat of the tandem two-place Russian bomber. They then noticed there was no red star or flag on the tail—instead, in large black Latin letters on the camouflaged side were the words FREEZ UKRAYINA AIR FORCE. Even more incredible, the Su-17 was ca
rrying a strange pod that they recognized as an AN/AQQ-901 electronics interface and data pod on one side, and on the other side, it carried an AGM-88C HARM antiradar missile.
“Let us go first—we’re a little skosh on fuel,” Daren Mace radioed, waving happily at Rebecca. With that, the fighter-bomber accelerated ahead of the lead RF-111G, then turned abruptly toward the runway when it was less than one hundred yards in front of Furness’ bomber. Rebecca had to extend a bit to let the Ukrainian fighter land, but in just a few seconds she began her turn to final and set up for the landing. After landing and clearing the runway, Rebecca waited on the main taxiway behind a yellow Follow Me truck as the rest of her flight landed and taxied behind her; then, with wings swept back to 54 degrees, they taxied together to the parking ramp.
The Americans could not believe what they saw—rows and rows of Soviet-made fighters, all loaded with weapons, parked beside the taxiway as far as the eye could see. “Man, this is incredible,” Fogelman exclaimed. “They’re all MiG-23 Floggers except the blunt-nosed one, which is the Su-17 Fitter, right?”
“Not quite,” Furness said. “The ones with the bullet-shaped radomes are the MiG-23 fighters. The ones with the noses that slope downward are MiG-27 attack planes. God, I don’t believe this … five or six squadrons of Soviet fighters at a Turkish air base—and we land twelve RF-111G bombers right in the middle of them.”
The reception for the Americans upon landing was raucous and dramatic. Ukrainian pilots—it was hard not to think of them as Soviets or Russians—were standing on their plane’s wings, madly waving American and Turkish flags as the Vampires taxied past. A few crazy Ukrainian pilots ran out onto the taxiway and patted the sides of the Vampire bombers before being chased away by Turkish security patrols. A reviewing stand with American, Turkish, Ukrainian, and NATO flags had been set up in front of what looked like the base operations building. The Follow Me truck led the RF-111Gs around the reviewing stand into parking places, and one by one they lined up to the left of Furness’ plane, precisely aligning themselves on her. Using hand signals, Furness directed the other aircraft to sweep their wings forward, open bomb bay doors, run up engines to scavenge oil, shut down engines, and open their canopies. Maintenance men put boarding ladders on both sides of the plane, and long red carpets were thrown out leading from the ladder to the reviewing stand, where several vehicles had pulled up and officers began stepping onto the reviewing stand.
The impromptu arrival show worked to perfection, and the growing crowd of pilots and maintenance technicians applauded and cheered wildly …
… until Rebecca Furness removed her helmet and stepped out of the cockpit, her brown hair unfurling.
The Turkish crews were on the right with a small group of Americans, and it was as if a huge switch in heaven had been thrown and all sound was canceled on that side of the reviewing stand. The Turkish aircrews and commanders were stunned. A woman is climbing down out of the lead aircraft? Their astonishment visibly grew as Lynn Ogden and Paula Norton appeared as well. But as if to highlight the silenced Turkish reaction, the Ukrainian crews were cheering, whistling, jumping up and down and yelling like crazy, as if the three flyers were wearing nothing but grass skirts. The Americans were politely clapping and waving, happy to see their fellow wing members arrive safe and sound. The throng of Ukrainian pilots couldn’t be held back any longer, and a large group of them rushed forward, picked up Rebecca and the other two women, and carried them triumphantly on their shoulders to the foot of the reviewing stand. Soon there was a large crowd of crewmembers surrounding the foot of the podium.
Brigadier General Erdal Sivarek looked as if he was going to explode with indignation as the three women were deposited at his feet. He fidgeted slightly, twitching as if he didn’t know what to do with his hands. His hesitation gave the crews enough time to assemble in front of the podium, and Furness called them to attention. She then stepped forward and said in a loud voice, “Sir, the Seven-Fifteenth Tactical Squadron, reporting as ordered.”
Sivarek finally exploded, shouting something in Turkish; then: “Is this some kind of joke? Who is this woman? General, you will explain this to me. What is this woman doing here?”
Major General Bruce Eyers was hopelessly confused. He looked Furness over—she was still holding her salute, which only appeared to be making Sivarek and his staff officers angrier by the second—and decided she was doing nothing improper. He shot her a quick salute so she would lower her arm, then stepped over to Sivarek and asked, “What’s the problem here, General? This is the crew from Plattsburgh—the RF-111G unit you were told about.”
“She is a woman, General Eyers,” Sivarek said angrily. “You Americans sent a … a woman, in a flight suit, to my base, at a time like this?”
“It’s no big deal, General,” Eyers said easily. “I’m sure she’s a good stick. I know they’re just Reservists, but they got some—”
“Reservists? These are Reservists? What is the meaning of this insult, Eyers? Your President sends female Reservists to my country at our hour of need?”
“Get a grip on yourself, General,” Eyers said, chuckling and slapping the Turkish general hard on the shoulder, which he shrugged off. He pointed to the RF-111Gs parked in front of them and said, “She brought those things in okay, didn’t she?”
“Then she is just a ferry pilot?” Sivarek asked. “She is simply bringing the planes here, and the pilots are arriving in more aircraft?”
“Excuse me, sir,” Furness said, “but I’m not a ferry pilot. I’m Bravo Flight commander of the Seven-Fifteenth Tactical Squadron. All we need is fuel and area charts, and we’re ready to begin air operations.”
Sivarek silenced her with a sharp word in Turkish that was so loud and so harsh that his staff officers nearby jumped in surprise. One officer quickly rushed forward and, jabbering away in Turkish, stepped in between Sivarek and Furness. Furness stumbled backward, surprised more than hurt or insulted.
But what really surprised her was the reaction from Daren Mace, who was standing on the podium beside Lieutenant Colonel Hembree, the 715th Tactical Squadron commander, and Colonel Lafferty, the 394th Air Battle Wing vice commander, who had flown in with Mace and the other maintenance and support personnel the night before; not to mention Mark Fogelman. Mace grabbed the Turkish officer from behind and whipped him around so they were face to face. Fogelman rushed forward and, simultaneously with Mace, body-tackled the Turkish officer down onto the tarmac.
Bedlam erupted. Turkish security guards shouldered their rifles and began pulling at the Americans, and that’s when all of the Plattsburgh flyers leaped onto the Turks. More Turkish guards rushed to their comrades’ assistance—and that’s when the Ukrainian flyers rushed the podium. It was unclear exactly what they were doing, but they generally were trying to keep the guards’ M-16 rifles from going off in anyone’s face and trying to help Rebecca Furness up off the ramp and into their eager arms. The Ukrainians’ charge immediately prompted the Turkish flyers, who were clearly outnumbered but as enraged as wild dogs, to enter the melee. Officers were screaming orders. General Sivarek was shouting orders in Turkish, English, Russian, and Arabic, any language he could think of to make himself understood.
But the only thing that stopped the brawl was the sudden blare of a siren just outside the base operations building. It was echoed by several other sirens on the flight line and by others on the base proper. The Turkish, then the Ukrainian pilots quickly untangled themselves and began running for their planes. “Air raid!” Mace shouted, leaping to his feet as soon as the pile of men got off him. “It’s an air raid siren!”
“Jesus!” Lafferty exclaimed, shaking his head. “Get a crew to bring start carts over here, and another crew to get that reviewing stand away from the planes. Furness, tell your crews to taxi your planes toward those aircraft shelters over there. Move!”
The American flyers sprinted for their planes and got into the cockpit. Americans and Turks who had been wrestling with
each other just thirty seconds earlier, were now side by side hauling heavy external power carts from next to the base operations building to the waiting Vampires, while Turkish guards were helping Daren Mace and a few Ukrainian pilots with broken planes drag the portable reviewing stand out of the way.
Fogelman raced around his bomber pulling chocks and checking to see if any maintenance access panels had been opened, then climbed up into the cockpit and kicked the boarding ladder away clear of the wheels. “Ladder’s clear!” he shouted to Furness as she climbed inside the cockpit and retrieved her helmet. “Chocks pulled, panels closed, I’m ready to taxi.”
“Okay,” Furness shouted. But they didn’t need to hurry. The power cart was going to another plane first, it was the only one in sight, and there were no tow vehicles or tow bars moving toward them at all. “Nice going, Mark, but we’re not going anywhere right now.”
A few moments later their crew chief, Staff Sergeant Ken Brodie, came by and put their ladders back up on the bombers. “Just one power cart out here,” he explained. “Colonel Lafferty wants us in the air raid shelter until they’re ready to start or tow us.” It was one of the most painful things they had ever done to leave their Vampire behind, armed and ready to fly, and retreat to the safety of the air raid shelter under base operations. Before they reached the front doors, they heard a tremendous double booom! that rattled windows and seemed to shake the ground. Furness jumped. Fogelman, Brodie, and the assistant crew chief, Bordus, ran on ahead.
But Furness saw some movement out of the corner of her eye and saw Daren Mace dragging a long chain from the fire station beside the base operations building out to the bombers, and immediately she ran over to him. “What are you doing, Daren? They said report to the shelters.”
“I talked the firemen into towing planes off the ramp with the fire trucks,” Mace said. “I want to get these planes at least out of the open. You better get inside.”