“Right. If I had any.” He’d selected a weapons load consisting primarily of Sidewinders, since carrying the five-hundred-pound bombs left little additional space on the wing hard points.
“Three minutes to Sparrow range,” Gator added.
“Short, go low. I’ll take high station,” Bird Dog ordered over tactical. He ascended another two thousand feet and watched as his wingman dropped down to angels seven.
The MiGs were visible now in the eastern sky, no longer simply black spots on the horizon but sharp-angled sleek fuselages and wings. And the wings dirty, he could tell even at this distance. What were they carrying? Probably a combination of short-and medium-range weapons, he decided. They’d known they were going to be in a dogfight, and wouldn’t have bothered to carry the Soviet equivalent of a longrange standoff Phoenix. And since they hadn’t had to carry five-hundred-pound bombs into target, they’d have more than enough weapons to spare, he figured. If they could catch the Tomcats, that is.
He watched the heads-up display adjust itself as radar homed in with the AWG-9 radar on the lead target, switching from search to tracking mode. A low growl sounded in his ears as a Sidewinder signaled that it had acquired a heat source sufficiently large to warrant its interest.
Bird Dog took a quick, reflexive check on the position of the sun. It was something you always watched for with a Sidewinder, that you weren’t taking a longrange shot at the sun with the short-range missile. No, it was still below the horizon. With all of his own aircraft safely behind him, he felt confident that anything the Sidewinder had acquired was a bad guy.
“Fox Three,” he said as he toggled the weapons selector switch over to the appropriate station. He slammed his eyes shut for a moment as the aircraft shuddered, trying to save his night vision from being destroyed by the phosphorous white fire of the missile’s ignition system. Even with his eyes closed he could see the red reflecting through his eyelids.
“Missile off the rail,” Gator said. “Looking good, looking good flares. Bird dog. He’s got flares. Your eyes ” The warning came too late. The lead MiG shot off three flares from an undercarriage slot and the white phosphorous orbs shattered the darkness. Bird Dog swore as his pupils contracted down “to pinpoints in reaction to it, effectively destroying his night vision.
The only consolation was that the MiG pilots would have been as blinded by the flares as he was.
0900 Local (+5 GMT)
MiG 101
Santana was concentrating on the radar picture and barely felt the flares shoot out from the undercarriage. The MiG-29, while a superbly engineered aircraft, had one major fault: It was a one-man operation.
In a high-threat environment with this many adversary aircraft inbound, he would have preferred to have an extra set of eyes in the backseat to keep watch on the other side. It was always a danger in a single-seater aircraft, losing sight of the big picture. He concentrated on the scope, his own source of data now that the Willie Pete shots had ruined his night vision, and vectored in.
Which one of those mongrels had had the audacity to fire on him?
There that was the one. He marked the radar symbol with a target designation. As often as he’d trained for ACM in practice. Colonel Santana had never actually faced hostile air. It was one thing to take on a small private aircraft mano a mano. No challenge, that like shooting ducks in a barrel, as the Americans said. He’d practiced this often enough that he felt comfortable with the tactics and fire doctrine, but there was still something intangibly different about the actual event. In practice, one could always call a time-out, pause and regroup, review one’s mistakes, and, most important, brag about one’s exploits afterward with the victim. Here, it was different.
The sudden, cold realization shook him. The air was no longer a friendly playground, something he’d earned the right to by virtue of his training, intelligence, and experience. It was a killing ground, and losing this battle meant more than having to put up with obnoxious bragging by the other side afterward.
And that aircraft, the one with the brilliant glowing red circle around it, was the one that had had the audacity to shoot at him. He felt a sense of relief, an easing of fear, as the threat to his existence became identifiable, distinct. No longer was it Death flying in the air around him, it was a single aircraft with a single pilot and a RIO behind him, he realized that threatened his existence. The odd conviction that if he could kill that one aircraft he would be safe overtook him. It made no sense, yet there it was.
Around him, he heard the rest of the flight calling out excitedly, each man claiming a particular target as his own.
The designation popped up on his screen as the other pilots did as he did, made the enemy personal and singular instead of massive and unreal.
Before, it had been a matter of tactics. Now, it was personal. And someone would pay for that.
0510 Local (+5 GMT)
Tomcat 201
“Asshole’s after us,” Bird Dog snarled. The MiG he’d shot at had turned and was headed directly toward him. With a closure rate of one thousand knots, it would be mere seconds before he would be within knife-fighting range of the other aircraft. Bird Dog had an advantage, though from what he could see, he had at least two thousand feet of altitude on the adversary. Altitude was safety, a fungible commodity in the air that he could trade for speed, for safety, or for any one of a number of critical flying factors.
He watched the MiG approaching, carefully calculating the angle between them. It would be a lead-lag situation in moments, particularly if the other pilot was not smart enough to avoid it. He wondered fleetingly how well the other pilots were trained. Not very, probably not if the Soviets had had a hand in it. If the other pilot misjudged the situation. Bird Dog would be able to climb slightly and drop in behind him, a perfect position for a Sidewinder shot.
The white-hot exhaust from the other aircraft’s engine would render any flare deceptions virtually useless.
“Hang on. Gator, time for some airspace.” Bird Dog slammed into afterburner again, tipped the Tomcat’s nose up, and shot almost vertically into the sky. The maneuver decreased his speed over ground radically, and would, he hoped, confuse the pilot below him.
As the altimeter spooled past fifteen thousand feet, he said, “Come on in, buddy. I’ve shot down MiGs before. You won’t be my first and I doubt you’ll be my last. If you think you’ve got what it takes, come on up and play with the big boys.”
0511 Local (+5 GMT)
USS Jefferson
Tombstone ran his hand lightly over the familiar controls of the Tomcat, marveling at how it all flashed back to him every time he took the controls. He could hear Tomboy murmuring to herself behind him, quietly walking through her own preflight checklist. They were sitting on the catapult, already affixed to the shuttle, steam pressure satisfactory, just waiting for the signal.
“All done. Ready to launch, Stoney.” Tomboy’s voice sounded as coldly professional as ever.
“Ready up here have been for hours.” He forced a chuckle. “That’s how it always is, isn’t it? The husband waiting for the wife to get ready?”
“You’re gonna pay for that one, big boy.”.
Tombstone’s retort was forestalled by approaching launch. He wiped his control surfaces, then signaled his readiness to the plane captain. He glanced at the Plexiglas board the man held in the air, instantly absorbing the figures noted there. Finally, he held out a thumbs-up.
The yellow shirt came to attention, snapped off a quick salute, then dropped to one knee and pointed dramatically forward toward the bow of the ship. Tombstone returned the salute, dropping his hand quickly to rest it on the throttles.
Seconds later, the seat slammed him from behind and the ejection harness straps bit into his shoulders. He gulped down a quick breath at the sensation, as familiar as every curve of Tomboy’s body. More so, reallyhe’d spent more time in a Tomcat than in her.
The bow of the ship thrust forward quickly to meet him.
>
Fourteen seconds later, he felt that sickening drop as the aircraft departed the carrier, that moment of sheer panic every pilot feels as gravity fights to suck the aircraft down into the sea. One of his own personal nightmares was a soft catapult shot where insufficient steam power on the downstroke led to insufficient airspeed. The results were almost always fatal, unless the pilot were quick enough to eject before the Tomcat hit the water. And every time he launched, he was certain it had just happened. His fingers closed around the ejection handle.
As always, however, he felt the Tomcat grab for altitude at the last moment. The engines screamed as they fought to overcome the relentless downward pull. Slowly, too slowly for anyone’s comfort, the aircraft gained altitude.
One last mission, one last combat patrol, one last chance to stare the enemy in the face and find out who was the better pilot. He hoped it would be worth it.
0512 Local (+5 GMT)
MiG 101
Santana watched as the Tomcat shot up into the air. The American fighter had a higher thrust-to-weight ratio, as well as a higher wing loading factor, giving it greater power than the MiG but decreasing its turn radius. And just as he knew the capabilities of the American fighter, so he was certain that the U.S. pilot knew exactly what his MiG was capable of. Decades of planning and training to fight the Soviet Union had given the Americans an enormous lead in the arcane field of dissimilar fighter tactics.
The Cubans had been similarly diligent, drawing upon the expertise of their Soviet masters for research and advice.
The Tomcat’s ventral side was a cold, gleaming silver in the sparse starlight. Already the sky had started to lighten almost imperceptibly, a foreshadowing of the dawn that would soon break. By that time, when the sun was finally visible, only one of them would still be in the air.
The best tactic for a more maneuverable aircraft such as a MiG versus a behemoth like the Tomcat is to fight an angles war, restricting the plane of combat to the horizontal as much as possible and preventing the larger craft from using its greater thrust-to-weight ratio to attain altitude and therefore, potential airspeed on the smaller one.
Santana assessed the tactical strategic situation. It seemed like the pilot had not started his ascent soon enough, leaving some possibility that the angles fight could be turned to the Cuban’s advantage immediately.
Santana put his MiG Fulcrum into a hard left turn, standing the nimble aircraft on its wing as he ducked underneath the path of the offending Tomcat. He knew what the American intended to gain altitude, roll over, and drop in behind him for a killing shot. By forming a T with the ascending aircraft, he made that probability unlikely.
In a few more seconds, he would see if his plan was working. Then he could judge the geometry of the engagement and quickly correct the agile Fulcrum’s course as necessary. The seconds ticked by inexorably.
0513 Local (+5 GMT)
Tomcat 201
“Furball forty miles to the east,” Tomboy said. “Recommend we come left slightly to avoid it. That is, if what you really want to do is get the BDA you said you were after.”
Tombstone clicked his mike twice in response, annoyed by Tomboy’s insight. She knew as well as he did that what he really wanted to do was vector over to the furball, pick off a MiG, and go one-on-one as he had so many times before. Even the absence of a wingman to assist him in a combat spread didn’t bother him. He’d fought solo against MiGs more times than most of these pilots had trapped on a carrier.
Instead, he eased the aircraft to the left, swinging wide of the engagement. Maybe later, after he’d had a chance to see what he’d come to see, and radioed the results back to the carrier. Maybe one last time but duty first. Whatever else he might have felt about flying, his obligation right now was to the carrier. And to Batman. This aircraft had been released to him for one purpose and one purpose only to obtain critical information for the carrier group commander not to allow him to live out some boyish fantasy one last time.
“Feet dry in five mikes.” Tomboy’s voice was still coldly professional, empty of any trace of “I told you so.”
Tombstone spared one last look off to the right, searching the sky for the aircraft that he knew were dancing deadly waltzes with each other at this very minute. Then he refocused his attention on the heads-up display inside. Duty first.
0514 Local (+5 GMT)
Tomcat 201
“Oh, you bastard,” Bird Dog muttered. “You slimy little Cuban bastard.” He craned his neck over and stared down, hoping to catch a glimpse of the aircraft darting underneath his flight path. He thought he saw it-the dim sparkle of starlight on hardened painted metal but he couldn’t be certain. For now. Gator and the radar provided a better picture of their relative positions than eyesight.
“Under you,” Gator warned. “Still turning Bird Dog, he’s an angles fighter.”
“Of course he is,” Bird Dog snapped. “So would I be if I were flying a MiG against a Tomcat. Well, we’re going to have to put the kibosh on that little scenario.”
He jerked the Tomcat into a hard right turn, breaking off the ascent.
as he leveled off, he let the tomcat roll 180 degrees until he was standing on his port wing, pointing down toward the ground. The maneuver cost him altitude, which was just what he intended. He waited until he was approximately level with the MiG, then continued to roll, twisting twice more until he was head-on-head with the MiG.
And take that, you motherfucker. Nose-on-nose, you’re mine.
“Watch him,” Gator warned. “With his turning radius, he’ll be out of here in a heartbeat.”
“He turns, and I’ll be on his ass,” Bird Dog answered.
“Which is just where I want to be for a Sidewinder.”
0515 Local (+5 GMT)
Fulcrum 101
Santana snarled at the radar picture reflected in his heads-up display.
He’d halfway expected it, hoping against crazy hope that his first maneuver in angles fighting would win the battle, but clearly the American was too well trained to fall for it. Still, he had started his ascent too late. Now, nose to nose with a closure speed in excess of Mach 2, the American would undoubtedly expect him to use his greater maneuverability to turn out of the confrontation.
The American had made one mistake maybe he could be enticed into making another. Santana held the MiG on a steady course and bore in, waiting for the right moment.
0516 Local (+5 GMT)
Tomcat 201
“Inside minimums!” Gator screamed. “Bird Dog, you can’t shoot now.
It won’t fuse.”
The pilot swore, damning his overconfidence. He’d been so sure the MiG would turn. The MiG had to turn to take advantage of its aerodynamic advantages and maneuverability. It made no sense for the MiG to have continued on. Bird Dog had been waiting for the turn, intent on shooting a Sidewinder up the bastard’s ass. Instead, he was facing the equivalent of two freight trains roaring toward each other on the same piece of track. And now he’d lost his opportunity no way to take a Sidewinder shot now. Well, he’d have to pull out of this engagement, or at least go for the overshoot and come back for another maneuver.
What had made the Cuban undertake this game of chicken? Maybe they weren’t as well trained as doctrine had taught, and didn’t really understand how to use every advantage of the more nimble fighter in a furball. If that were the case, then he could count on the other pilot making another mistake sometime soon. And it would be his last one.
0516 Local (+5 GMT)
Fulcrum 101
“Now.” Santana had already toggled the weapons selector to gun, and knew that this opportunity was just moments away.
The American would still be expecting him to break, waiting for that moment to shoot a Sidewinder on the oh-so-attractive heat source flaring out of the engines. What he wouldn’t expect was this.
Santana jinked the aircraft up, correcting his angle for approach on the Tomcat from a near miss to guaranteed coll
ision. If the American wanted to play chicken, Santana would find out what he was made of.
Seconds later, he saw it begin. The angle on the Tomcat changed slightly, indicating that the American was attempting to maneuver away from certain midair collision. Santana grinned, jogged the MiG slightly nose up, and shot a brief burst from his 30 mm GSh-301 gun in the port wing root.
The depleted uranium pellets saturated the air directly in front of the Tomcat.
The American had no chance. The Tomcat-streamed right through the barrage, and Santana saw, in the American’s last moments, a delicate tracery of black holes spout up along the starboard wing and fuselage.
Seconds later, the night flared into brilliance as the fuel streaming out of the wing tanks ignited. The light blinded him, just as his flares had earlier. However, a satisfying dull thud followed momentarily by a rocking wash of air over pressure told him the attack had been a success. The Tomcat exploded.
0516 Local (+5 GMT)
Tomcat 201
For five seconds. Bird Dog and Gator operated on instinct rather than training. Bird Dog saw the angle change, realized with a sickening rush of fear what the MiG intended, and reached for the ejection handle above his head.
Gaitor beat him to it. The Older, more experienced aviator activated command eject. The canopy shot off, the explosive bolts severing the connection between hardened Plexiglas and steel fuselage. Bird Dog felt one gush of wind, a flash of heat as Gator’s ejection seat shot away from the aircraft at an angle, then the hard, unconsciousness-inducing motion of his own ejection seat parting company with his aircraft.
He was less than fifty feet away from the aircraft, the seat already starting to respond to the inexorable pull of gravity, when he heard the soft crump of the Tomcat’s disintegration.
The fireball reached out for him, its outer edges clawing hungrily for the delicate canopy now unfolding from the ejection seat. If it touched even one of the thin strands, or licked a panel of the unfolding parachute, it wouldn’t matter whether he survived the ejection. The fall alone, five thousand feet to the warm, blood-temperature sea, would kill him.
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