Sky Masters
Page 1
SKY MASTERS
ALSO BY DALE BROWN
Flight of the Old Dog (1987)
Silver Tower (1988)
Day of the Cheetah (1989)
Hammerheads (1990)
DONALD I. FINE, INC.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS New York G. P. Putnam's Sons Publishers Since 1838
200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016
Copyright Qc 1991 by Dale Brown, Inc.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced
in any form without permission.
Published simultaneously in Canada Endpaper maps and maps on pages 267
and 370 by Lisa Amoroso.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Brown, Dale, date Sky
masters / Dale Brown.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-399-13705-X
(Putnam) I. Title. PS3552.R68543S58 1991 90-56053 CIP 813'.54~c20
Printed in the United States of America
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
sky Masters is dedicated to General Curtis E. LeMay, the "Iron Eagle"
and the "Father of Strategic Air Power," a man who envisioned much of
what Sky Masters is all about.
Sky Masters is also dedicated to the men and women who served as part of
Operation DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM.
I wish to especially dedicate this story to my brother, Second
Lieutenant James D. Brown, 3-35 ARMOR, First Armored Division, United
States Army, and his wife, Leah, and all of our military forces serving
ashore, afloat, and aloft for all the sacrifices they made in their
personal and professional lives.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my friend Lieutenant Colonel George Peck (who was instrumental in the
research for Day of the Cheetah and who, like Loki's eternal fate in
Norse mythology, seems destined to be forever bothered by my insistent
questions and requests); TSgt Alan Dockery, Captain Harry G. Edwards,
and the other helpful and professional persons in the Office of Public
Affairs, Headquarters, Strategic Air Command (SAC), Offutt AFB,
Nebraska, for their assistance in gathering information on SAC
conventional and maritime operations and the Strategic Warfare Center,
and for their help in reviewing the manuscript; To all the men and women
of the Strategic Air Command and Pacific Air Forces whom I met during
GIANT WARRIOR '90, a multinational, multiservice combat strike and
deployment exercise conducted by SAC's Fifteenth Air Force in August of
1990 at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. I wish to especially thank
Lieutenant General Robert D. Beckel, Fifteenth Air Force commander, for
allowing me the privilege of observing his super exercise; Brigadier
General DavidJ. Pederson, Third Air Division commander, and Colonel Alan
Cirino, Third Air Division deputy commander, and their staff for their
hospitality and helpfulness in explaining the intricacies of Pacific
theater combat operations; and to Colonel Arne Weinman, Ninety-second
Bomb Wing commander and joint air forces commander of GIANT WARRIOR '90;
Special thanks to Captain Cynthia Colin, Fifteenth Air Force Public
Affairs, and the other professionals at Fifteenth Air Force Public
Affairs, March AFB, California; MSgt Ron Pack, Ninety-second Bomb Wing
public affairs; MSgt Al Dostal, Ninety-sixth Bomb Wing Public Affairs;
Second Lieutenant Darian "Slick" Benson, Fifty-seventh Air Division
Public Affairs; the feared terrorist-group-turned-media-pool known
throughout the Pacific as the Dream Team; and everyone who helped make
my visit to Guam and GIANT WARRIOR '90a pleasure and a success; To
Brigadier General Larry Dilda, DCS I Communications and Computer
Operations, HQ SAC, for conducting a very special tour of SAC
Headquarters, where I learned much about the "new" Strategic Air Command
and its people and its new arsenal of weapons; and to Ron Silverstein,
B-2 Project Senior Engineer and Chief Spokesman, and the others at
Northrop Corporation, Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale, California, for an
amazing tour of the B-2 bomber assembly facilities; To Colonel Thomas A.
Hornung, Chief of Public Affairs, Air Force Public Affairs-Western
Region in Los Angeles, for his invaluable assistance throughout the
making of Sky Masters and for arranging a spectacular tour of SAC
headquarters; and to Major Ron Fuchs, former Deputy and Chief of Media
Relations in Los Angeles, for his time in reviewing the manuscript and
offering some valuable comments; To CDR Bruce R. Linder, commanding
officer of the guided missile frigate FFG-55 USS Elrod, who was
extremely helpful in providing details pertaining to naval operations in
the South China Sea, Palawan Passage, and the Philippines; To Richard
Herman, famous author of Warbirds and Force of Eagles, for his technical
knowledge on aerial combat in the F-4E and other facets of fighter
combat; To Rockwell International for information on the B- 1 bomber;
also to Orbital Sciences Corporation for information on the Pegasus
air-launched space booster; To my executive assistant, Dennis Hall, for
his hard work and support.
ACTUAL NEWS EXCERPTS Date: 5/21/90 PENTAGON DECLARES PHILIPPINES
"IMMINENT DANGER" AREA WASHINGTON (MAY 18) UPI-The Defense Department
designated the Philippines Friday as an area of imminent danger for
special pay purposes, which means US military and civilian employees
will be getting slightly larger paychecks. The Pentagon said it took the
action because of the "current unstable conditions" in the Philippines,
where three American servicemen have been killed in politically
motivated attacks this month alone. Imminent danger pay is an additional
15 percent of basic salary for American citizens who are department
employees and $110 per month for all US military personnel. Date:
5/22/90 "Well, first in my mind, the communist dream in the Philippines
will always be there. The communist dream of taking over and dominating
the country will always be there because you can't kill an ideology."
General Renato S. de Villa, Chief of Staff, Armed Forces of the
Philippines, from Asia-Pacific Defense Forum, U.S. Pacific Command,
Winter 1989-1990 Date: 11/2/90 ... Turmoil in China... combined with
speculation about U.S. forces departures from the Philippines, have
merged to cause a new appreciation for U.S. regional security presence.
. . . I believe there is a growing realization in the Pacific that
U.S. presence cannot be taken for granted. If the U.S. presence is
substantially reduced, many Pacific nations perceive the danger of other
nations moving into the vacuum created by our departure, with a
potential result of conflict and instability." 22 ACTUAL NEWS EXCERPTS
Admiral Huntington Hardisty, U.S. Navy, Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific
Command, from Asia-Paczfic Defense Forum, U.S. Pacific Command, winter
1989-1990 Date: 11/6/90 MELEE MARS INAUGURATION OF AUTONOMY IN SOUTHERN
PHILIPPINES COTABATO (Nov 6) REUTER-Police punched and clubbed 17 Moslem
; students before dragging them off by their hair on Tuesday after they
disrupted President Corazon Aquino's inauguration of an autonomous
government in the southern Philippines, witnesses said. The students,
members of an organization supporting Moslem rebels demanding a separate
state on Mindanao island, chanted slogans against the autonomous
government about 20 meters from where Aquino was speaking. Manila has
set up the autonomous government, dominated by Moslems, as a way to end
separatist violence on Mindanao, the second-largest island in the
Philippines. The government, headed by former Moslem rebel commander
Zacaria Candao, can pass its own laws, collect taxes and license fees,
and set up a regional police force in the four predominantly Moslem
provinces on Mindanao island it controls. Manila would retain control of
defense and foreign policy. -from U.S. Naval Institute Military
Database Defense News. Date: 14 January 1991 AIR FORCE TO CREATE TWO NEW
COMPOSITE AIR WINGS BY 1993 WASHINGTON-The U.S. Air Force will develop
by 1993 two composite tactical air wings that combine different types of
aircraft in the same unit. The new wings will serve as prototypes for
the possible reorganization of the service's tactical force structure
along more mission-oriented lines. . . . [The composite air wings]
would include aircraft that could perform attack, defensive, standoff
jamming, and precision-strike missions. -from Aviation Week and Space
Technology magazine, p.26 AUTHOR NOTE Although the BIB bomber is now
officially called "Lancer," the author will still use "Excalibur." Every
effort has been made to present realistic situations, but all of the
persons and situations presented here are products of my imagination and
should not be considered reflections of actual persons, products,
policy, or practice. Any similarity of any organization, device,
weapons system, policy, person, or place to any real-world counterpart
is strictly coincidental. The author makes no attempt to present the
actual military or civil policies of any organization or government. The
author hopes readers will note the chronological setting of this novel
in regards to some of his previous books, most notably Day of the
Cheetah. While certain characters and backdrops in that book appear
here, the events described in this book come a full two years earlier
than those in Day of the Cheetah. Moreover, this book, like that one,
stands completely on its own-neither a prequel nor sequel. MONDAY, 6
JUNE 1994, 0812 HOURS LOCAL SOMEWHERE OVER SOUTHERN NEVADA < minus two
minutes and counting. . . mark." Lieutenant Colonel Patrick McLanahan
glanced up at his mission data display just as the time-to-go clock
clicked over to 00:01:59. Dead on time. He clicked open the command
radio channel with the switch near his left foot. "Vapor TwoOne
copies," he reported. "CROWBAR, Vapor Two-One requesting final range
clearance."
"Stand by, Two-One." Stand by, he thought to himself-not likely.
McLanahan and his partner, Major Henry Cobb, were flying in an FB-111B
"Super Aardvark" bomber, skimming two hundred feet above the hot deserts
of southern Nevada at the speed of soundevery five seconds they waited
put them a mile closer to the target. The FBI 1 lB was the "stretched"
version of the venerable F-1 11 Supersonic swing-wing bomber, an
experimental model that was the proposed interim supersonic bomber when
the B-1 Excalibur bomber program was canceled back in the late 1970s.
Only a few remained, and the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center
(HAWC)-the Defense Department s secret test complex for weapons and
aircraft, hidden in the restricted desert ranges north of Las Vegas-had
them. Most F1-11 aircraft were Seeing their last few years of Service,
and more and more were popping up in Reserve unitS or sitting in museums
or base airparks-but HAWC always made use of their airframes until they
fell apart or crashed. But the "Super Vark" Was not the subject of
today's sortie. Although an FB-111B could carry a
twenty-five-thousandpound payload, McLanahan and Cobb were carrying only
one twenty-six-hundred-pound bomb that morning-but what a bomb it was.
Officially the bomb was called the BLU-96, but its nickname was
HADES-and for its size it was the most powerful nonnuclear weapon in
existence. HADES was filled with two hundred gallons of a thin,
gasoline-like liquid that was dispersed over a target, then ignited by
remote control. Because the weapon does not need to carry its own
oxidizer but uses oxygen in the atmosphere to ignite the fuel, the
resulting explosion had all the characteristics of a nuclear
explosion-it created a mushroom cloud several hundred feet high, a
fireball nearly a mile in diameter, and a shock wave that could knock
down buildings and trees within two miles. Oddly enough, the BLU-96 had
not been used since the Vietnam War, soHAWC was conducting experiments
on the feasibility of using the awesome weapon again for some future
conflict. HADES had been designed as a weapon to quickly clear very
large minefields, but against troops it would be utterly devastating.
That fact, of course, would go into HAWC's report to the Department of
Defense. "Vapor, this is CROWBAR, you are cleared to enter R-4808N and
R-4806W routes and altitudes, remain this frequency. Acknowledge."
McLanahan checked his watch. "Vapor acknowledges, cleared to enter
Romeo 4808 north and Romeo 4806 west routes and altitudes at zero-six,
1514 Zulu, remain with CROWBAR. Out." He turned to Cobb, checking
engine instruments and the fuel totalizer as his eyes swept across the
center instrument panel. "We're cleared in, Henry." Cobb clicked the
mike twice in response. Cobb never said much during missions-his job
was to fly the plane, which he always did in stony silence. Romeo
4808N-that was its official name, although its unclassified nickname was
Dreamland"-was a piece of airspace in south-central Nevada designated by
the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense as a
"restricted" area, which meant all aircraft-civilian, commercial, other
military flights, even diplomatic-were prohibited to fly over it at any
altitude without permission from HAWC. Even FAA Air Traffic Control
could not clear aircraft to enter that airspace unless in extreme
emergency, and even then the violating aircraft could expect to get
intercepted by Air Force fighters and the air-traffic controller
responsible could expect a long and serious scrutiny of his actions.
R-4808N was surrounded by four other restricted areas that were meant to
act as a buffer zone to give pilots ample warning time to change course
if they were-accidentally or purposely-straying toward R-4808N. If one
entered R-4808N without permission, military aircrew members would at
best lose their wings, and commercial and civilian pilots would lose
their licenses-and both would be in for an intense multiday "debriefing"
conducted by teams of military and CIA interrogators, who would discard
most articles of the Bill of Rights to find out why som
eone was stupid
enough to stray into Dreamland. At worst, one would come face-to-face
with McLanahan and Cobb's FB-1 1 lB racing across the desert floor at
the speed of heat-or nose-to-nose with a BLU-96 fuel-air explosive bomb
or some other strange and certainly far deadlier weapon. Several
thousand workers, military and civilian, were shuttled from Las Vegas,
Nellis Air Force Base, Beatty, Mercury, Pahrump, and Tonopah every day
to the various research centers there. Most civilian workers reported
to the Department of Energy facilities near Yucca Flats, where nuclear
weapon research was conducted; most military members traveled forty
miles farther northeast to the uncharted aircraft and weapons facilities
northeast of Yucca Flats called Groom Lake. A series of electronic and
human observation posts was set up just south of Groom Lake in Emigrant
Valley, where they could observe the BLU-96 HADES bomb's destructive
power. At the northern tip of Pintwater Ridge, the navigation com puter
commanded a full 60-degree turn toward the west. McLanahan clicked on
the command channel: "CROWBAR, Vapor Two-One, 1P inbound, unlocking now
at T minus sixty seconds. Out." It took only seconds to configure the
switches for weapon release, and finding the target on radar was a
snap-it was a six-story concrete tower, resembling a fire-department
training tower, surrounded by trucks, a few surplus tanks and armored
personnel carriers, and surrounded by about a hundred mannequins dressed
in various combat outfits, from lightweight fatigues to bulky chemical
suits. Obviously, HAWC was not concerned about evaluating the effects
of a HADES bomb on minefields-they had "softer" targets in mind for the
BLU-96. Surrounding ground zero were several thirty-foot-high wooden
blast fences erected every one thousand feet, which would be used to
gauge the effect of the HADES bomb's shock wave. McLanahan could shack
this bomb with one eye-it was hardly a test of either his or Cobb's
skill. This was going to be a "toss" release, where the bombing