by Dale Brown
:'I'm not sure which one without activating the radar." 'Then just pick one, and let's let him lead us to the others," Stoica said impatiently. "This is not rocket science."
"The nearest one is at our eleven o'clock, range approximately fifty kilometers," Yegorov said. "Just outside maximum missile range."
"I know what the maximum range of our missiles is, damn you, I know," Stoica moaned. Along with the four emergency R-60 missiles in their wing launchers, the Mt- 179 Tyenee car-
ried an AKU-58 external weapon pylon on each wing with one radar-guided R-27P missile on the bottom of the pylon and one R-60 heat-seeking missile on each side of the pylon, plus two Kh-29TF TV-guided missiles in the bomb bay, with its receiver pod bolted onto the aft external centerline weapon station behind the bomb bay. The R-27P was one of Russia's newest airto-air missiles, developed by Metyor Aerospace, that was designed to home in on enemy radar signals-it
did not need any guidance signals from its launch aircraft.
"You're lucky if that old hag didn't mix some kerosene in with that wine, Ion," Yegorov said, and chuckled.
"Idi na-huy, Gennadi."
"Forty kilometers. Coming within R-27 range. Ready to commit weapons."
"Where are the other bombers?"
"I'm detecting two more aircraft at our two and three o'clock positions, range unknown, so they must be farther than fifty kilometers away. Surface search radar only-no fire control or uplink signals. I think they're the bombers that are covering the Besstrashny."
"Any sign of those fighters?" "None."
Stoica ripped off his oxygen mask in frustration. The onehundred percent oxygen he was breathing to try to recover from his hangover was drying out his mouth and throat even faster. He knew, but didn't want to concede, that pure oxygen really did nothing: only time was effective in recovering from the effects of too much alcohol. He had already drained both of his canteens of water on this flight, and they had been airborne less than an hour. His skin was starting to crawl, his hands were shaking, and if he moved his eyes too fast, all the gauges would start to pinwheel around the cockpit on him. He would never make it through an entire four-hour patrol. If he didn't get down out of this plane and into bed in the next hour, he was going to pass out.
"Warm up the R-27s and give me a hot button," Stoica ordered.
"Roger," Yegorov said. A moment later: "R-27s ready. What's your plan, Ion?"
"Simple-take them all out," Stoica said. He got a lock-on tone in his headset and pressed the launch button. The first R-27 leapt off the starboard rail and disappeared into the night sky on a yellow line of fire. The sudden burst of light sent slivers of pain shooting through Stoica's head. Seconds later, they saw a large, bright explosion off in the distance-the missile had found its target. "Splash one bomber. Line up the next one, Gennadi."
"Radars are down, Ion," Yegorov said. "All the other bombers shut down their search radars." Without an enemy radar indication, the bombers assumed that their attacker had a home-on-radar guided missile-all they had to do was turn off their radars to take that capability away. That meant that the Tyenee had to turn on its radar to lock on to the bombers.
"Then fire up ours," Stoica ordered. He turned slightly to the right. "We know he's off our nose right now-radiate for five seconds and let's go get him."
"It's too dangerous, Ion," Yegorov said. "There's still at least five enemy aircraft out there, and we don't know where the fighters are. Let them reveal themselves. Don't worrywe've got lots of fuel."
Stoica bent his head down so his mouth was pointing directly down on the floor and so nothing in his stomach would hit his instruments, but it was only dry heaves. Those were definitely the worst. "I said, go to radiate on the radar and let's nail those bombers," Stoica ordered again. "We don't have time to waste. They can begin their attack on the destroyer at any second."
"But they're not-"
"I said, turn the damned radar on, and do it now!" Stoica shouted, tasting and nearly retching again on bile in his throat. "Radar on," Yegorov finally reported. "Bandits at twelve and one o'clock, forty-five and sixty kilometers."
"Got him," Stoica said. "Keep the radar on." He locked up the first bomber and shot their second R-27 missile.
"Enemy aircraft inbound!" Yegorov shouted. "Five o'clock, fifty kilometers and closing fast! Enemy fighters, probably F- 16s!" Stoica started hard S turns around the axis of attack on his quarTy, not willing to break radar lock and trying to confuse
the inbound fighters. "Still closing, forty kilometers, intermediate lock growing to a solid lock. Ion, let's get out of here!"
The two Metyor pilots could see beads of decoy flares ejecting into the night
sky, their magnesium spheres bright enough to be seen for a hundred kilometers. They knew that the second bomber had detected the missile-steering uplink signal, which meant a missile was in the air, and it began ejecting chaff bundles to decoy the radar. Sure enough, Stoica could see his radar lock-on box remaining stationary, not following the string of decoy flares, then suddenly following, only to be decoyed off its target again.
"It missed, Ion!" Yegorov shouted. He realized they had stayed on virtually the same heading for too long, allowing the pursuing fighters to deploy in a wide spread-out pattern-no matter which way they turned, one of the fighters could begin a high-speed tail-chase on them. "Bandits at thirty kilometers! Let's get out of here! Radar down!" The lock-on box disappeared, meaning Yegorov had shut off the attack radar. "Solid lock on us, Ion! They've got us!"
mi 11 Then we fight our way out," Stoica said. "Radar to transt. Warm up the R-60s." Just then, they heard a DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE! warning tone in their helmet headsets. "Missile launch radar! Chaff! Flares!" Yegorov ejected decoys while Stoica threw the Mt- 179 into a hard right turn. "I said, radar to transmit!" he shouted.
Yegorov had to fight through the rapidly building g forces to turn on the attack radar and pre-arm all of the remaining R-60 missiles. "Your button is hot, Ion, R-60s external and internal. in sequence are ready."
The nearest enemy fighter was just starting a hard climbing right turn, apparently after firing a radar-guided missile. Stoica quickly reversed direction, shoved in full afterburner power, and climbed after him. He saw and then felt a hard SLAM! underneath and just behind him-one of the enemy missiles had just missed by less than fifty meters. Seconds later, he got a "Lock" indication on his heads-up display and fired one R-60 heat-seeker. He knew he shouldn't turn away from an enemy fighter above him-he had plenty of energy to turn back and pursue-but he was one versus at least four, and he had to keep
moving. Besides, the guy above him was either defensive now, or he was dead.
Stoica immediately executed a hard-right diving turn to aim his radar back to where he thought the enemy fighters were. The fighter farthest to the west was turning after him, but another was still flying straight, crossing under and behind to cover his leader's tail. Stoica tightened his turn even more to go after the wingman-but he received a stall warning buffet and felt his wings rumble in protest. "Airspeed!" Yegorov warned.
"Screw airspeed-this bastard's mine!" Stoica growled. He kept the turn in. The turn bled off lots of speed, but the dive helped, and he was able to keep it just above stall speed. When he rolled out, the enemy fighter was almost in front of him, starting a turn to the east to cover, and Stoica fired an R-60 at him.
Another warning warble. "Missile launch!" Yegorov cried out. "Break left!"
Stoica threw the stealth fighter into a tight left turn. But that was a mistake. They had been just above stall speed for the past several moments, and the level break he had just made pushed him into a full stall-and with one wing down, the Mt-
179 entered a snapping left spin. Stoica heard a loud WHACK! and a yelp, then a moan, then silence. "You all right, Gennadi?" No response, just another moan. What in hell happened? But Stoica had no time to check him out further-if he didn't stop this spin quickly, they'd both be hurting.
Be
cause of its forward swept-wing technology, the aerodynamic characteristics of the Metyor-179 stealth fighter were unlike those of any other aircraft. A stall-spin in an aircraft designed to be super-maneuverable was usually fatal, and stall recovery was not like any other aircraft. Rather than trying to counteract the spin with rudder, lower the nose, and level the wings as in a normal airplane, Stoica had to pull power, use flaps, the speed brake, and ailerons to slow down as much as possible, turn off the automatic flight-controls, match the control stick and rudder controls to the aircraft attitude, then reset the automatic flight control system. He had to do that as fast and as many times as necessary until the plane recovered itself.
Sometimes it happened on the first try and the stall-spin lasted one or two turns; other times it lasted longer and he could lose a frightening amount of altitude in a hurry.
It took four complete turns and almost a thousand meters' altitude before
Stoica could regain control. The threat scope still showed three enemy fighters out there-he had tagged only one. The spin recovery routine had sapped almost all his airspeed, so he had no choice but to stay straight and level until airspeed built back up.
The enemy fighters didn't waste time-they started in after him again, rolling in behind him in the blink of an eye. Stoica immediately turned left, staying level until his airspeed built up enough, then raised his nose and aimed for the first fighter, waiting until it presented itself. He knew he couldn't stay like this long, so he fired one missile, acquired a second fighter, fired another missile nose-to-nose, then veered right and dove before he stalled out again.
Stoica knew he had used all of his pylon-mounted missiles, so it was time to jettison the empty pylons. Just in time--once they were gone, they'd regain their stealth profile, and it sure would help his chances of survival if the enemy couldn't see him. He leveled off. The three enemy fighters were still up there, but they had dodged away and were defensive. "Okay, Gennadi," he said to his backseater as he leveled off. "Jettison the pylons and let's take those zas'er'as on a trip to the bottom of the Black Sea." No response. "Gennadi? What in hell are you doing back there?" He adjusted his mirror to inside the rear cockpit-and saw Yegorov's head lolling down from side to side. One of the sharp turns must've caught him unawares and knocked him unconscious against the canopy.
There were only a few things the pilot of the Mt- 179 could not do from the front seat-unfortunately, jettisoning pylons was one of them. Stoica was stuck with them until Yegorov woke up. "Gennadi!" he shouted. "Gennadi! Wake up!" Yegorov did not appear to be fully unconscious, just stunned, but he was definitely not responding.
Definitely time to get the hell away from here. Stoica turned westbound and started a rapid descent, trying to get to a lower altitude quickly while the F- 16 fighters were regrouping. The
Tyenee wasn't totally stealthy anymore with the pylons on, even though they were empty, but the farther he could fly away from the F- I 6s, the harder he would be to detect-and if there were any seas below, he might be able to hide in the radar reflections from the-
DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE! Not so fast, Stoica thought---one of the F- 16s had locked on to him already, about forty kilometers behind him. He increased his descent rate to six thousand meters per minute and reached one hundred meters above the Black Sea in less than a minute. Now it was a foot race. The Romanian coastline was four hundred kilometers ahead. It was very flat until about one hundred and fifty kilometers in, but then the Transylvanian Alps rose quickly across the interior, and he could hide. It would be a long flight, almost twenty minutes at this speed, but maybe the Turkish F- 16s were already low on fuel and wouldn't be able to give chase.
The threat warning receiver was blaring constantly. The F- 16s were still behind him about thirty kilometers away. Any second now, if they still had any radar-guided missiles, they would-
DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE! came the missile launch warning. Stoica pulled his throttles to idle, popped chaff, and started a tight right break. He could hear Yegorov's head slam against the left side of the cockpit, and he wondered how much brain damage the guy had suffered....
"Where am IT' Yegorov moaned.
"Gennadi! Wake up!" Stoica shouted. "Don't touch any controls! Do you hear me? Don't touch anything!" Stoica knew that a crew member awakening suddenly while sleeping in a cockpit or after passing out from lack of oxygen or g forces will sometimes grab something, responding to a dream or a sensation-they'll punch themselves out, drop weapons, or even shut down engines.
"I ... I can't breathe. .
"We're defensive, Gennadi, trying to get away from a gaggle of Turkish fighters," Stoica said, grunting through the g forces. "I need you to jettison the pylons-"
"Fighters!" Yegorov suddenly shouted. He'd obviously just
got a look at the threat receiver, which depicted three enemy fighters and at least one enemy missile bearing down on him. "Break! Break! I'm ejecting chaff-!"
"I'm rolled out," Stoica said. "No chaff." The jammers had taken care of the uplink signal, and clouds of radar-reflecting chaff strewn behind them
had drawn the Turkish missile away. "Are you all right, Gennadi?"
"I think so."
"Slowly, carefully, jettison the pylons," Stoica said. "They're empty. Don't jettison any other weapons, just the pylons." Stoica rolled straight and level. "I'm wings-level, Gennadi. Punch 'em off."
"What ... T'
"I said, punch the goddamned pylons ... !" But Stoica heard yet another DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE! radar lock-on warning. He had no choice. He banked steeply right and climbed into the enemy fighter. Seconds later, he got another lock-on tone, and he fired one R-60 missile at him from an internal wing launcher. Stoica immediately faked left, dropped chaff and flares, and then rolled right and descended back to less than a hundred meters above the sea. He saw a bright flash off his left side-he hoped that was another Turkish fighter on his way to taking a swim. "Gennadi, punch the pylons off, now!"
"Ack ... acknowledged," Yegorov said weakly. Stoica rolled wings-level just as he felt a rumble through the aircraft as the weapon pylons popped off.
"Fault indication," Yegorov said weakly. Stoica glanced at the MASTFR cAuTioN light, then at the caution panel. No problem-a fault in an empty launcher-and he punched the caution light off and ignored it. There were only two F- 16s behind him now-he'd got another one!-and the last two had their radars on but could not lock on to him. He was stealthy again!
Stoica jammed in full military power and started a gentle climb back toward the east. Now he had the advantage. He lined up on the nearest F-16, using his radar threat receiver until the infrared search-and-track system locked on, then fired another missile from an internal launcher from less than six
kilometers away. That missile tracked dead-on and hit seconds later. Another kill!
Stoica considered going back after the remaining bombers. Now that he was stealthy again, the bombers were his to plink apart as he chose, and killing F- 16 fighters was not much of a challenge right now for him. But as he scanned the warning and caution panel again, he knew he was done for the dayand maybe for a long time. Sure enough, the internal missile launchers had a fault-no, not just a fault this time, a major failure, a LAUNCHER HOT message, meaning there was an electrical fire in the wing. "Gennadi, launcher hot, cut off weapons power now!" Fortunately, Yegorov was alert enough to do it, and the LAUNCHER HOT warning light went off a few seconds after he isolated power. There were still a few yellow advisory lights on, including the launcher shutter door jam, the same problem that had been dogging them for months now, but there were no red warning lights, and for now they were okay.
It didn't mean they were out of danger, only that they probably weren't going to fly apart in the next few minutes. Good time to get out of here. The remaining bombers were indeed tempting, and he still had his internal cannon to use instead of the internal R-60 missiles, but that would be pushing his luck. He had already scored kills against two Ukrainian Backfire bombers and
two Turkish F-16 Falcon fighters. That was a pretty good night's work. Plus, his head was still ready to split open, and Yegorov was certainly in no shape to fly the plane. Stoica turned the plane westbound again toward Codlea, again thanking the stars he was alive and victorious.
"Stand by, Besstrashny, " they heard a few moments later. He read off a series of geographical coordinates. "That is your exit point from Alliance waters, Besstrashny. Steer directly for that point. We will be monitoring your departure with patrol aircraft. Any deviation will result in an immediate attack, and this time we will not abort the missiles."
"Acknowledged," Boriskov spat. "Combat, Bridge, what's happening up there? There is a Russian fighter up there?" "We don't know if it's Russian or not," the tactical action
officer responded. "All we know is that one Ukrainian bomber and two Turkish fighters were suddenly shot down. The unidentified aircraft may have been shot down, too-the Turkish fighters seemed to cave lost contact."
Captain Boriskov smiled and nodded enthusiastically--- whoever it was, he
should be given a medal, even if he got shot himself. "Did the bombers depart? Where are they?"
"They just shut down radars, but they are still up there, Just outside our antiaircraft missile range."
Too bad-Boriskov would've liked one more chance to get that tanker. "What's the situation around the tanker?" "Surrounded by numerous vessels and aircraft now, sir,"
the radar operator replied. Boriskov went out to the port wing C and scanned the horizon aft. There was still a very bright glow where the Ustinov was-it was going to burn for a very, very long time.
He hated to leave a fight like this, Boriskov thought. Another nation had actually shot a supersonic antiship missile at a Russian warship, in the Black Sea---once considered a Russian lake-and he could do nothing but turn tail. It was humiliating.
But as bad as running was to him, the idea of being a part of defending scum like Pavel Kazakov was even worse. If the story that terrorist had told was true, that Russian president Valentin Sen'kov was part of a deal with Kazakov to use the Russian military to help secure land to build an oil pipelinejust to fill their own pockets, that was truly humiliating.