James Barrington - Foxbat

He hauled his Super Hornet round in a tight left turn onto east and extended the aircraft’s ALE-50 Towed Decoy System, a combat-proven protection against both air-to-air and surface-to-air weapons.

MiG-25 Foxbat, callsign Zero Six, over Chiha-ri, North Korea

Gennadi Malakov’s Saphir radar was showing a solid contact twenty kilometres to the east, but the target was already turning away.

The type ‘TD’ and ‘RD’ variants of the R-40 missile – the initial ‘D’ standing for dorabotanaya , the Russian word meaning ‘more elaborate’ – have a range of fifty kilometres, but the earlier ‘R’ and ‘T’ types are effective at only just over half that distance. Malakov’s MiG-25 was carrying three R-40T weapons, so he knew he had to get closer to be sure of a kill. He pushed the throttles forward to increase his speed, and aimed his Foxbat directly at the fleeing aircraft.

Cobra Two, over Chiha-ri, North Korea

Richter looked left, and there, about three miles to the west, he saw the unmistakable shape of a MiG-25 turning right onto an easterly heading. He glanced east, but the Super Hornet was too far away for him to see it. Despite that, Richter had no doubt that the Russian aircraft was now in pursuit of the American.

He also knew he himself was in an almost perfect position to intercept it. His Harrier was low level, probably invisible to the enemy aircraft’s radar in the ground clutter, and he still had a single Sidewinder. And because the GR9 has no radar, and the ‘winder uses infrared homing, the Foxbat pilot would have no way of detecting him, unless his Harrier painted on the MiG’s radar. Richter would just have to keep low and hope for the best.

He glanced again at the Foxbat, estimating its speed and heading, then turned right to match its track. He selected the Sidewinder, checked that the broken circle symbol appeared on the HUD, and increased speed so that when he had to climb, he’d be able to gain height as quickly as possible.

‘Two from One. Position and intentions?’

‘Just east of the missile site, low-level, tracking zero nine zero. I’m just going to try and slip my last Sidewinder up that Foxbat’s tailpipe.’

‘You what? You have to be out of your fucking tree. The Harrier’s no match for the MiG, and we’ve barely enough fuel now to get back across the DMZ. Let the Hornets handle him.’

‘Reality check, Dick. Even if we stay low-level, the moment we start heading south that guy’s going to see us on radar and then we’re in real trouble. If we’re going to get out of here, we have to take him down first.’

‘And how do we do that?’ Long asked.

So Richter told him.

‘I hope you know what we’re doing,’ Long muttered, turned his Harrier east and started climbing.

MiG-25 Foxbat, callsign Zero Six, over Chiha-ri, North Korea

Malakov was waiting for his R-40T to lock on to the fleeing American aircraft, but he was still very much aware that there were another two enemy fighters somewhere in the area.

His Saphir radar detected a contact in his right two o’clock position, less than four miles away and climbing out from Chiha-ri. It had to be the second Harrier. Malakov instantly changed his priorities. He would pursue the American once he’d dealt with the British aircraft.

He turned towards the new contact. The R-40T infrared seeker head-locked on almost at once and Malakov fired the weapon.

Cobra Two, over Chiha-ri, North Korea

Richter waited until the Foxbat was just ahead of him, then pulled up into a steep climb. Almost immediately he heard the growl as the Sidewinder detected the MiG-25’s jet exhaust.

He saw the flare from the aircraft’s port wing as the pilot fired an Acrid at Dick Long’s climbing GR9. At the moment of release, the Harrier was only about three miles from the Foxbat. The R-40T would cover that distance in roughly six seconds.

‘Missile fired!’ Richter called. ‘Stand by. Evasive action now, now, now.’

Cobra One, over Chiha-ri, North Korea

One of the problems with a heavy, very fast missile like the Acrid is that it’s not particularly agile, but in most cases this doesn’t matter because no aircraft currently flying can outrun its Mach 4.5 maximum speed, and few can manoeuvre fast enough to get out of its path. But the Harrier could.

Long waited until he heard Richter’s call. Then he rotated the nozzles fully forwards, almost stopping the aircraft dead in mid-air, and chopped the throttle back, a virtual repeat of Richter’s manoeuvre just minutes before. The Harrier dropped like a stone and the Acrid punched a hole through the air where the GR9 had been three-tenths of a second earlier.

Cobra Two, over Chiha-ri, North Korea

Richter’s Harrier was a thousand feet below the Foxbat when the broken circle in the HUD solidified, showing that the ‘winder had locked on. He didn’t hesitate, and immediately fired the missile. The solid-fuel rocket motor ignited and boosted the Sidewinder to two and a half times the speed of sound in a matter of seconds.

Richter watched critically as it curved away from his Harrier and angled towards the Foxbat, already travelling close to Mach 2. Then he turned his aircraft away, heading back towards Chiha-ri, where Dick Long should also be heading. If the missile killed the ‘bat, they might just get away unscathed. If it missed, they were in deep trouble.

MiG-25 Foxbat, callsign Zero Six, over Chiha-ri, North Korea

Gennadi Malakov wasn’t entirely sure he believed his eyes. The grey Harrier had apparently stopped dead in mid-air, then dropped straight down into a valley as his R-40T had been about to impact it. Now he’d either have to reacquire it and use another missile, or simply forget about it and catch up with the American Hornet.

But before he had a chance to make a decision, Richter’s Sidewinder smashed into his starboard engine exhaust at a relative speed of about three hundred miles per hour and the twenty-pound warhead exploded.

When they designed the MiG-25, the Mikoyan-Gurevich team had included a firewall between the two engines, but this was intended to protect against an engine failure, not the impact of a missile, and offered little resistance to the high-explosive detonation.

For the briefest of moments, Malakov thought his aircraft might have suffered some kind of mechanical problem, then he realized what must have happened. The Foxbat lurched sideways and the cockpit came alive as fire-warning klaxons sounded and engine instruments began showing the extent of the damage. If it had just been the starboard engine that the missile destroyed, he might have been able to save the aircraft, but the warhead’s detonation had also blown lumps of steel through the firewall and into the combustion chamber of the port engine, which almost immediately caught fire.

With both engines destroyed, the MiG-25 was going nowhere but down, and Malakov had no intention of staying with it, so he did what any prudent pilot would have done – he ejected.

Fifteen seconds later, the burning Foxbat crashed into a hill eight miles east of Chiha-ri. And, ninety seconds after that, Gennadi Malakov landed hard, but unhurt, two miles away. An army patrol found him four hours later and automatically shot him as a deserter.

Cobra One and Two

‘Now can we go home?’ Long asked, as he pulled his Harrier up to join Richter.

‘Yes,’ Richter said, with a final glance back towards the burning wreckage of the MiG-25. ‘Now we can go home.’