Kevin Miller - Raven One

“What’s your pressurization showing? How long has he been out?” Cajun asked.

“Twelve K, and it’s been about ten minutes now. We had just finished a fight and climbed to altitude.”

“Rog, must have a pressurization leak,” Cajun surmised.

Wilson checked the outside temperature… — 42 degrees centigrade. If Prince’s cockpit was at ambient outside pressure, he was in trouble.

BOOOP .

Wilson glanced at his radar warning display. The Iranians were looking at him with an air-search radar.

Are they scrambling fighters on us? Wilson wondered. Iran possessed two fighter bases in the region: Bushier, some 90 miles northwest, and Shiraz, on his nose for 100. He asked Strike for help from the E-2 Hawkeye on station. “ Strike , are you working with a Knight ?”

Knight 601 answered immediately. “ Raven, Knight, radar contact, picture clean.”

“Roger, Knight ,” Wilson replied, recognizing the voice of their XO.

“ Raven four-zero-two, Bushier approach is trying to call you on GUARD.”

“Roger,” said Wilson and reselected GUARD on his up front control, wondering what they wanted, but then realized they wanted to know why and how long he would be in their airspace. Wilson keyed the mike, still in parade formation on Prince.

“Bushier Approach Control, Raven four-zero-two on GUARD.”

“ Raven four-zero-two, Bushier, do you require assistance?” the faceless Iranian replied.

Now what? Wilson thought. If Prince also had 5,000 pounds remaining, at this fuel flow and with the tailwind, they would remain airborne little more than an hour. That would put them well into central Iran. He also realized that, at some point, he would have to go back to the ship, almost 100 miles behind him and opening. He had to get Prince turned around and down to a lower altitude.

“Bushier, Raven four-one-two appears to have a cockpit pressurization leak, and the pilot is unconscious. I’m trying to use my slipstream to maneuver him out of your airspace. Request you move away traffic ahead of us and to the north.”

“Thank you, Raven four-zero-two, Bushier has your request… Interceptors are inbound to assist escorting you out of Islamic Republic airspace.”

Wilson felt a shot of adrenalin shoot through him. Iranian fighters were inbound… but what would they send? Phantoms? Tomcats? Those he could handle in an engagement, but with Prince incapacitated, he was worse than alone. Fulcrums? Flankers?

He drew closer to Prince and positioned his wingtip for another attempt, his neck muscles straining as he craned his neck left and fought through the tension of the moment. Once stabilized, he tweaked the throttles forward and added a tad of back stick pressure. The wake turbulence from his wing created a high pressure area under Prince’s wingtip that pushed it up, and they started to turn left. Although he sensed the aircraft ease left, Wilson, breathing deeply and rapidly, did not dare to glance inside at the heading. Hold it. Hoooollld it.

Cajun’s voice came over the radio again. “Flip, how’s it goin’?”

Wilson was concentrating too much to answer.

All of a sudden Prince’s right wingtip slammed down onto Wilson’s left. Crack! Frantically pushing away from Prince, Wilson stabilized low and to the right. He was stunned to see Prince steady after the collision.

“Oh, that was close,” he said over the radio.

“What happened?” Cajun asked.

“Just swapped a little paint, but we turned a few degrees. Surprised his altitude hold is still working,” Wilson replied.

“Don’t worry about touching, go ahead and hold him with your wingtip if you have to,” Cajun said.

As he got back into position next to Prince, he noticed a film had developed inside Prince’s canopy. Wilson studied it. It appeared to be condensation, and drawing closer, he noted small glimmers of light from the reflected sun. Frost! Prince was unconscious inside an icebox of a cockpit, an almost definite indication of cockpit pressurization failure.

Wilson’s radar warning receiver lit up with a tone in his headset. Off his nose the fire control radar of an aircraft was tracking him. He eased away from Prince to better scan the horizon and called to the Knight E-2.

“ Knight , four-zero-two is spiked at twelve o’clock. Picture!”

“Four-zero-two, single group, 330 at 60, hot… Looks like they are the bogeys out of Bushier.”

“Four-zero-two, roger,” Wilson replied.

Those guys are off to the northwest , he thought. What caused the radar spike from the northeast? The spike had disappeared, but he lifted his dark visor for a moment and scanned the eastern horizon for aircraft. Far down to the east the cold front had formed an irregular mass of white and gray clouds that could highlight an aircraft. He noticed a white nub of cloud on the horizon a bit higher than the others. He willed his 20/15 eyes to search the horizon, focusing them on one spot, then moving to another. At the same time his radar searched in AUTOACQ as he moved the elevation at intervals to search a band of airspace. Wilson stole glances to the northwest, suppressing the urge to turn in that direction to meet the bogey group… and to abandon Prince.

DEEDLE, DEEDLE, DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE…

Wilson’s RWR again lit up. It appeared to be a lock on from a fighter radar. With a sense of urgency, he called to Knight to reconcile it. “ Knight , I’m spiked at zero-five-zero and clean. Picture!” Wilson eased away from Prince — about 200 feet. His senses were on heightened alert.

“Four-zero-two, Knight. Picture clean to the northeast, the E-2 answered. “Single group three-two-zero at forty-five, hot, medium.”

Wilson was dumbfounded. Knight sees nothing ahead of me? What’s going on here? he wondered, eyes wide with apprehension.

Flying formation on Prince, he sensed something above in his field of view. A blurred object streaked toward his wingman. Before his mind could identify it, a tremendous flash centered on the top of the Prince’s Hornet behind the cockpit, covering the airplane with fragmentation impacts and igniting a huge, orange fireball at the fuselage and on top of the wings. The impact was accompanied by a muffled Boom!

Transfixed with horror, Wilson watched the Hornet yaw left, trailing monstrous flames and black smoke. Smoldering pieces of debris fell away to the earth, some four miles below. Raven 412 then snapped down hard as its right wing was ripped off at the fuselage. Tearing itself apart, the aircraft became a tumbling, hurtling mass of yellow flames and charred debris. He saw a large, pointed piece fall end-over-end, trailing white smoke from the break in the fuselage.

That piece was the nose of the FA-18—and Prince was inside.

“Prince!” cried Wilson, recovering from his momentary shock. He crammed the throttles forward and pulled the jet down and away to the right. During the maneuver, his eyes picked up a single-target track lock on the radar display. Something heading at him and above him, with a high air speed, slid off the display to the left as the radar reached the gimbal limit. Rolling out, Wilson pushed the nose down in order to go weightless and increase air speed. Still floating off the seat, he strained to reach the MARK button on his display to record his current latitude and longitude — to reference the spot Prince was hit.

Returning to one g, he reached up and hit the EMERGENCY JETT, button, which blew off his empty wing tanks and caused the Hornet to leap forward from the sudden release of weight and drag. His mind raced to understand what he had just witnessed. Through the sounds of the RWR’s deedle and the 450-knot rush of the airstream past the canopy, Wilson realized what had happened.