John Gardner: Win, Lose Or Die

Though this was his first real ski-run take-off’ Bond had already done it a couple of dozen times on the simulator. He was now into the third week of his Harrier conversion course, and eight months into his return to active duty with the Royal Navy.

His promotion to Captain was a quantum leap, as it is for any Naval officer. Not that the new rank had made much difference over the past months. On all the courses Bond had taken, rank was well-nigh forgotten, and a Captain under instruction rated at about the same level as a Sub-Lieutenant.

Since starting the courses, he had studied the new advanced strategies of naval warfare which seemed to alter at alarming speed; another course on communications; a third on ciphers and an important fourth concerning advanced weaponry, including hands-on experience with the latest 3-D radar, Sea Darts and SAM missiles, together with new electronic weapons control systems operating the American Phalanx and Goalkeeper CIWS - Close In Weapon Systems: “sea-whizz” as they are known which have now become standard following the horrifying lessons learned during the Falklands Campaign.

Bond had always kept up his flying hours and instrument ratings, on jets and helicopters, in order to remain qualified as a naval pilot, but he had now reached the final and most testing course - conversion to the Sea Harrier.

After some twenty hours in Yeovilton in the flight simulator, he had flown Harriers in normal configuration of rolling take-offs and landings. The ski-jump take-off marked the beginning of the air combat and tactical weapons course. The whole thing appealed mightily to Bond, who revelled in learning and honing new skills. In any case, the Sea Harrier was a wonderful machine to fly: exciting and very different.

He now checked the HUD which showed him on course and cruising at around 900 knots along the military airway. Glancing down at the HDD the Head-Down-Display - he could see the visual map, the magic eye which gives the modern pilot a ground map view even through the thickest and most murky cloud. He was crossing the coast, just above Southport on the north-west seaboard, right on a heading for the bombing range. Now he would require total concentration as he lowered the Harrier’s nose towards the perceptible cloudscape below, the horizontal bars on the HUD sliding upwards to show he had the aircraft in a ten degree dive. Down the left hand side of the HUD he watched the speed begin to increase and blipped his airbrakes open for a second to control the dive. The altitude figures streamed down the left hand edge of the HUD showing a steady decrease in height - 30,000 … 25

… 20 … 15… By now he was in cloud, still going fast, his eyes flicking between airspeed, altitude, and the HDD, while his fret on the rudder bars made slight corrections.

He broke cloud at 3,000 feet and clicked on the air-to-ground sights, thumbing down on the button which would arm the pair of 100-pound clusterbombs which hung, one under each wing.

Below, the sea slashed by as he held an altitude of around 500 feet. Far ahead he glimpsed the first anchored marker flashing to lead him onto the bombing range where a series of similar markers were set in a diamond shape, which was the target.

It came up very fast and the HUD flashed the IN RANGE signal almost before it had registered from Bond’s eyes to his brain.

Instinctively he triggered the bombs and pulled up into a 300 climb, pushing the throttle fully open and pulling a hard 5G turn left, then right, so that his body felt like lead for a second before he turned, at speed, but more gently, to see the clusterbombs explode from their small parachutes directly across the diamond of buoys.

“Don’t hang about,” the young Commander had told them in the briefing room. “There are four of you at five-minute intervals, so just do the job, then get out fast.”

Altogether, there were eight naval pilots on the conversion course: three more Royal Navy men, a US Marine Corps pilot on liaison, two Indian Navy pilots and one from the Spanish Navy. All but Bond had already done several hours on Harriers with their home units and were at Yeovilton to sharpen their skills, with some weapons and tactical training. That afternoon, Bond had been first man away and was followed by the Spanish officer - a sullen young man called Felipe Pantano, who kept very much to himself-one of the Royal Navy Lieutenants, and the American.

To comply with safety regulations, there was a predetermined flight path to and from the target, and Bond swept his Harrier into a long climbing turn, then gave her full throttle, stood the aeroplane on its tail and, looking down at the small radar screen on the starboard side of his cockpit, swept the skies immediately above his return course, to be certain none of the other aircraft had strayed.

The radar showed nothing out of the ordinary, so he dropped the nose to a gentle 200 climb. He had hardly stabilised the Harrier in its ascent when a completely unexpected sound seemed to fill the cockpit. So surprised was Bond that it took at least two seconds for him to realise what was happening.

As the sound became louder in his ears, Bond woke to the danger.

So far he had only experienced this in the simulator: the harsh, rasping neep-neep-neep quickening all the time. There was a missile locked on to him -judging by its tone, a Sidewinder.

Just under thirty pounds of high-explosive fragmentation was being guided towards the engine heat of his Harrier.

Bond had reacted slowly, and that was the way people got blown out of the sky. He pushed the stick forward, putting the Harrier into a power dive,jinking to left and right, pulling about seven Gs to each jink, holding it for a second or two, then going the other way. At the same time, he hit the button which would release four flares to confuse the missile’s heat-seeking guidance system, then, for luck, followed it with a bundle of chaff radar-confusing metal strips. It was another safety regulation that all aircraft using the bombing range should carry both flares and chaff’ housed in special pods - another lesson of the Falklands where chaff had been stuffed in bundles inside the airbrakes.

The neep-neeping was still there, quickening as the missile gained on the Harrier. He lifted the nose, jinked again and, at a thousand feet, performed a rate five turn, pulling a lot of G, then rolling and putting the Harrier into a second dive. His body felt like lead, his throat was dust-dry and the controls felt stiff as he pushed the Harrier to its limit.

He had the aircraft right down almost to sea level before the growling signal suddenly stopped. There was a flash far off to the starboard, in the direction of the target range. Bond took a deep breath, lifted the Harrier’s nose, reset his course and climbed to 30,000 feet with the throttle right forward. As he went up so he switched his radio to transmit - “Bluebird to Homespun.

Some idiot almost put a Sidewinder up my six.” Taking the points of a standard clock, “six” meant directly behind.

“Say again, Bluebird.”

Bond repeated and Yeovilton asked him to confirm no damage, which he did, adding that it was more luck than judgment. Of the four aircraft detailed for the bombing range that afternoon, no one carried anything but clusterbombs. The range, however, belonged to the RAF, though its use and timings were strictly monitored. It was just possible that a Royal Air Force jet had accidentally been scheduled and had arrived either early or late.

“Bluebird, are you certain it was a missile?”

“Chased me all around the sky. Of course I’m sure.”

Bond reached Yeovilton without further incident and, once landed and out of his flying gear, he stormed into the office of Commander (Air) - known to most as Wings - set in the control tower.