Dale Brown - Sky Masters

“Bullet Five is three minutes to bingo, ” Povik’s wingman added. “I can take a vector to Bullet Two flight if they need help.”

“Don’t think that’ll be necessary, Bullet Five, ” the AWACS controller said. “Bullet Two flight is engaging, Bullet Six flight is airborne, and Bullet Eight flight is reporting ready. Home plate wants you to RTB. Heading one-three-two, stand by for your approach controller.”

“Copy, Basket, ” Povik replied. That was perfectly fine with him, Povik thought. There was a time to fight and a time to run, and there was nothing ignoble about running now. ABOARD BULLET TWO “Take the shot, Banger!” Lieutenant Commander Carl Roberts shouted. “Take the damned shot!” Chasing down the four Chinese fighters-they still did not know what kind of fighters they were dealing with-was getting deadly serious. While continuing warning messages on the Guard channel, the four Chinese fighters continued barreling straight for the RC- 135, not bothering to perform any diversionary jinks or heading changes. Although the four aircraft had split into two groups, with one group going high and the others a few thousand feet lower, they were just barreling in on the four Tomcats, not trying to maneuver or jink around at all. They were simply going balls to the wall-the higher group nearly at five hundred and fifty knots, the lower jets about five hundred knots. The threat to the Air Force plane was obvious to Carl Roberts, the radar intercept officer on Bullet Two. He had locked up the bandits on radar immediately, hoping that the squeal of the AWG-9 radar on the Chinese fighter’s threat warning receivers might make them turn away. No such luck. The Chinese fighters kept coming. “You got no choice, Banger, ” Roberts shoutedagain to his pilot, Lieutenant James Douglas. “These guys will blow past us unless we slow ‘em down, and a missile launch is the only way. Douglas was only on his second cruise as an F-14 aviator after spending several years in “mud pounders” like A-7s and A-6 bombers. Air-to-mud guys, Roberts thought, were much different than fighter pilots. Bomb runs took discipline, timing, strict adherence to the planqualities that were probably big minuses in fighter pilots. Real fighter jocks used the ROE as a guideline, but relied on their wits to defeat an enemy-you never went into a fight with the whole thing worked out in your mind ahead of time. Unfortunately, Douglas always did. “The ROE says… “Screw the ROE, Banger, ” Roberts said. “You gotta attack. Ranger’s declared an air-defense emergency, and the bubble’s out to two hundred miles now. These guys are too close already. Take the shot…”

“Bullet, bandit at twelve o’clock, twenty miles, ” the AWACS controller reported. “Range to Flashlight, forty miles. Range to home plate, Blue plus seventy…” The controller kept on rattling off an endless stream of numbers at Douglas; the young pilot turned the litany out of his mind. They had the intercept, that’s all that mattered now . “A head-on shot will miss. It’s low percentage . “So what? If he jinks away from the Sparrow, we mix it up with him. Take the shot. “Gimme a few seconds to get an angle on ‘em. “We don’t have time for that, Banger-those bozos might 1 even hit each other. Either way, we keep them from driving right into the recon plane. Take the damned shot. “A nose-to-nose Sparrow shot won’t do shit, ” Douglas saidRoberts knew he was really confused when his young pilot used first names instead of his call sign. “We gotta try something else.” On interplane frequency, Douglas said, “Lead’s going vertical. Take spacing and watch my tail.”

“Two.” “Hang on, ” he said to Roberts. “I’ll try a vertical jink; maybe these guys will break off and go for me.” Roberts was going to protest, but Douglas wasn’t ready to listen: he pulled his F-14 Tomcat up into a 45-degree climb, a radical move but well within the 65-degree maximum-depression angle for the AWG-9 radar-losing a lock-on with the Chinese fighters would be disastrous right now-waited a few seconds for about a hundred knots of airspeed to bleed off, then began to level off. The radar remained locked on with the range now closing to fifteen miles. “Shit. Nothing’s happening…”

“You gotta take a shot, Banger. These guys won’t stop.” “Lead, this is Two. No dice. The Chinks aren’t moving. I’m well clear.” Douglas’ wingman was prompting him to take a missile shot as well. Just then they heard on their AWACS controller’s frequency, “Bullet flight, home plate sends code Zulu-Red-Seven, repeat, Zulu-Red-Seven, proceed immediately. Acknowledge.”

“Jesus, Banger, get the sonofabitch.. .” Roberts knew they had screwed up. While Douglas was trying to decide whether or not to shoot, the Chinese fighters were about to blast within the one-hundred-mile “bubble” surrounding Ranger and her escorts, which were demarcated by the Indonesian island of Talaud. Now the fighters were a clear threat not only to the Air Force reconnaissance planes but to the carrier itself, and the role of the Tomcats changed as well; now their job was to protect the five thousand men on Ranger and the other ships in its battle group. Ranger was ordering the Tomcats to engage and defend the carrier at all costs. The RC-135 and the EC might have to be sacrificed. … “Bullet Six has a judy, ” the third flight of Tomcats reported. “Clear Poppa.” The third and probably the fourth flights of Tomcats were armed with AIM-54 Phoenix missiles, which were designed to kill enemy aircraft from ranges of over eighty nautical miles-as soon as the RIO locked onto a target, a Phoenix missile could probably hit it. But a Phoenix usually shot into a “basket, ” a section of airspace near the enemy fighter, and then the missile horned in on illumination signals from the launch aircraft-that made it very dangerous for any nearby fighters who might be in or near the missile’s basket. Bullet Six could not engage as long as Bullet Two was in the area. “Bullet Two is engaging, ” Douglas cried out on the interplane frequency. He snapped his Tomcat into a steep left roll ing dive, pulling on the stick to keep the fast-moving Chinese attackers on his radarscope. “Bullet Three, release, clear, and cover to the right.” “Bullet Three’s clearing right.” Douglas’ wingman made a hard climbing right turn, quickly moving up and away from the kill zone and accelerating back toward the fleet. If Douglas missed and the Phoenix missiles from Bullet Six and Seven missed, Bullet Three could make one last shot at the fighters with his Sparrow radar-guided missiles, it was up to Ranger escorts to get the bandits. Roberts coached his frontseater in as they completed the turn above and behind the Chinese attackers: “Range twenty miles . . . seventeen miles . . . holding at seventeen miles . . . good tone, clear to shoot . “Fox one, fox one, ‘ Douglas called out as he pressed the button to launch a Sparrow missile. He was preparing to arm a second one for immediate launch when he saw a dim flash of light ahead of them, then another, then several more brilliant long tongues of flame slash across the darkness. Even at their extreme range, there was no mistaking iteight huge missiles, with exhaust plumes the size of spaceshuttle boosters, were being launched by the Chinese fighters! “Missile launch! Bandits launching missiles . six . . . seven . . . eight of ‘em, big ones!” The plumes reared back and down as the missiles climbed skyward. Douglas thought he could hear the rumble and even feel the power of those huge missiles as they climbed nearly out of sight. “Can you pick ‘em up on radar, Zippo?” Douglas screamed. “Can you see those fuckin’ missiles?”

“I’m tryin’! Shit! Get your nose up! I’ll try for a lock-on!” Roberts cried out. Douglas hauled back on the stick and hit the afterburners as Roberts put the AWG-9 radar into range-whilesearch mode for maxinium range capability against the big, fast-moving missiles. “Contact! Got ‘em! Got one at thirty miles! Locked on!”