Dale Brown - Sky Masters

“Copy, ” Scott said. He slaved his attack radar antenna to Atkins’ threat-warning receiver bearing and switched it to “Radiate.” “Got ‘em, ” Scott called out, switching off the radar immediately. “I counted at least four fighters, forty-five nautical miles, slightly above us. Could be four groups of two.” LIANG-2 FIGHT, CHINESE PLA NAVY j-7 FIGHTER GROUP Aboard the lead JS-7 fighter of Liang-2 air-defense group, the threat radar suddenly lit up with a fighter-style threat symbol-but it was from one of his own fighters. “Liang flight, lead, keep your damned radars off.” The radar indication quickly disappeared. He was leading a group of rather young, inexperienced pilots on their sixth overwater air-defense mission, and they were constantly flipping switches in their cockpits to keep from getting too bored. The JS-7 fighter was one of the newest and best fighters in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Originally offered only for export as the Super-7, but later purchased in small numbers by the Chinese government itself, it was a major upgrade of the J-7 fighter, incorporating a lot of imported technology to bring it up-to-date with the rest of the world’s best fighters-a French-made multimode attack radar and heads-up display similar to the American F- 16 Fighting Falcon, West German] British] Italian-built high-performance Turbo-Union RB199 engines, additional weapons racks to carry ECM pods, and greater fuel capacity. Because there were so few, and because they were so far advanced over their older J-7 cousins, they were used only as flight leads for fighter patrols, where they could vector other J-7 fighters in on targets while attacking targets of their own. Another radar threat indication flashed on his ThomsonCSF BF screen. He was about to chastise his charges once again. . . before realizing it was from in front of him instead of beside him this time! There was another fighter out there! An American fighter-out here? “Fayling, this is Liang flight, ” the leadJ-7 pilot radioed, using the universal call-sign for all Chinese seaborne radar controllers instead of broadcasting the destroyer’s name. “Fighter warning. Twelve o’clock, type unknown. What are you tracking?” The Sea Eagle radar operator aboard Kafeng replied, “Liang flight, we have been tracking a B-52 bomber at your twelve o’clock position, not a fighter. Over.”

“I have a fighter-type radar, not a bomber.” Curse it, the destroyer had been tracking this intruder all this time thinking it was a bomber. How could he be so stupid… ? “Request permission to close and identify. Over.”

“Liang flight and Sichuan flight, you are clear to close and identify. Liang flight, say your bingo.”

“Liang flight is two minutes to bingo, ” the flight leader reported. “Request permission to send all but myself and one wingman back to base. We will identify the aircraft and engage until Sichuan-Ten flight is in position. Over.” After a short wait, the radar controller aboard Kazfeng replied, “Request approved. Homebound Liang elements, climb clear to twelve thousand meters on heading two-nine-zero, vector clear of inbound Sichuan-Ten flight. Liang-Two flight of two, your target is at twelve o’clock, seventy kilometers, altitude ten thousand meters, climb to twelve thousand meters to intercept. Sichuan-Ten flight maintain heading one-five-three. Low patrol, descend to five thousand meters and go to frequency yellow. High patrol, descend to nine thousand five hundred and meet your controller on frequency yellow-5. Target is four-four-zero bull’s-eye. Good hunting.” The lead pilot aboard the JS-7 fighter quickly determined the target’s range by the bull’s-eye call-the distance from Davao Airport, a common navigation point for all Chinese fighters-and found that he was within radar range. The JS-7 fighter used an upgraded French radar system called CyranoIV, which was very close in capability to the amazing American F- 16 fighter radar-it could lock onto multiple targets at fantastic ranges and could attack several targets at once with missiles or guns. “Liang flight, take combat spacing and stand by to engage Up in the cockpit, Major Kelvin Carter took a firm grip on the Megafortress’s sidestick controller. This was not going to be an easy run. A million things were zipping through his head: G-limits on the composite fibersteel structures, angle-of-attack limits, airspeed warnings, pitch-angle versus airspeed . “Fighter!” Atkins suddenly screamed out. “Twelve o’clock… Jesus, very close, X-band pulse Doppler… calling it a Chinese JS-7 fighter. Man, he’s right on top of us “Lock him up and engage, ” Carter cried out. He doublechecked the rows of consent switches on his left panel. “Stand by for descent, crew. Scott reacted first, hitting the “Transmit” button on his attack radar and letting the radar lock onto the fighters ahead. “Two targets, twelve o’clock, closure rate eleven hundred… additional targets, climbing and going away, looks like they’re disengaging… I’ve got a lock on the two heading for us Atkins reacted next, activating his forward jammers to shut down the X-band fire-control radar. He readied other jammers to get the Skyranger radar when it came up as well. . Karbayjal activated his weapons computers and watched as each AIM-I 20 Scorpion missile completed its split-second built-in checks. “BIT checks completed, data transfer… missiles away.” Two bright streaks of light flashed past the cockpit as two radar-guided missiles sped into the darkness. Just then Kellerman noticed several low-flying objects on her ISAR side-locking radar display, overtaking them from the left. They formed a slowly dispersing trail of subsonic missiles, all traveling northwestbound. “Tomahawks away, Tomahawks away!” she cried out. “Missiles tracking… active seekers on… bad track on one Scorpion, looks like a tracking fault, ” Karbayjal called out. Carter could see the missile plume from the right pylon wobble a bit, seconds before exploding. “Lost track on one missile.”

“Descending, crew, ” Carter called out. “Nancy, watch my redlines. Here we go . . .” Carter pulled the Megafortress’s eight throttles to 70-percent power, waited for fifty knots of airspeed to bleed off, raised the airbrakes, then tipped the Megafortress into a steep 70-degree right bank, keeping forward pressure on the control stick but keeping the long, pointed 5ST-style nose on the horizon. With no more lift being developed by the huge wings, the four-hundred-thousandpound bomber descended like Lucifer cast into Hell…. The radar target on his Cyrano-IV fire-control radar had suddenly started descending, so fast the radar could hardly keep up with it-it looked like it was crashing, and no one had shot a missile yet . Just then his radar threat-receiver flashed a “Missile Launch” indication. “Liang flight, break!” he shouted on the radio. In a pre-determined sequence, the J-7 fighter climbed and turned right, and the JS-7 fighter, because it was more powerful and could climb faster to re-attack, descended and turned left. The JS-7 fighter also carried radar-jamming and chaff and flare pods, and the pilot made sure all were activated as he brought his weapons on-line and prepared to attack. “Fayling, Fayling, Liang-Two flight under missile attack!” He dumped chaff and flare bundles, rolled right, went to military power, and raised the nose to re-acquire the bomber. . . or whatever it was. Just as he did, he saw a flash of light above and a bit behind him, then a growing trail of fire, and he knew his wingman was hit. “Fayling, Liang-507 is hit. 507, 507 can you hear me? You are on fire. Repeat you are on fire. Eject! Eject! Eject!” No response. The trail of fire began to grow as the J-7 fighter spiraled to the sea and disappeared. CHINESE DESTROYER EAIFRNG The radar blips first appeared as helicopters and were classified as such by the destroyer’s Sea Eagle three-dimensional search radar, but it was quickly obvious that the air target was climbing and accelerating much too quickly for a rotary-wing machine. The radar operator aboard the destroyer Kazjeng immediately rang his superior officer in the ship’s Combat Information Center. “Sir, rapidly moving air target launched from a vessel in the Sterett surface-action group, bearing one-four-eight, speed . . . speed approaching four hundred knots and accelerating, altitude decreasing to below one hundred meters, range five-zero nautical miles.” There was no aircraft carrier out there, so it could only be one thing-Suspected Tomahawk cruise missiles in flight…” The officer in CIC reacted immediately: he hit the alarm button and rang the line direct to the bridge: “Bridge, CIC, missile alert, missile alert, we have suspected American cruise missiles being launched from the Sterett surface action group.”