Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 (77 page)

           
“Group Delta, unidentified bogey
possible at low altitude, estimated position at your
twelve o’clock
position, forty nautical miles. Report
identification and pursue. Over.”

           
The two enemy aircraft triangles did
not appear right away, and when they did appear their radar arcs immediately
swept across the B-2 icon. “Two fighters separated from the rest of the pack,”
McLanahan shouted. “
Twelve o’clock
. X-band search radars. They might have
spotted us.”

           
The B-2 had just left the protective
cover of the coastal hills of the Sarangani Peninsula and was now racing across
the Buayan River valley, a flat, fertile area about forty miles southwest of
Davao. The lone
peak
of
Mount
Apo
was the
only significant terrain around for fifty miles—it was the worst moment to be
caught by fighters. To the east, ten miles southwest of
Davao
, the icons of several warships were just
visible.

           
“We’ve got a little rolling terrain
about twenty miles to the west, and nothing but
Davao
Gulf
and another destroyer off to the east,”
McLanahan said. “Otherwise it’s flat, flat, flat. The fighters are at our
twelve o’clock
. . . getting a range estimate now of
twenty-two miles. They’ll be in missile range soon.”

           
“We go west then,” Cobb said. He
banked his B-2 hard to the left, scurrying across the wide valley for the
relative safety of a hilly ridge.

           
“Fifteen minutes until we reach that
ridge . . . about two minutes,” McLanahan reported. “Bandits
one o’clock
, fifteen minutes ...” At that moment one of
the yellow arcs representing the enemy’s radar swept across the B-2 icon, and
the yellow instantly turned to red as the radar locked on. “Shit, shit,
shit,
they got us. . . .”

           
The heads-up display on the Chinese
JS-7 first locked onto the air target briefly, and the attack radar quickly
computed the target’s altitude, heading, airspeed, and closure rate— but it was
the A-5K’s low-light TV sensor that first caught a glimpse of the enemy. The
sensor’s contrast-tracking function immediately locked onto the warm object and
began to track it. . .

           
And, as the target made a slight
turn to the west, there was no mistaking its identity—the pilot of the A-5K saw
the distinctive boomerang profile of an American B-2 bomber. “A stealth bomber!
Stealth bomber!” the A-5 pilot shouted excitedly on the command radio. “Very
low, heading west . . .” He was so excited that he forgot to give a proper
report . . .

           
.. . And he also forgot he was in
formation with another airplane. The two Chinese planes almost collided as the
A-5 pilot turned westward to try to keep the fast-flying bomber within his
low-light TV’s field of view.
"Kong
Yun
One- Seven, hold your position!” the JS-7 pilot shouted. “Formation
coming right to intercept. Control, this is Delta, we have an American B-2
stealth bomber on radar, turning to intercept at this time ...”

           
But as they did, extremely heavy
jamming from the B-2 continually broke radar-lock—the massive energy even put
the Cyrano-IV radar in “Reset” twice.
"Kong
Yun
One- Seven,” the JS-7 pilot asked of the A-5K pilot, “do you still have
him on your TV sensor?”

           
“Affirmative,
Jian,
Zero-Niner.”

           
“I’m receiving heavy jamming and I
can’t maintain a radar lock. Close us within PL-2 missile range. You have the
lead.”

           
“I have the lead.” The JS-7 pilot
could feel the tension grow in his arms and shoulders as he made the dangerous
transition from following his radar cues and searching out the windscreen for
terrain to picking up the A-5K’s dim formation-lights. He used a few notches of
airbrakes to slide back and ease into a comfortable position on the A-5’s right
wing, but he immediately edged away from the fighter- bomber in a momentary
panic when he thought he was getting sucked in too close. It took several
moments of adjusting before he could inch back in to proper wingman position.

           
At night, only a few meters away
from another fighter loaded with weapons, traveling over sixteen kilometers per
minute close to the ground, chasing down a heavily armed and dangerous
intruder—it was some of the most dangerous flying around.

           
The two crew members of the B-2
Black Knight stealth bomber only seventeen miles ahead of the Chinese pilots
might have disagreed.

           
Cobb had the power up to full
military thrust, trying desperately to make it to the cover of the hills to the
west. “Fighter’s crossing behind us,” McLanahan told him. “They found us . . .
fighter radar’s down now. They might be engaging visually or by IR.” He set the
B-2’s MAWS system from “Passive” to “Active.” MAWS, or Missile Approach Warning
System, used small passive infrared sensors to search for nearby aircraft that
might be a threat. Once a threat was located, it would lock onto it and
continue to track it. If MAWS detected a second flash of light from that same
target—indicating the ignition of a missile’s rocket motor—it would activate
the bomber’s ALQ-199A Doppler radar missile tracking system to track the
missiles and begin active countermeasures.

           
“I’m launching the SLAM missiles—at
least we’ll take out the radar before these bozos get us.” McLanahan touched
the weapon icons at the bottom of the Super Multi Function Display, overrode
the mission timing schedule of the computer that deconflicted weapon releases
for the entire strike package, then commanded the two Standoff Land Attack
Missiles to launch. Cobb had to allow the bomber to climb an excruciatingly
high one hundred extra feet before the missiles would start their countdown:
“Altitude hold off ... missile one counting down ... doors open ... missile one
giway . . . launcher rotating . . . missile two away . . . doors closed . . .
altitude hold back on, descend back to one hundred feet TFR.”

           
Although they still had two SLAMs
and two HARM antiradar missiles remaining, their primary mission was
completed—as the old bomber pilot’s saying goes, once the bombs are gone,
you’re not flying for Uncle Sam anymore; you’re flying for yourself.

           
Cobb and McLanahan started flying
for their lives. . . .

           
“Missiles! Bomber launching
missiles!” the A-5K pilot screamed. On his TV sensor he could clearly see the
two missiles slowly speed away from the bomber’s belly . . . and the sight
filled him with an almost overwhelming red-hot rage. He selected a PL-2
heat-seeking missile and hit the “Launch” button when the bomber was directly
in front of him. He realized after launching the missile that he was still too
far out and did not give the missile enough time to lock on, but at this range,
he could not miss. . . .

           
“We’re not going to find anyplace to
hide in these hills here,” McLanahan said, checking the computer-generated
terrain depiction on the Super Multi Function Display. Without one squeak of
radar energy being transmitted, the computer drew all the terrain, rivers,
valleys, and cities on the SMFD, updating their position with every turn—but
right now it was not giving them any good news. Unless they flew their B-2
below one hundred feet, those hills would not provide enough cover to shake off
their pursuers. “We should—”

           
He was interrupted with a flashing
“Missile Launch” indication and the computer-generated words,
“Infrared Missile Launch
. . .
Break
...
Infrared Missile Launch
.. .
Break"
in the interphone. “Break right!” McLanahan shouted. At the same time, he
checked to make sure that the electronic- countermeasures computer had launched
decoy flares and had activated their HAVE GLANCE infrared jammers, a device
that would use laser beams guided by the ALQ-199 missile warning radar to blind
and distort the enemy missile’s seeker heads and make it difficult for a
heat-seeking missile to lock onto the B-2’s engine exhausts.

           
It was the first time Patrick had
ever observed a missile launch on the Super Multi Function Display, and it was
weirdly fascinating—like watching an arrow speeding to its target in slow
motion, except this arrow was speeding at
them!
The MAWS sensors had tracked the fighters to the rear quadrant, and when the
heat-seeking sensors detected the missile launch, it automatically activated
the ALQ-199 tracking radars and laser jammers. The fighters were depicted as
red triangles with squares around them, highlighting them as the major threat
against the B-2, and when the missiles were picked up by the ALQ-199 they
appeared as blinking red circles. The SMFD redrew the scene, zooming in on the
B-2 icon, the terrain immediately surrounding the bomber, and the pursuing
fighters.

           
The dots initially swerved left to
follow the decoy flares as they ejected from the left ejector racks, but they
immediately realigned themselves on the B-2. A tiny data block showed time
since launch and estimated time to impact—the “time- to-die meter.” It had
initially started at twelve seconds, but as the
Chinese PL
-2 missile accelerated to its top speed of
Mach three, the time to impact wound down to five seconds and counted down
swiftly.

           
But the missile had to make a hard
left turn to follow the decoy flare, and when it reacquired the bomber’s hot
exhausts it began a hard right turn. The missile was “stressed,” losing energy
and skidding all over the sky—it was ready to be aced.

           
“Break left!” McLanahan shouted, and
he ejected two flares from the right ejectors.

           
At the same time, the HAVE GLANCE
laser jammer, which had begun tracking the missile via the ALQ-199 warning
radar, had locked onto the PL-2 and began bombarding it with high-energy laser
light. As the missile swung back to the left to reacquire the bomber, the laser
beam shined directly on the seeker head, instantly burning out its sensitive
gallium-arsenide “eye” and rendering the missile useless.

           
But McLanahan couldn’t celebrate
yet—the Chinese fighter had launched a second missile, this time from even
closer range—McLanahan noticed a
00:04:39
in the time-to- die meter almost
immediately. There was no time to turn, no time for a break maneuver. “Climb!”
McLanahan shouted, and he began pumping out flares as fast as he could.

           
The tactic worked. The second
missile, the A-5K’s last heat-seeker, lost the hot engine exhausts for a split
second. Although the missile started a climb in pursuit, the lock-on was lost,
and the PL-2’s twenty-eight-pound warhead automatically detonated—but only
thirty feet away from the B-2’s left engine nacelle.

           
The explosion sawed off twenty feet
of the left inboard elevon, the flaplike control surface on the wing’s trailing
edge, completely separating it from the bomber. It sliced into hydraulic lines,
cut open the left trailing edge fuel tank, and blew out two of the left main
gear tires, which ripped open the left fuel tank completely. Raw fuel began
streaming out of the bomber; the self-sealing foam fuel tanks kept the fuel
from spreading to the engine compartment, but within seconds the left trailing
edge fuel tank was empty and the number-one primary hydraulic system was dead.

           
Inside the cockpit, the explosion,
the shock, the concussion, and the vibration were as severe as if they had hit
the ground. The airspeed dropped one hundred knots as the huge bomber
uncontrollably heaved and rocked across the sky—the Black Knight seemed to spin
violently to the left, toward the dead number-one engine. The controls shook
violently, then turned mushy and completely unresponsive, then seemed to
freeze. The left wing dipped lower and lower, and there seemed nothing Cobb
could do to stop it.

           
“We’re hit!” Cobb screamed. He
hauled on the sidestick controller with all the strength of his right arm. “Get
on the controls!” he shouted to McLanahan. “Get the left wing up!”

           
McLanahan unstowed his sidestick
controller, which was normally stowed underneath the right instrument panel
glare shield. He moved the grip but nothing happened. “It’s not active!”

           
The interphone died as the
number-one generator popped off-line. Cobb ripped off his oxygen mask and
screamed, “Then get out, Patrick! Get out!” Despite the emergency, Cobb still
wasn’t going to yell “Eject!”—that would elicit an immediate response from any
well-trained crew dog.