“I got… squat,” the OSO reported. The cross hairs went out to a large section of blackness. There were no radar returns yet in the target area. His hesitant voice infuriated the pilots even more. “ADF a one-three-five track, pilots. Clear back down.”
The pilot released the pitch interrupt trigger, and the bomber settled back down to its roller-coaster ride just two hundred feet above the blurred earth zooming by. “You got the target?” he asked.
“Not yet,” the OSO responded. “The radar predictions said we won’t see the targets until four NAP if we stay low — we’d need to go up to two thousand to see it sooner. Let’s get back on planned track, and then give me another jink so I can get a better—”
“Bandits!” the DSO interrupted. “Eight o’clock, fifteen miles and closing! I think it’s an F-14—no, two F-14s! Give me a hard left thirty!”
“I’ll lose my look down the canyon!” the OSO objected. But the pilot rolled into a hard ninety-degree bank turn, rolling out just far enough to track perpendicular to the fighter. “Reverse as fast as you can!” the OSO said. “I need one last look down that canyon!”
“Clear to turn back!” the DSO said after only a few seconds. The pilot started a right turn. “Trackbreakers active! Bandits never turned. They’re nine o’clock, nine miles.”
“Give me a vertical jink now!” the OSO said.
“Negative!” the DSO interjected. “We’ll be highlighted against the horizon! If the fighter gets a visual on us, he’s got us!”
“I need the altitude!” the OSO cried. “I can’t see shit!”
“If we climb, he’ll spot us!” the pilot protested.
“Then center up!” shouted the OSO. “I’ll try to get a lock close-in.” He knew he’d have only seconds to see the target on radar before bomb release.
Sure enough, as they closed in on the target, all he could see on the digital radar screen was dark green, interspersed with flecks of white. The terrain was shadowing every bit of ground radar returns. Nothing showed up on the MTA display — no moving targets at all.
“Twenty TG,” the OSO said. “Action left thirty. I need one thousand feet, pilot, and I need it now.”
“All right,” the pilot said. “You got about five seconds.” He spun the clearance plane switch and they climbed. “You get your fix, Long Dong?”
The last climb did it. The cross hairs fell on a lone radar return in the very southern edge of the gully. When the pilot rolled out of the turn, the OSO snapped a patch image of the last target. “Got it! Steering is good!” he said. Damn, what a relief. His cross hairs were nestled right over a long, thin target, small and partially hidden. Magnifying the radar image showed a definite Scud transporter-erector-launcher on the move. A small, mobile target — max points if they hit it. “Let’s nail this sucker! Fifteen TG! Ten… doors coming open… five… bombs away!” The pilots could see the target, a white trailer with an old sewer pipe strapped atop it, configured to look somewhat like a Scud missile. “Doors coming closed…”
“We got it!” the copilot shouted happily. “We nailed it!”
“Let’s start a right turn to two-four-three,” the OSO said.
But just as they zoomed past the target area and crossed over the southern edge of the gully, a flurry of smoky SAMs filled the sky. “I’ve got SA-3s, SA-6s, SA-8s, and triple-A all around us!” the DSO shouted. “Scram! Scram left!”
The B-1 snap-rolled to the left so hard that the OSO’s head hit the right bulkhead. Then he was thrown forward as the bomber quickly decelerated. He cried out in pain, his vision swimming with stars.
The pilot threw in forty degrees of bank and pulled on the stick to 2.5 Gs — almost tripling their weight — then pulled the throttles to idle to slow to cornering velocity.
“C’mon, Rodeo, turn!” the OSO shouted. “Pop the brakes! Go to ninety degrees bank!”
“We’re restricted…”
“We’re gonna get hosed if you don’t get that nose around, pilot!” the OSO said. “Pop the brakes! You’re VMC. Go to ninety degrees bank!”
“Speedbrakes coming out,” the pilot shouted on interphone, then flipped the speedbrake OVERRIDE switches and thumbed them to decelerate even faster. The “scram” maneuver was an emergency turn designed to get away from ground threats as quickly as possible. It meant instantly slowing the B-1 bomber to cornering velocity, a speed that increased the turn rate but wouldn’t normally sacrifice controllability.
“SA-8! Zeus-23! Eight o’clock, lethal range!” The electronic countermeasures system was ejecting chaff and flares as fast as possible, but the threats stayed locked on. The sky was suddenly filled with white lines — smoky SAMs, dozens of them, flitting around them like bees around a hive. Several of the little paper rockets hit the Bone, though there was no way they could do any actual damage — they weighed less than two pounds and were as fragile as a toy.
The pilot kept the back pressure on his control stick right at 2.5 Gs until the bomber had decelerated to their planned cornering velocity, then shoved the throttles to max afterburner. The maneuver worked. By the time he had plugged in the afterburners, they were headed virtually in the opposite direction. He pushed the control stick right to roll wings-level and thumbed the speed-brake control to retract the speedbrakes so they could recover their lost airspeed…
… except that the bomber never rolled upright. They were still in a steep bank. “Damn! Damn! Damn!” the pilot kept shouting. “What’s happening here?” The TERFLW FAIL warning tone sounded, a continuous low tone signaling that the terrain-following system had failed. The system automatically performed a 3-G fail-safe pull-up, designed to fly the bomber away from the ground — but if it was in a steep bank angle, a fly-up would drive it into the ground unless the pilots intervened quickly. “Shit, what’s going on?” yelled the pilot. “It won’t roll wings-level! Mad Dog, get on your stick. I think my controls failed!”
“Get the nose down! Airspeed!” the copilot shouted as he grabbed for his stick. He tried to move it, but the bomber would not respond. He checked the flight control indicators. “Retract your speedbrakes! Spoilers are still up.” The pilot thumbed the switch to retract them, but there was no change. “Check my OVERRIDE switches!” he yelled.
The copilot reached over to the center console and checked the switches. “Spoiler OVERRIDE switches are normal,” he said. “What’s going on?”
The OSO could feel a definite sink building — it felt like the bomber was mushing, on the verge of a stall. It was yawing to the left as well, as if the pilot had pulled back power on the left engines. “Roll out! Roll out!” he shouted on interphone. “TF fail! You got it, pilot? Altitude!” But he didn’t have it.
The pilot saw his altimeter beginning to spin down faster and faster. He felt a weightless sensation, felt his body floating in his straps. They were going in! Oh shit! Oh shit!
No choice, no warning — the pilot put his hand on his ejection lever, closed his eyes, and pulled.
Without warning, the upper hatch over each crew member’s station popped free, followed by a roar of windblast and a cloud of debris and dust that enveloped the aft compartment a split second before the rocket motors blasted the pilot up the ejection seat rails. A crushing blow slammed against his right shoulder, and he felt his body tumbling hard through the sky as it was snatched into the slipstream.
The last thing he remembered was seeing the sleek, deadly looking B-1B slide underneath him, still in a moderate left bank but with the nose up in a gentle climb. The pain in his shoulder was excruciating. He saw a tremendous fireball, a massive cloud of fire as big as the mountains surrounding his home back in Reno…