The An-26 turned onto the runway and stopped, its brakes set. Its engines increased their pitch, shaking the wings at full power. After a few moments, even the fuselage started to vibrate, and the Curl’s pilot released his brakes. Rolling forward, the big turboprop thundered down the long concrete strip, quickly gathering speed. It soared aloft with half the runway left.
Even fully loaded with fuel and missiles, the two Eagles used less runway than their larger, slower companion. Tad’s airspeed rose quickly once contact with the earth was broken.
There beneath him was the An-26, its brown and green camouflage blending with the drab gray-brown landscape below. The lumbering plane cruised at half the normal speed of its two nimbler companions, no more than 240 knots or so. Chopping his throttle almost to idle, Tad extended his Eagle’s flaps and tried to think slow thoughts.
The flight from Wroclaw to the border took about twenty minutes, with Wojcik and Zawadzki scissoring and circling over the ferret plane, trying to keep it and each other in sight.
Tad tried to sort out the mass of information blanketing his cockpit display. Right now his RWR was tuned to receive only fire control and weapons radars, immediate threats to an Eagle in flight. Even so, there were so many signals showing that he was sure some of them must be coming from other airborne friendlies. No such luck. All the bearings and identifications flickering across his scope matched hostile radars.
Christ, he thought, there were so many sets sweeping the sky through this sector, you could almost get out and walk on the radio waves. Great. The Germans had to know right where he and Zawadzki were.
He broke radio silence. “Yellow patrol, this is Yellow Five.”
“Roger, we hold you at fifty kilometers one two five.” Tad recognized Lieutenant Gawlik’s voice. The two Eagles now on patrol were thirty miles off to the northwest.
It was time to turn on his own radar. Turning to face the other F-15s, he hit the radar mode button, changing it from standby to air. Instantly the screen lit up, showing two small dots, both with symbols showing them to have friendly IFF. As the APG-70 locked onto the nearest friendly, his HUD displayed a small lit box showing its position in the sky in front of him, even though the Polish plane was still too far away to see. A straight line ending in the box gave Tad the correct intercept course, while figures glowing on his radar screen showed him the other F-15’s course, speed, altitude, and closing velocity. Normally used to help close on and kill enemy aircraft, the data also made rendezvous and CAP relief almost child’s play.
Glancing down at the radar screen also let him check the RWR display again. There were even more radars showing now. So far, though, they were limited to radars tracking him. None were locked onto him, and the ominous launch warning light was still dark.
Climbing, Tad burst through fragments of low clouds and emerged into a pale blue, sunlit sky. “Yellow Seven, closing on your position.”
The range dropped to six kilometers before he spotted a gray dot in the center of the cueing box on his HUD. The F-15 was a large plane. A smaller fighter like a Fulcrum might not be seen until it was even closer. Even so, Tad had needed the box to know where to look. At first glance he wasn’t even sure it was real, so he continued his regular scan: instruments, HUD, far left, craning his neck to look behind him, and then carefully working his way around to far right.
On his next glance the dot was a distinctive twin-tailed shape. “Tally.” Contact in sight.
Yellow Seven, Lieutenant Gawlik’s plane, was heading north, away from him, loafing along at 250 knots. Yellow Eight, Gawlik’s wingman, flew a little to the right and below him.
Moving the stick gently, Wojcik eased the Eagle’s nose down just as he came level with the two patrolling F-15s. “Yellow Five is in position.”
The pair of Eagles in front quickly turned, changing in appearance from rear to side views for half a second before they flashed by to the right, diving and heading east.
The An-26 following in Tad’s wake still hadn’t made a transmission, but it didn’t need to. It simply took up position at the highest altitude comfortable for its turboprop engines, about eight thousand meters. As they flew parallel to the border, the Curl would stay near the center of the Eagles’ crisscrossing racetrack pattern, at a slightly lower altitude.
The plane was there to listen to radar, radio, and even microwave relay signals. By analyzing them, the Curl’s intelligence specialists could identify radar types, locations, and capabilities. A good operator could even tell when a radar set had received new parts. And radio and microwave relay intercepts could help pinpoint the new Confederation ground and air units shifting closer to the border.
At this altitude, the Neisse River seemed to be directly below him, but as long as he checked the nav display frequently, he could stay on his own side of the line.
The landscape on either side of the river was identical. Through the scattered gray clouds below him, he could see isolated patches of woods dotting smooth, flat terrain. This was farming country. From this high up, only major highways and cities were easily visible in the fuzzy patchwork of browns, yellows, and greens.
It took about forty-five minutes to make a complete circuit on the racetrack and return to their starting point. After only twenty minutes, Tad knew that the major and his crew were very busy people. His radar warning receiver was still alive with symbols, appearing and disappearing almost at random. If there was a pattern there, he couldn’t see it.
They turned the corner, heading south. The Curl, slower, was still northbound, about two thousand meters below them and thirty kilometers to the south.
The major’s voice interrupted Tad’s scan of the horizon. “Yellow flight! We have a fire control radar, strength eight, and getting stronger! Bearing two eight zero.”
Tad looked down at his radar scope. In his blind spot, damn it!
“Syl, swing wide, now!” He turned his own plane’s nose to the west. The radar scanner could only train sixty degrees to either side of dead ahead. Luckily he could see the radar on his warning receiver, labeled “UNK” next to it. That meant the signal’s characteristics did not match anything in the receiver’s library of known transmitters.
This close to the border, Tad had very little maneuvering room to the west. He was really counting on Zawadzki, who was heading east to get some elbowroom, to back him up. Tad’s low speed gave him a fairly tight turning radius, so he planned to make a tight circle, lock up the bogey, and classify it as a threat or benign. By that time his wingman should be in position, far enough back, if they had to shoot.
His hands moved rapidly, dropping the range scale on the radar. This fellow had popped up suddenly, with enough signal strength to make him real close. His F-15’s nose was turning, swinging right. Why hadn’t they spotted the bogey on their northbound leg?
There. The signal should be within his radar scanner’s arc. He checked the screen but saw nothing. He waited two more sweeps, and the screen was still blank. All right, Tad thought. He changed the range scale. Still nothing. As if to confirm that whatever the problem was, it wasn’t just his radar, Zawadzki radioed, “Negative lock, Seven.”
Tad clicked twice in acknowledgment, almost absentmindedly.
“Yellow flight. Signal strength is nine. Signal has shifted to high PRF.” The major’s voice sounded calmer, but his initial surprise had been replaced by clear concern. The hostile radar had changed to ranging mode, which could be a precursor to launching an air-to-air missile.