In the darkness, Woods released the parking brake and moved forward slightly. The yellow shirt directing him moved his wands slowly, then crossed them quickly. Woods hit the brakes and felt the launch bar drop over the catapult shuttle as he had hundreds of times before. The yellow shirt saluted and passed him to the catapult officer. Woods found himself reassured by the familiarity as he thought of going down the catapult, accelerating to one hundred thirty-five knots in about two seconds carrying a howitzer barrel filled with high explosives under his belly, and being the first person in history to do it.
The catapult officer faced Woods, raising her right hand slightly and slid her left hand quickly to the bow of the ship. The shuttle moved forward and grabbed the Tomcat’s launch bar. She signaled to run up the engines. Woods went to full throttle and finished his cockpit checks with Wink. They were ready. Woods moved the throttles and flames shot out of the F-14 as the engines went to afterburner. Flipping the switch, Woods turned on his exterior lights. The catapult officer saluted, signaled, and the catapult fired.
Woods, Wink, and their howitzer barrel rocketed down the catapult track, the acceleration throwing them back in their seats harder than usual. The Tomcat reached the end of the catapult stroke and they were pushed forward. The ship was done helping them fly.
The wheels cleared the deck and the aft half of the Tomcat rotated downward, lifting the nose of the plane above the horizon. Woods quickly scanned the instruments.
“We’re flying,” Wink called from the backseat after watching the airspeed indicator carefully.
“Head 076,” Wink said.
“Roger,” Woods replied. He put the Tomcat into a gentle right turn as they continued to rise. The rest of the strike group launched behind them and climbed after them.
They could see the formation lights on the other airplanes heading east with them. The two carrier Battle Groups had switched targets for the night so Woods’s flight could be better camouflaged. They wanted to be seen on the radar of whoever was watching with the airplanes heading east. After that they would simply vanish. It would take a truly special radar operator to pick them out of the clutter once they peeled away from the group.
The radios were silent as the ten airplanes broke over the beach together. There had been some talk that Syria was going to actually send up fighters against this strike, but so far, no sign.
The pilots in the formation had been briefed by the Air Wing Commander, who had chosen to personally lead this diversionary strike. He had been a lukewarm convert to the strike plan against Alamut. When he found out there would be “someone” on the ground to laser designate the exact spot, and that the Air Force had actually parted with two of its private reserve of perfectly aged GBU-28s, and that the DOD had actually signed off on letting two untested Tomcat crews carry them into Iran, he figured who was he to stand in the way? A great military leader, like a great politician, is great sometimes because he discerns a trend and gets in front of it.
Some of the pilots were hoping that the Syrians would in fact have the nerve to fight them tonight. Down deep, not one of them believed they would, but there was always the hope… The idea of air combat at night with lights off was almost too exciting, especially against someone who didn’t practice. For those not accustomed to night fighting it was disconcerting and disorienting. The chance of a mid-air or of shooting down the wrong airplane in the general pandemonium was extremely high. It was not an environment into which the poorly trained strode happily.
“Any bogeys?” Woods asked.
“Negative,” Wink said. The PTID was blank except for the strike aircraft. They crossed over the Syrian border and accelerated to five hundred knots. Woods glanced down to see if he could make out the coastline. A few small towns glittered below, but nothing substantial. He couldn’t tell where the Mediterranean stopped and Syria started. It was one great sea of blackness, with a few lights in the easternmost part.
The strike group continued east, deep into Syria. On a radar it would look as if the strike group had gone far inland to begin the attack from the east to avoid the SAMs. As they approached the break-off point Woods flew over to the S-3 tanker that was escorting the strike just to refuel Wink and Big. Tankers rarely went overland, but without getting fuel at the last possible moment, the Tomcats would never make it back to the ship.
“Hundred knots of closure,” Wink called.
Woods retarded his throttles slightly as he closed the distance.
“Fifty.”
Woods raised his right wing to slow the closure and increase his turn. He was a few hundred yards from the tanker. He controlled his rate of climb, closure, and turn instinctively as he rendezvoused on the tanker.
“Ten,” Wink said quietly.
Woods joined on the tanker’s left wing, slightly below, perfectly. He never took his eyes off the plane. He’d done it hundreds of times, even at night, but he was always careful. He glanced quickly left to confirm that Big was on his wing, right where he should be. Big had been in loose trail, a quarter mile behind. He had gone off the catapult just seconds after Woods and had followed him the whole way.
The S-3 tanker pilot signaled, and Woods flipped a switch. The refueling probe climbed out of the right side of the Tomcat and made its customary loud noises as it rose hard and rigid into the two-hundred-fifty knot airstream. Woods slid back and approached the S-3 from behind. The refueling basket bobbed along at the end of the long invisible hose waiting for the Tomcat to pull up. Woods lined up behind the S-3 and accelerated straight ahead. The probe caught the basket and drove home, hitting right in the center. The basket squeezed the probe and the green light flickered. Good seat.
Woods pulled the throttles back slightly to enable him to fly formation on the tanker ahead of him. He glanced down at the fuel indicator. No change. He looked at the lights. Good green light over the drogue. “What’s up?” he asked Wink.
“Don’t know. I’m showing no transfer. Push it up a little. Give him a little slack.”
Woods adjusted his speed to drive the drogue toward the tanker, then away. No change. They weren’t getting any fuel. “Tell ’em.”
Wink transmitted, “No transfer. Check your switches.”
“Switches are fine. Pull out and try it again.”
“Arrr,” Woods said as he pulled the throttles back a little quicker than he needed to. The Tomcat slowed and the drogue came free. He accelerated again to catch it, and approached the drogue exactly the same way as the time before. “If we don’t get fuel, we’ve got to abort. We can’t get back without it.”
Wink didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. He looked at his fuel indicator. They were already behind where they expected to be in their fuel specs. The bomb must have more drag than they had calculated.
Woods plugged in again and got another green light from the drogue. Then an amber, a red, then green again. He watched the fuel indicator stop decreasing and reverse itself and head up. “Good transfer,” he said to Wink.
“Roger,” Wink said, relieved.
They watched the digital fuel readout march upward until the Tomcat was completely topped off, over nineteen thousand pounds of fuel. They had replaced all the fuel they had used in start-up, taxi, takeoff, and climb. As Woods backed away from the basket, banking to his right and coming up to the right side of the tanker, Big moved over quickly to top off. When he was done he pulled out and joined on Woods’s right wing. They pulled away from the tanker and banked right, toward the remainder of the strike group.