Now, though, with its huge white bomb bay doors open, it was like a diamond in a goat's ass. The pilot waved his wingman off to the observation position and began his roll into IR (infrared) missile firing position. At three miles, with the B- 52's eight big jet engines spewing out heat, an infrared lock-on would be easy and he'd be out of range of the Buff's little pea- shooter guns. No sweat. An easy kill. On its bomb run, the Buff wouldn't do much jinking, and it had to jam the ground- based threats, too.
"Missile away, missile away for Sabre Three-three," Martin called to the bomb scoring site.
"Acknowledge tone break," the site replied.
"Missile two counting down," Luger began.
"Six o'clock, two miles," Brake said nervously.
"Missile two away," Luger said. "Bomb doors closed. Clear for evasive action."
"Pilot, chop your power!" Brake yelled. "We'll suck this cocky bastard in."
Houser responded immediately, bringing the throttles back to idle. Simultaneously, Martin raised the airbrakes to max- imum up and dropped the gear. The airspeed suddenly and rapidly decreased from three hundred and fifty to two hundred knots. On the tail gunner's radar scope, the result was exhilarating and immediate. For the fighter pilot, it was a nightmare come true.
The F-15 fighter chasing them had been flying nearly two hundred miles an hoter faster than the B-52 in order to catch up with it from behind and get into an ideal firing position; suddenly, it was as if the huge bomber had just frozen in midair. The fighter pilot was now closing on his target at almost six hundred yards a second. The sight of the massive bomber filling his windscreen froze his trigger finger. The fighter pilot was staring into four fifty-caliber machine gun barrels pointed directly at him.
"Six o'clock, two miles," Brake called out, watching his radar. "Two miles and holding… goddamn! one mile, half mile… Fox-four! All guns firing! Call Fox-four!"
Up on the attack observation position, well above and to the right of the bomber, the leader's wingman was watching a perfectly executed IR missile run. Suddenly, something happened. Spoilers and airbrakes and landing gear doors and landing gears began to spring out of nowhere out of the bomber's huge frame, and the distance between the two planes was chopped to nothing in the blink of an eye. The wingman thought he'd see his first midair collision.
At the last second, his partner ducked under the bomber's belly, flying his F- iS a mere three hundred feet over the hills of Wyoming. The Buff's fifty-caliber guns followed him all the way. The wingman could easily visualize the guns spitting fire, the three-inch-long shells plowing into the fighter's canopy and fuselage, the F-IS exploding into a billion pieces and crashing into the green hills below.
"Fox-four, Fox-four for Sabre Three-three, Glasgow," Martin called to the scoring sire.
"Roger, Three-three. Will relay Fox-four." The young operator working the bomb-scoring-site tracking radar looked in amazement at his NCO supervisor.
"Holy shit," the veteran NCO said. "That Buff just shot down a goddamned F-15."
"It's a duck shoot, all right, Sarge," the operator said, chuckling. "But who is shooting who?"
"Dead meat," the F-15's wingman said to himself, peeling off and preparing to start his own run at the B-52, keeping a respectful distance away from the fifty-caliber machine gun turret that, he knew, was now looking for him. Luger and McLanahan could easily hear the wild jubilation of the defensive crew upstairs through the roar of the plane's eight turbojet engines.
"One down, one to go," Brake shouted.
McLanahan manually stepped the automatic offset unit to target Bravo and pushed a small button on a console near his left thigh. Over the interphone, he said, "Pilot, I'm in BOMB mode. Center it up. We're gonna bomb the crap outta them now. Dave, check my switches."
"You got it," Luger said. He compared the bomb com- puter's countdown to the time remaining on his backup timing watch. "Two minutes to bomb release on my watch."
"Checks with the FCI, nay," Houser confirmed, carefully watching as Martin reconfigured the B-52 for normal flight.
"Pilot, fighter at two o'clock, five miles," Hawthorne said. "Break right!"
"Radar?" Houser asked. "Should I turn? This is your bailgame."
"One second," McLanahan said. "S.O.B. `s are jammin' my scope." He leaned forward so close to the ten-inch radar scope that his oxygen mask almost touched it, then tried to refine his crosshair replacement. Luger couldn't see how his partner could possibly make out any radar returns through all the strobing and clutter. When McLanahan was satisfied, he shouted, "Go for it!"
"Breaking right!" Houser shouted. He put the huge bomber in a thirty-degree bank to the right, turning so suddenly that charts and paperwork flew madly around the navigator's compartment.
"Fighter now at twelve o'clock," Hawthorne said. "Mov- ing rapidly to one o'clock… almost two o'clock now."
"We can't hold this turn long, E.W," Martin, the copilot, reminded him. "The corridor narrows to two miles on this bomb run."
"Fighter now at three o'clock!" Hawthorne shouted. Then, as if in reply to the copilot's warning, he said, "Break left. Guns, stand by for Al at five o'clock."
"Roger, E.W," Brake replied.
"Center the FCI, pilot," Luger said. "Coming up on one hundred TO."
"Checks," Houser replied.
"Pilot, accelerate if possible," Brake said. Houser began push the throttles up. "Stand by to chop power again."
"Do it after the bomb run, guns," Luger said. "Pilot, keep the throttles steady."
"Radar?" Houser queried. "This is your run."
"Bring airspeed up as slow as you can," McLanahan said. Shoving it up too fast will screw the ballistics up, not to mention Dave's precious backup timing. He might get upset vith us."
"Standing by," Luger replied, smirking at McLanahan rough his oxygen mask.
"Pilot," Brake yelled, "fighter at seven o'clock, four miles, ving to eight o'clock. Break left!"
"Do it!" McLanahan said. This time, Houser threw the bomber over into about thirty-five degrees of bank. The forty- year-old aircraft shrieked in protest.
"Fighter moving to seven o'clock… now six o'clock.
lot, roll out and center the FCI," Brake said.
The bomber snapped out of the turn and began a slow turn to he right to center the thin white needle in the case of the Flight Command Indicator. Luger, scanning the computer panel before him, pointed to a single glowing red warning light.
`The Doppler is hung up," Luger shouted. The Doppler was the system that provided groundspeed and wind informa- tion to the bombing computersÄwithout it, the computers were useless, transmitting false information to the steering and release systems.
Luger tried recycling the Doppler power switchesÄturning them off and on several times to allow the system to reset itselfÄbut no luck. "Pilot, it looks like the Doppler has gone out. Disregard the FCI. Radar, we need to get out of BOMB mode now!"
"Damned fighters," Martin said.
Luger held up his running stopwatch. "I've got.backup Iming, radar," he said. "Coming up on seventy seconds to release. Pilot, hold the airspeed right here."
Luger was about to read the Alternate Bombing (Nuclear) checklist to McLanahan, but his partner was already accom- plishing the items from memory, disconnecting the computers from aircraft and bombing controls. They were now relying on visual course control, Luger's backup time and heading, and the radar scope to drop the bomb. Instead of the bombing computers sending the release pulse to the bomb racks, McLanahan would send the signal himself with the "pickle." the bombs-away switch.
"Bomb door coming open, guys," McLanahan said. "Al- ternate delivery checklist complete. Dave, check my switches when you get a chance. Where's my coffee cup?"