nosed his plane back down into the clouds, and in a few moments he reentered the dingy world of ground-pounding missions. So far there had been little sign of enemy fighter aircraft. Allegedly, there was an An-74 airborne warning aircraft in this sector acting as an airborne command post. But he had not heard any transmissions from it to the flight. NATO had been jamming it and sending in aircraft to shoot it down whenever they had a chance. More likely it was sitting on the ground in need of electronics repair.
They dropped down to 500 meters. It was impossible to keep a steady altitude, since the terrain below was so mountainous. The leading flight of Sukhoi bombers was trying to follow terrain contours and keep the strike force down below the higher mountain ridges. Dushak didn't like this kind of flying. It was fine for the bomber boys, but it was a bit claustrophobic for fighter jocks. Enemy fighters could jump them from above, and they'd have a hell of a time maneuvering out of these chasms.
The flight passed to the south of Regensburg, not far from the scene of the current ground fighting. They gave the bridgehead area a wide berth, since there would be enough artillery shells in the air to make mincemeat out of their flight. The terrain shifted abruptly as they reached the Danube. It went from mountainous forest to flat pasture land in hardly ten kilometers. Now they were in the open, with no mountains to hide them from the prying eyes of radars.
At that moment the Syrena radar warning started going nuts. It was blinking from three quadrants at once, indicating several different illumination bands. Dushak bent his head down to look into the RP-29 radar display. There was no evidence of enemy fighters ahead. His radio crackled: "Shashka and Molot Flight, this is Kirka Leader. Do you have crows? Over."
("Crows" was the nickname for enemy fighters; the Soviet fighters called friendlies "falcons.") It was the strike leader in one of the Sukhoi bombers! He must be getting the warnings too. He didn't have an air intercept radar, however, so he didn't have as good a chance to pick up enemy fighters beyond visual range.
"This is Shashka Leader. No crows. Over."
Captain Vlasov hadn't spotted any enemy fighters yet either: "Molot Leader, no crows here. We've got strong signals south. I'm swinging my cone. Over." The Molot MiG flight was going to bank off to the south. The RP-29 radar has a limited cone of view forward. It was possible the enemy fighters were outside of this visual range.
"Crows to the south! Crows at 9 o'clock. Break!" Before he could determine what to do, Dushak saw a missile impact against one of the Sukhoi bombers on the left side of the flight. It hit near the cockpit and blew off the whole nose — a frightening sight. The plane began an uncontrollable tumble, spewing burning fuel behind it. There was no way the crew could have survived. A second missile impacted another Sukhoi near the tail. The plane shuddered, and a big chunk of tail went sailing; it smashed into a trailing Sukhoi, which dropped off to the left.
The crew of the first Sukhoi punched out with their ejector seats.
"This is Kirka Leader. Molot Leader, engage the crows. Shashka, you stay with us." The flight of four MiG-29s on the left banked southward to engage the enemy fighters. They peeled off in a fast climb, afterburners glaring. In a moment, they were in the clouds. The Sukhois dropped even closer to the ground. They had terrain avoidance radars and so could follow the ground contours a lot closer than the MiGs.
Dushak hated this kind of flying. Being tied to a bunch of turkey bombers made the fighters vulnerable to ambush. Over the earphones, he could hear transmission from Molot flight. "Break into pairs. Molot Four, stay with your wingman. Watch it, Molot Three." The transmissions were confusing. It was not at all clear who was winning or losing, or even if Molot had found the enemy. Fortunately, they were only about sixty seconds from target. No SAMs so far.
The target was difficult to spot; the road was covered with trees on either side. They were running parallel to the highway. The German air defense crews began firing 20mm cannons at the flight, but they were not very accurate. The red fireballs spit into the air over the flight. The aircraft were traveling at well over 500 kilometers an hour, so the fireballs whizzed right by. Several miles ahead, there was an obvious change on the road. The Germans had built a detour around the new airfield. The airfield seemed to have few aircraft, but there was equipment nearby.
"Shashka Flight, this is Shashka Leader. Break to the right and clear the target area." They banked to the right and gained altitude, not wanting to run into any stray bombs. The Sukhois began dropping their bombs with parachute retarders.[60]
Dushak caught a glimpse of the bombers as the munitions separated and snapped behind when their retarders blossomed. Shashka flight was almost into the cloud layer by the time the bombs hit.
The Syrena began going nuts again. The flight was in a three-g turn,
and Dushak found it difficult to move his head to look into the radar. As they pulled out of the turn, they saw two aircraft go by at high speed, followed by at least three others. "Shashka Flight, tallyho. We have crows! Break and fight in pairs."
Where the hell are they? Dushak pulled his MiG up over the clouds. To hell with the SAMs. It was time to get a little altitude and figure out what was going on. Kostenko followed, narrowing the gap between himself and Dushak's MiG. As they broke through the cloud cover, they could see a dogfight already in progress. The problem was, who was who? They all looked like MiG-29s! There seemed to be about six aircraft — a pair chasing a lone aircraft to the south and another pair chasing a lone aircraft some distance away. They all had the distinctive twin tails of the MiG-29. To his horror, Dushak saw one of the aircraft from the southern pair fire a missile from its wing tip. MiG-29s don't have wing-tip missiles! The missile went up the tail pipe of the lone aircraft, ripping off the right engine and the right stabilizer. The pilot punched out safely.
"Shashka Three, you take that pair that just hit Molot. Me and German will take the other pair." Dushak nosed his aircraft down to bring it closer to the cloud base. It was possible the crows ahead hadn't yet spotted him and Kostenko. The range was less than five kilometers. The radar was tracking the target, as was the little Sh-1 infrared tracker. Dushak told Kostenko to switch his radar into dummy load position so it wouldn't emit and be picked up by the enemy's radar warning receivers. The Sh-1 IR tracker would continue to follow the enemy aircraft. It was purely passive, unlike radar. The Sh-1 picked up the infrared energy of the hot engine exhaust of the enemy planes, but gave off no signal, so it wouldn't warn the enemy. It worked reasonably well, except in clouds. Then the radar would automatically turn back on.
As they approached the enemy fighters, Dushak suddenly realized that they were F-18 Hornets. Or to be more precise, CF-18 Hornets of the Canadian Air Force. They flew out of a field near Bad Sollingen or somewhere farther west. He was surprised to see them this far east. He uncaged the seeker on the number 4 R-60 infrared missile. He got a tone on his headset, and launched. The strong infrared signature from the tail pipes made it an easy lock-on. It was hard to see the flight of the missile because its white trail was lost against the bright white of the cloud base below. Moments before the missile impacted, the Canadians suddenly pulled up and to the left. They had been spotted! The missile adjusted its flight path, but the turn happened so last that it did not impact, but exploded a short distance to the right of the trailing aircraft. The enemy fighter shuddered slightly, and some debris came spewing back. But the missile caused no lethal damage. The R-60s were just too damn small.
The Canadians pulled up in a fast banking climb with the MiGs in fast pursuit. The turn was pushing six g's, much too much to permit a missile launch. The range had closed to two kilometers. The Canadians pulled a snap roll, aiming for the cloud bank. They seemed to be trying to break off the engagement by running away in the clouds. Dushak and Kostenko followed, but somewhat higher up. As they entered the cloud bank, the RP-29 radar switched from dummy load back to active, emitting to take over from the blinded IR tracker.[61]
60
Bomb retarders are either small parachutes or air bags called "ballutes," which open up behind the bomb to slow it down. These are used when aircraft bomb from a low altitude. If bombs without retarders are used, the bomb continues to fly forward at almost the same speed as the aircraft. This leads to the possibility that the bomb will go off on the ground below, not far from the aircraft that dropped it, possibly damaging the aircraft.
61
The RP-29 is a pulse-Doppler air intercept radar, called "Slot Back" by NATO. It is the first Soviet fighter radar to have the ability to see small targets located below the fighter. On earlier fighters, the radar return from the ground created so much clutter, it was impossible to see aircraft below. There have been allegations that the RP-29 is based on espionage successes in gaining data on the F-18 Hornet's APG-65 radar. An employee of Hughes, which manufactures the radar, sold a considerable amount of technical data to a Polish intelligence agent. This presumably was done on the behest of the Soviets.