Once again Harris looked at his wingman, then squinted his eyes into the distance. They were flying above a broken layer of clouds, but here at 30,000 feet the visibility was nearly unlimited. Harris figured he should be able to see the Cowboys when they were about twenty miles away. Once he got a good positive visual identification, he could move in for a closer look.
“Dagger, I now have you eight-zero miles from the Unknown Cowboys, twelve o’clock and closing. They are riding at two- three thousand feet. Call visual on the Cowboys.”
Les acknowledged the controller with a simple “Rog,” then focused his attention back to his radar. The Cowboys were just beginning to show up on his screen. He confirmed their position, altitude, and airspeed, then pumped on his control stick several times. His wingman noticed Harris’s horizontal stabilizer as it fluttered up and down in the air. This was the signal for him to move out and away from Harris to a tactical position three hundred feet behind and slightly above his leader. From there, the wingman could monitor his own radar while still protecting his leader.
Harris then switched his transmitter over to guard frequency and clicked the button to his radio.
“Unknown Cowboy, Unknown Cowboy, this is Landmass Dagger broadcasting on 243.0. How do you read?”
By adding “Landmass” to his call sign, Captain Harris had identified himself with the internationally accepted term for U.S. air defenses. He waited several seconds for the bombers to respond, then broadcast the same message again. After a short pause, the Russian pilot replied in broken English.
“Landmass Dagger, Landmass Dagger, this is Losko six-six-seven. Go ahead.”
Harris quickly looked down at a small notebook of classified code words that was strapped to his leg. He thumbed through it very quickly until he found the call sign “Losko.” According to his notebook, “Losko” was the call sign for the Russian Blackjack bomber. That was what Darkhorse had told him the bogeys were. So far, so good, he thought.
Harris keyed his microphone switch once again. “Losko, you are approaching United States airspace. Recommend you turn left, heading one-eight-zero. Copy?”
“Negative, Landmass Dagger. We are in international airspace. We have not penetrated your Air Defense Zone. Do not attempt to interfere.”
This time Capt Harris didn’t reply. Instead he rocked his wings several times. Within seconds his wingman had moved back into a tight position, his wing tip just three feet from his leader. While Harris was waiting for the other F-16 to move back into position, he checked his radar once more. The Blackjacks were now less than thirty miles away. They appeared as two small boxes, moving down from the top right-hand corner of his screen. They had not changed their altitude, but they had picked up their airspeed. They were now cruising at over five hundred knots.
Harris turned his head slightly to look at his wingman. The two fighters were so close that Harris could read the letters on his wing-man’s name tag. Harris raised his hands into a fist, shook it slightly, then extended three fingers toward the sky.
Almost immediately his wingman banked his fighter up and peeled away from him, then rolled into a dive. Harris watched for a moment as the other F-16 accelerated earthward, then leveled off just above the tops of the clouds. Not until then did Harris pull back gently on his stick. His own F-16 began to climb, and he was soon level at 36,000 feet.
He and his wingman had now sandwiched the Russian bombers between them. They would continue on this heading, flying straight toward the Blackjacks. Once the two bombers had passed underneath him, Harris would roll inverted and pull into a dive, at the same time reversing his course. As he was doing this, his wingman would be pulling into a steep climb. When they had both rolled out and leveled off, they would be at 23,000 feet, the same altitude as the bombers. They would also be heading in the same direction. The F-16s would then move slowly forward until they were abeam the Blackjacks, one fighter on each side, five hundred feet out from their wings.
From here they could monitor the bomber’s intentions. This was the standard intercept position. It was designed to provide for the safety of all of the aircraft while at the same time allowing the fighters to defend their country’s borders.
As the four aircraft quickly closed the remaining gap that separated them, Captain Harris got on his radio to Darkhorse. “Daggers are turning on railroad,” he said as he watched the targets on his radar.
“Roger, you’re cleared on railroad. Call when bingo fuel,” the ground radar controller replied.
By “turning on railroad,” Harris had advised Darkhorse that he and his wingman were going to maneuver in on the bombers. Once “railroad” was initiated, the controller then accepted the responsibility of clearing any civilian air traffic that might be in the way of the intercept. This would allow Harris and his wingman to change their altitude and airspeed without prior coordination with Air Traffic Control. It basically gave them carte blanche to go where they wanted, when they wanted, and at any speed they required. The controller would vector other traffic away, allowing the fighters to focus on the target.
“Bingo fuel” meant the controller wanted to know when the fighters were running low on gas. That way she could begin to coordinate for other F-16s to come out and continue to escort the bombers, assuming that they hadn’t turned around by that time.
Just then Harris caught a glimmer in the distance. He scanned the airspace in the general direction of the flash that had caught his eye. Then he saw them, two dark shadows in close formation, 14,000 feet below him. They were still about twelve miles out. He kept them in sight as they closed the distance between them. When the Blackjacks had passed underneath, he rolled his fighter inverted and watched the bombers for just a second while he hung upside down in his seat.
Then with a short, “Daggers push… now” he declared the intercept on. Pulling back on his stick, his fighter began to pull down into a steep dive. He allowed the F-16’s nose to track earthward for a few seconds, building up speed in his dive.
At 520 knots he began to pull back hard on his stick. He felt his G-suit compress tightly around his abdomen and thighs in an effort to keep as much blood as possible from draining from his head. Harris strained against the force of the Gs as he pulled the nose of his fighter back up to the horizon. He glanced at his radar once again to check the position of his wingman, already in his climb.
Harris rolled out level, not more than four hundred feet from the bombers. He glanced over to see that his wingman was already in position, directly across from his leader.
“Landmass Dagger, we have you off our wing. Push back. I say again, push back. You are violating our space.”
Harris didn’t acknowledge, but he did pull out a little on the bombers. He positioned himself 1,000 feet off of their left wing. He pulled up twenty feet above the Russian aircraft so that he could look across at his wingman, who had also pulled back slightly from the Blackjack’s right wing. This was where they would stay.
They didn’t plan to converse with the bombers any further. So long as they continued to maintain this distance from U.S. airspace they would just hang out, watching them as they plodded along.
It was only a few minutes later that the bombers were ready to turn around. They had seen what they wanted to see. There wasn’t much use in pressing any further now that they had a chance to evaluate the Americans’ air defense capabilities.
So, without announcing their intentions, the bombers began a gentle left hand turn to the north. The F-16s stayed in the same position on their wing all through the turn. They would stay with the Blackjacks as they tracked up the coast until they had passed north of the coast of Maine.