In May 1982, Peter Lamborghini had been assigned as technical advisor to the Israeli Air Force (IAF) when it took delivery on eight new F-16 Falcons, fresh out of the Fort Worth General Dynamics plant. As part of his duties, he flew with the Israeli pilots as they debugged and ironed out the kinks of their new aircraft (in the automobile business, this is called "dealer prep").
Peter chose an inopportune time to arrive in the Middle East— just two weeks before the Israelis mounted their incursion into southern Lebanon, when tensions in the region were white hot. The day before the Israeli Army went into full mobilization, he was upstairs checking out weapon systems on a newly delivered Falcon, along with an IAF captain as his wingman. The two F-16s were flying low and slow, just heading out over the Mediterranean, when four Russian-built MiG-21 Fishbed fighters screamed out of Syria and crossed over the Golan Heights. Peter didn't speak Hebrew, so he paid little attention when his companion exchanged some excited gibberish over the IAF air warning frequency. Then with a start, the Israeli streaked northeast on an intercept vector, while transmitting a terse "Come with me!" in English. Operating purely on instinct, Peter shoved his own throttles to the stops and followed. He was smack in the middle of a dogfight with the MiG-21 s before he realized what he'd been drawn into.
The Syrian MiG dove on the American from a high angle of attack, with its single 30mm cannon blazing. Peter saw the tracer rounds whiz by his cockpit; but instead of jinking away to evade and then reengage his adversary, he put the Falcon on its tail and pointed the nose directly at the oncoming Fishbed.
Besides a complement of missiles, the F-16 is armed with a General Electric M61 A-l Vulcan 20mm cannon that looks like a latter-day Gatling gun. When activated, the Vulcan's six barrels rotate and fire simultaneously, and they can run through six thousand rounds of ammunition in a mere sixty seconds. It is an awesome weapon. However, the 20mm shells are quite heavy, so the F-16 carries only 515 rounds in its magazine when it goes aloft. That means the Falcon can spit out its entire load of ammunition in just five seconds — which is exacdy what Peter did. He waggled the F-16's hand controller and mashed the red firing button at the same time. This put the muzzle of the Vulcan in a spiral pattern that sprayed the air with a wall of 20mm slugs — a wall through which the MiG-21 had to pass. As the Syrian Fishbed shot past him, Peter caught a glimpse of its shattered canopy.
The American didn't waste a millisecond trying to confirm his kill, but immediately started looking for other MiGs. He spied one coming across his beam at a distance of about four miles and began to close the gap. But before he could line up his targeting circle (called a "pipper") on the Syrian plane, the Fishbed erupted in flames before him. His Israeli wingman had gotten there first.
The two remaining MiGs did a 180-degree turn and scooted back for the Syrian border; and at that point, in a technical diplomatic sense, Peter should have broken off the engagement and returned to base. But he didn't. Instinct and training — and anger — had taken over.
The American scanned the sky. "How many were there?" he demanded.
"Four," responded the Israeli. "Two left."
Peter illuminated his Falcon's Westinghouse AN/APG-66 digital pulse Doppler radar and scanned the airspace for the retreating Fishbeds. The radar connected, flashing the range, position, and speed of the bandits onto his head-up display. He kicked in the Falcon's Pratt & Whitney F100 turbofan afterburner to pursue, and his Israeli wingman followed.
Peter closed the gap and spied one of the MiGs as it headed for cover in a cloud bank of giant thunderheads. The Syrian pilot was no fool. His own equipment had detected the radar surveillance, and he wanted to at least get out of visual range and into some protective concealment. Conversely, Peter had to close within visual range because his Falcon was armed with infrared, not radar-guided, missiles. The American peered through the head-up display and started to line up his shot, but it was a struggle to put the targeting "pipper" on the Fishbed's jinking Tlimansky engine tailpipe. Then finally, just as his Falcon crossed into Syrian airspace, Peter heard the familiar grrrrrrrr of the AIM-9L Sidewinder in his headphones, and he let the missile fly. A split second before the MiG plunged into the cloud bank, it disappeared in a puffball of yellow and orange flame. There was no chute.
Peter yanked his F-16 quickly back toward Israel. He knew the Syrians possessed the deadly effective SA-6 Gainful surface-to-air missile, and he wanted to hightail it out of there before any Syrian battery commanders could lock on to him. He'd seen all the SAMs he ever wanted to see over North Vietnam, and they'd scared him shitless.
In his after-action report to the Department of the Air Force, Lamborghini took pains to explain that he did not understand the Hebrew language, and honestly didn't know what was afoot until he saw the Fishbed MiG diving on him. Then it was a matter of self-defense. Up to a point. Perhaps he should have reined himself in before crossing the Syrian border; but after all, he'd been trained as a fighter pilot for the better part of fifteen years. What did the Air Force expect?
The Air Force accepted the report without comment and buried it deep. Way deep. The slaughter and mutilation of innocent women and children in the Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camps by Israeli-sponsored Phalangists had evoked a great revulsion in the United States toward the incursion into Lebanon. The last thing the Air Force needed was an AP story about how an American pilot had shot down some Syrian planes — one of them over Syrian airspace — while in the cockpit of an Israeli fighter. No. That just would not do. And if the Air Force disciplined Lamborghini for violating Syrian airspace, there was always the danger he might get miffed and go public about the incident. That wouldn't do either. So the report went into the bottom of the Omega vault. Never to see the light of day, ever again. And in the world's eyes, Peter Lamborghini never made it to "ace."
The wheels of the Talon squealed as they touched down on the Vandenberg runway.
The space shuttle possessed a mind-numbing array of exotic systems that all had to work properly if the spacecraft was to leave the ground, and the responsibility for checking all of those systems and subsystems — from the fuel cell heat exchanger to the on-board computers — fell on the shoulders of the pad manager. That is why Jacob Classen (white-haired and antsy even in the best of times) bought and consumed aspirin and Rolaids by the six-pack. He was constantly haunted by the image of that one switch left off when it was supposed to be on, by the loose wrench dropped inside the external tank, or by the valve that didn't close when it was supposed to. The strain was enough to make a religious man turn to drink, or make a drinking man turn to religion.
Classen was as careful as they came. He never, ever, had gotten over the Challenger. If another shuttle ever went down, he swore it wasn't going to be because somebody on his pad screwed the pooch. That's why he insisted on employing the best technicians, and rotated them during prelaunch to ensure they got enough rest. Bleary-eyed technicians were bound to make mistakes. He also employed a first-class deputy pad manager by the name of Ed Garvey to be his resident son of a bitch. On the pad, Classen was the "good guy," while Garvey was the "bad guy," who kicked ass, jumped up and down, and screamed to make sure all the ducks were in the proper rows before launch.