“Then take the kill and come join on me and we’ll get the second bandit,” Sivarek said.
“Roger,” the wingman said. He immediately switched to Sidewinder missiles, got a locked-on tone seconds later — the Backfire’s two big Kuznetov turbofans, developing almost fifty-six thousand pounds of thrust each in afterburner, were pumping out plenty of heat-and “fired.” “Missile away, two miles,” the wingman said. No need to start a stopwatch — missile flight time would be mere seconds at this range. “Good kill.”
“Give him a flyby, then come join on me, zero-four-five at sixty-two bull’s-eye, angels minus ten.”
“My pleasure, boss,” the wingman said. He cobbed the throttle to zone three afterburner, flew less than two hundred feet above the Tupolev-22M bomber, waited until he was clear, did two barrel rolls right in front of the Backfire’s cockpit windscreen, then started a fast climb. Easy kill against what was once the most feared air-breathing weapon in the Soviet arsenal.
The wingman let his speed build until he went supersonic, sending a crashing sonic shock wave washing over the bomber. That should wake him up. He then did a victory roll right in front of him, then pitched up and climbed out back to patrol altitude.
One down, one to go.
The threat warning receiver bleeped, displaying a bat-wing enemy-aircraft symbol on the God’s-eye display with range, heading, altitude, and airspeed information. “We got company,” Patrick announced to Rebecca. He reactivated the laser radar and took another “snapshot” of the skies around them. “They’re both after the second Sila.”
“We gonna let him get shot down, too?” Rebecca asked sarcastically.
“Let’s stick with the plan and see what happens,” Patrick said ruefully.
But with a few more flashes of the laser radar, it was obvious the Ukrainian bomber wasn’t quite up to the challenge. When the F-16s hit the Backfire with its radar, the second big Ukrainian bomber started a rapid yet normal descent — wings level, lots of negative g’s to blur the pilot’s vision, and no steep-bank or inverted maneuvers to increase the descent rate. Patrick even suspected the Backfire bomber’s pilot of pulling back on the throttles instead of pegging airspeed right at the max, as if he was afraid of overstressing his plane. The F-16 pilots had an easy attack run, and seconds later recorded a successful AIM-7 radar-guided missile kill.
“I’ve seen airline captains make more aggressive maneuvers with three hundred paying passengers on their plane,” Rebecca observed. “Sheesh, does he want to get shot down? He have an urge to see an F-16 up close?” It certainly did look as if this new set of attacks on the Backfire bomber were going to be a walk in the park for the skilled Turkish pilots. “What more do you need to see, General?” Rebecca added. “The Turks are going to die of boredom if we don’t do something.”
“Okay, okay, let’s do it,” Patrick said finally. On the interplane frequency, he called out, “Sila Zero-Two, bandits are at your twelve to one o’clock, thirty miles and closing at five hundred eighty knots.”
“Acknowledged, Vampire. We have them on threat receiver. Commencing attack.”
“Show me something, boys,” Patrick radioed. To the attack computer, he ordered, “Ready Wolverine, attack route Alpha, sensor response, datalink active.”
“Ready Wolverine, safe all,” the computer responded, adding the recommended stop-attack order; then: “Attack route Alpha confirmed, all sensors active, sensor response active, datalink active. Launch one Wolverine.”
“Launch one Wolverine,” Patrick ordered.
“Warning, launch order received, stop launch … Launch sequence commencing, midbay doors opening partial … missile away … launcher ready … doors closed.”
Patrick waited fifteen seconds until after the last Wolverine cruise missile had launched and the bomb doors closed, then keyed the secure primary UHF radio mike switch and said, “Sila Zero-Two, this is Vampire Zero-One, you are clear to the target. Good hunting.”
“Acknowledged, Vampire,” a thickly accented Slavic voice responded. “Prosteesiya haryachiy. We are target inbound and weapons are hot.”
Both Rebecca and Patrick watched as their wingman took spacing and prepared for its descent. “What a monster that sucker is,” Patrick breathed.
“It’s a piece of shit,” Rebecca murmured.
“Maybe not,” Patrick added proudly. “Give me a budget and a couple months, and I think I can make that big mother sing.”
“The million-dollar question is: why?” Rebecca asked. “Ukraine can’t afford to outfit their Backfire bombers like a Megafortress — that’s at least thirty million dollars a copy, and those planes don’t look like they’re worth it. The crews will take years to train in advanced bomber strike tactics. Who’s going to pay for all this? Hell, our new president is downsizing our military like crazy, and he doesn’t believe in helping foreign countries — he’s not going to pay it.”
“That’s not my concern, Rebecca,” Patrick said. “If they give me a budget to convert Backfires to Megafortresses, and train their crews on how to use them, I’ll do it. I’ll have the baddest-ass group of flyers in the neighborhood. I guarantee it.”
Well, well, Erdal Sivarek thought, finally these Ukrainian pilots are showing him something. He had locked up the second Ukrainian bomber on radar with ease, and immediately the second target started a rapid descent, over ten thousand feet per minute and steadily increasing. Very impressive. Maybe the Ukrainians knew how to fly evasive maneuvers after all.
The radar box quickly danced to the right side of Sivarek’s HUD, and he had to turn hard right to keep the target within the radar cone so the AIM-7 Sparrow missile could home in on it. That was odd — aircraft at this range normally did not move that quickly across the radarscope. The enemy aircraft was sending out jamming signals, but Sivarek’s F-16’s anti-jamming electronics were successful at hopping to another clear frequency and maintaining a lock …
… right up to the moment when the target suddenly junked left and skittered across the HUD in the other direction. Sivarek reversed his turn again, but it was too late — the target had jinked right off the scope. Somehow it had maneuvered hard enough to beat an F-16, probably the most maneuverable aircraft in the world, and completely disappear from sight!
“Yyuz bir kor!” Sivarek called out. “One-oh-one has lost contact!”
“Lead, I’ve lost visual with you!” Sivarek’s wingman called out. It was understandable — it was bound to happen after all that hard maneuvering. “I’m at five thousand meters, climbing to high patrol altitude.”
“Tabii, “ Sivarek replied, consciously forcing himself to slow his breathing to keep from hyperventilating. They had at least five hundred meters’ altitude separation — they weren’t going to collide. “I’m trying to reacquire the target now.” He turned immediately to the target’s initial heading and swept the skies with his radar, trying to spot the target again. Obviously, the AIM-7 missile wouldn’t track without a radar lock, so he had wasted his last Sparrow missile. He felt foolish losing the target. But he quickly choked that thought away. No time to punish himself. Reacquire and kill the bastard, he ordered himself, then figure out why he lost him in the first place when he was back on the ground.