… that the Mt-179 was drawing a long, thick white contrail across the night sky over the Black Sea. Illuminated by the moon, the condensation trail was bright enough to be seen for fifty miles across the clear, cold sky — bright enough to be spotted by a flight of two Republic of Turkey F-16s on a late-night air intercept training mission in the Samsun Military Operating Area off the northern coast of Turkey over the Black Sea.
The two Turkish fighters, both single-seat F-16C Block 50 models, were from the Fifth Main Jet Base, 151 Jet Filo, based at Merzifon about two hundred miles to the south. Because of weather, their training flight had been delayed several hours. For flight currency, both pilots had to complete a high-level- and low-altitude radar intercept, including flight time to and from the Military Operating Area and reserve fuel; they had to carry almost four hours’ worth of fuel, which meant they had to lug around two huge external fuel tanks, which really decreased the F-16s’ maneuverability and fun. One plane would fly out to the edge of the MOA at a particular altitude and then head inbound, and the other aircraft would try to find it and complete an intercept. The radar controllers at Merzifon monitored the intercepts and could provide some assistance, but since the purpose of the exercise was for the pilot to find the “enemy” himself, the pilots rarely asked for a vector from the ground radar controllers.
It was the last intercept of the night coming up, and after several hours of delays and nearly three hours of yanking and banking, all participants were ready to finish up and go home — their normal duty day was going to start just a few hours after landing, so the faster they finished, the more sleep time they’d get. Zodyak One, the flight leader, was the hunter, and his wingman, Zodyak Two, was the quarry. Zodyak Two was at thirty-nine thousand feet, preparing to simulate a high-speed penetration from high to low altitude, while Zodyak One was at normal patrol altitude of twenty-nine thousand feet. Their external lights were off; Zodyak One had his radar searching the sky below, while Zodyak Two as the attacker had his radar off.
The leader knew that the last intercept had to be a low-altitude one, so he was concentrating his search below him for his wingman. But it took just a few minutes for him to realize that his young wingman had snookered him, and he began to concentrate his search up high. It took him several radar sweeps to make contact before he finally locked the second F-16 up. “Orospu cocugu,” he swore to himself. “Trying to screw me up, eh?” He raised the nose of his F-16 and pushed the throttles to full military power, preparing himself to begin the chase. “Control, Zodyak One, radar contact, bogey bearing zero-two-zero bull’s-eye, range eight miles, descending from angels three-nine. I am…”
Then he saw it — a bright, fast-moving contrail, streaking eastward. It looked close enough to cause a midair collision with Zodyak Two — the guy was certainly well inside the MOA. “Knock it off! Knock it off!” the leader shouted. “Unknown aircraft in the MOA! One is level at base plus twelve.”
“Acknowledged,” Zodyak Two responded. “Level at base plus ten.”
“Control copies your knock-it-off call, Zodyak One,” the ground radar control responded. “We show no aircraft on radar, One. Say bogey airspeed and altitude.”
“Acknowledged.” The leader tried to lock his radar on the newcomer, but he could not get a radar lock-on. “Negative radar, I must have a bent radar,” he reported. “But I have a visual on his contrail. I estimate his altitude as angles four-two, heading eastbound.”
“Zodyak One, stand by.” The leader knew the controller would be on the phone to Air Force air defense headquarters. Moments later: “Zodyak flight, Control, if you can maintain visual contact, we’d like to get a look at him. Warning, we have no radar contact and cannot provide intercept vectors or safe separation. Say state.”
“Zodyak One has zero point seven hours fuel until bingo,” the flight leader said. “Dogru.”
“Zodyak Two has zero point six until bingo. Dogru too.”
“Roger. Zodyak Two, your leader is at your one o’clock, seven miles, base plus twelve. Turn right heading zero-four-five to join, maintain base plus ten. Negative radar contact on any other traffic. Zodyak flight of two is cleared MARSA tactical with unknown aircraft. Zodyak One, squawk normal. Zodyak Two, squawk normal and ident … radar contact, Zodyak Two, report when tied on and joined up with your leader, then squawk standby when within three miles.”
“Zodyak flight copies all,” the leader said. “Let’s push it up, Zodyak flight.”
“Two tied on radar. I’m in.”
Ion Stoica was jarred awake by the blare of the radar warning receiver and Gennadi Yegorov frantically shouting, “Bandit! Bandit! Twelve o’clock, range ten miles!”
“Bandit? What in hell …?” Stoica berated himself for falling asleep so deeply — he should have taken the speed pills to keep him alert. He first checked his engine, systems, and flight instruments — and noticed right away that their altitude was way too high. “Gennadi, dammit, we’re above forty-three thousand! We were briefed not to go above forty-one!”
“All I have is autopilot annunciators back here, Ion,” Yegorov retorted. “As far as I can tell, everything was fine. You set the autopilot, not me!”
Stoica knew he was right — Yegorov’s instruments would show only status and malfunctions, not settings. That was his job. They had obviously picked up another nearby aircraft who had seen them by an infrared scanner or by their contrails. He had to get away from him fast.
“X-band pulse-Doppler fire-control radar, twelve o’clock, six miles-shit, I think we picked up a Turkish F-16,” Yegorov said. He searched his rearview mirror. “Contrails! We’re making contrails!”
“Hang on!” Stoica pulled the throttles to idle, rolled the Mt-179 almost inverted, and started a steep left turning descent. He turned exactly ninety degrees to his original heading, which should blind a pulse-Doppler radar system. If the tailpipes could cool down and if they could spoof the radar, they could make a descending dash across the Black Sea and get away. It was their only chance. They could not outrun an F- 16; and this close to Turkey, the other aircraft probably had more fuel.
This was not good at all.
“He maneuvered as soon as we locked him up on radar,” the flight leader said on the command channel. “He must have a radar warning receiver. He’s trying to notch left, fly away from the Turkish coast and blank himself out.” He had already anticipated a left turn, and he simply turned with him. The F-16’s radar never broke lock.
“Zodyak Two has music,” the second F-16 reported. Jamming signals. Definitely a hostile aircraft.
“Control, Zodyak flight, our bandit has notched in response to our radar lock, and it now appears he’s attempting to jam our radars,” the flight leader reported. “We’re both dogru at this time.” The word meant “correct,” but in reality it meant, “We have no weapons at all. How about getting some help up here?”
“Roger, Zodyak flight, an air defense emergency has been declared,” the ground radar controller reported. “Cekic One-Zero-One flight of two is airborne, ETA ten minutes.”
“Roger,” the flight leader responded. The air defense strip alert birds got off the ground fast, but ten minutes was far too long. In ten minutes, this guy could be in Georgia or Russia. But they had him for now — there was no way they’d let him go without getting a look at him. “Zodyak flight will be bingo fuel in fifteen minutes, so we’ll stick with him until Cekic gets here.” He switched to the number-two radio and set the UHF GUARD channel. “Let’s give him a call and see if he’s in a cooperative mood tonight.”