Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, From the Red Baron to the F-16 (72 page)

“Toxic Three is contact . . . Bull’s-eye one four five for sixty-nine.” Good number, he smiled.

“That’s Ozark.” He didn’t need to say more because he knew Toxic locked him. There were two Hornets at 21,000 feet heading northwest at 425 knots. “We’re Joker plus one so not much time.”

The Viper pilot nodded. Joker fuel usually gave about five minutes of tactical flying before Bingo was reached and that meant leaving. “Copy that . . . we’ll skip the Five Line. Call contact on the north-south hardball road off your nose.”

He pulled the power back to hold 400 knots and continued turning left. The Navy fighters were visible just above the horizon, about five miles off his nose.

“Ozark’s visual on the Vipers . . . contact on the road.”

Good. The Hornet lead saw Toxic and the target. He zippered the mike, rolling out heading north on the east side of the highway. “Look north toward the city till you see a cloverleaf intersection with an east-west hardball road.”

“Contact.”

Scorch watched the two F/A-18s pass off his nose about a mile heading west. He continued northbound across their tails, then angled off eastward toward the air base at Salman Pak. “Ozark . . . there’s a green east-west canal south of the cloverleaf that cuts the road.”

“Contact.”

“Between that canal and the cloverleaf is a line of ten APCs . . . that’s your target.”

Scorch flipped his fuel switch to check the wing tanks then eyeballed his HTS pod. It was cluttered with radars, all off to his right toward Baghdad. Expanding the view didn’t help, it was still full of threats. His RWR sounded like a nest of angry birds chirping away. He took a breath. There was no way to tell with all these electrons flying back and forth. Back to using eyeball, he chuckled grimly. The SAMs were out there . . . but so was he.

“Contact the APCs.” The Hornet driver was good. Calm and precise. He’d obviously done this a few times before. He was running out of gas, though, so this had to be quick. That’s why they’d dispensed with the whole elaborate Five or Nine Line procedure normally used for this sort of thing. That and there were no friendly troops down there.

Yet.

But that was the point of all this. The Army was moving up from the south and the Marines were coming in from the east in a big pincer around Baghdad. Any Iraqis that showed their faces had to die. That went doubly for SAMs and Triple-A of any kind. Ground forces depended on helicopters for movement, reconnaissance and supplies. With any type of SAM or gun threat the helos would die wholesale.

And we can’t have that.

“Ozark, vehicles are your target. No friendlies in the vicinity.”

“Ozark copies, no friendlies.”

Fighters were always very careful about this. It was too easy to mistake vehicles at 450 knots—especially when they were shooting at you. Scorch nodded. “You’re cleared hot, your discretion . . . any altitude . . . stay west and south of the roads and call off. Toxic is north and east of the roads fifteen to nineteen.”

Five miles away the Marine pilot nodded. Major Mark Larsen had done this many times before and obviously so had this Viper driver. He was putting himself between the Hornets and Baghdad . . . bait. Larsen glanced at his card and started a wide, left turn. Toxic . . . two F-16CJs. He nodded again—Wild Weasels. That would explain why they were sitting up there looking pretty for the SAMs. Well, that was their problem. His was killing Iraqis. Pushing up the throttles, Larsen keyed his interflight UHF radio.

“Two . . . the wind is from the south so you hit the southern edge of the line. I’ll get the north.”

That way the smoke and dust from his bombs wouldn’t ruin his wingman’s picture. The radio clicked and he began an easy slice to center up his symbology. “Ozarks are in from the south.”

“Cleared hot,” Scorch immediately replied and began a left-hand turn, into Baghdad, from the east side of the highway. “Head’s up,” he said on the common frequency. “Flares.”

He wasn’t watching the F-18s, he was watching the ground. Hopefully, anything down there would see him, not the Hornets. To help them out, he popped out a few flares.

Fifteen miles southwest, the Marines saw the string of flares and Larsen smiled. He knew exactly what the Viper pilot was doing. Gutsy. Then he concentrated on his attack . . . there’d only be one shot at this.

Scorch didn’t have data link with the Hornets but he listened to the radio calls and saw the attack in his head. The Marines had called in from southwest and were probably just over the Euphrates, heading northeast. Toxic just crossed the Tigris and was headed west toward the cloverleaf.

Flashes. All up and down the road. Big stuff, no tracers. He pumped over, paused, then slid sideways. “Triple-A . . . along the road north of the cloverleaf.” Repeating the maneuver every five seconds or so, Scorch continuously looked between his HTS pod and the ground. Popcorn clouds appeared, pretty close to his altitude but farther back. They couldn’t see him so it had to be radar guided.

Dropping his eyes to the radar, he saw the little white squares off to his left some seven miles away. That’s about right, he did the math, not wanting to lock them up. Dozens of fires were burning in Baghdad and more SAMs came up to the east side. None turned, though, so they were busy with someone else. Dora Farms was plain to see just below the big donkey dick bend of the river. That’s where it all started this time, what . . . five weeks ago?

“Ozarks are off target . . . east. Twenty Kay.”

Zipping over the Tigris just north of the cloverleaf. Scorch stared to the south and caught one of the F/A-18s in the pull-off. Then the other, probably five miles from him. Banking up slightly, he craned his neck over the canopy rail at the city, looking for SAMs. If they were coming it would be now.

Nothing.

Risking a glance back at the target, he was keying the mike when he saw it. The unmistakable brownish white plume of a SAM . . . from the cloverleaf! The Hornet pilot saw it too, judging by the stream of flares.

“Toxic Two, attacking . . . south Bull fifty.”

Outstanding. Kid didn’t have to be told. Scorch keyed the mike, “Missile launch! Bull one eight five for fifty-five.” Slamming the throttle forward, he cranked over and pulled six g’s to get the Viper moving.

“Ozark’s defending . . . SA-6.” The Marine sounded very calm considering he had a SAM up his ass.

“Toxic Two, Magnum Six . . .”

Just then the road south of the intersection blew up. A brown cloud shot upward with thicker, black edges mushrooming out on all sides. Something heavier that was square on one end went flipping off into the desert. Looked like the Hornet’s scored.

Scorch’s butt lifted off the seat as he bunted forward, slapped the throttle back and pointed directly at the cloverleaf. The huge white smoke trail from the HARM came off his wingman’s jet two miles away, porpoised, then nosed over at the ground. Suddenly another SAM shot up, moving incredibly fast.

Not like the older stuff.
Scorch leaned forward, staring down at the road intersection. With his left thumb he slewed the little diamond in the HUD down the smoke to the ground where it came from, then jabbed the Target Management Switch forward with his right thumb. The diamond jumped and stayed right on the spot.

“Toxic One’s attacking, south Bull fifty.”

His eye flickered to the MASTER ARM switch, selected Air-to-Ground and then checked the HUD . . . 490 knots, passing 15,200 feet. Pulling the throttle back to IDLE, he streamed out a decoy and punched out a few bundles of chaff. The right MFD glowed gray but the darker black on white Maverick symbology was plain to see. He had two of the big guided missiles; one infrared heat tracker and one that used electro-optical tracking. It looked like a black-and-white TV screen.

“Ozarks are clear to the east . . . thanks Toxic,” the Marine added.

“Ya got a good hit,” Scorch replied. “I’ll pass the BDA.”

Battle Damage Assessment was vital so other flights weren’t risked hitting the same targets. Never taking his eyes off the cloverleaf, he stared through the Maverick seeker head and flew by feel. The whole area was cluttered with wrecked vehicles and garbage.

Then suddenly one of them moved.

He saw the pointed ends of the missiles and smiled as the thing slid back into the shadows. That’s where the little fucker is . . .
under
the overpass. No wonder nobody saw him. He’d hide in the shadows, radar off, taking information feeds from the hundred other radars up. Probably visual sightings too. Every gomer down there had binoculars. Then he’d dart out like a crab, turn on, lock, shoot, and scuttle back. Bet that’s how they got the Hog a few days ago.

With his right forefinger he switched to the IR Maverick and changed the missile’s polarity to hot on cold . . . and there it was. The metal was fairly cool but the engine was running, giving a nice hot smudge to track.

He did the rough calculations in his head: 5.2 miles, 6,900 pounds of gas, passing 12,000 feet, and 510 knots . . . too fast. He fanned open the speed brakes, then closed them. The Viper immediately shuddered and slowed to 480 knots. He did it again and keyed the mike. “Toxic Two . . . Slapshot Six.”

Closing the brakes, he pushed the throttle up and held 450 knots. Delicately moving the little cross, he kept it over the hot engine and released the switch.

“Toxic Two . . . Magnum Six.”

Not bothering to look up, he saw the symbology yaw over to one side, away from the vehicle.
Shit . . .
didn’t lock.

4.1 miles.

He pressed and slewed again. 9,000 feet and 460 knots. Nudging the throttle back slightly, he released the TMS then slapped out more chaff. The tiny orange indicator lights counted down but he never saw them. This time the cross hairs “bounded” the target. They wavered a bit but held steady as the Maverick calculated microns, contrasted heat differences and whatever else it did.

Angling down through 6,000 feet at 3.8 miles he pushed and held the red pickle button on the stick. A long half second passed, then the Viper lurched sideways like it had been kicked. The AGM-65 slid off the rail, spewing smoke, then instantly arced over and raced toward the shadows under the overpass.

“BEEP . . . BEEP . . . BEEP . . .”

Shit.

Gun Dish fire control radar. Close!

Scorch shoved the throttle into MIL power, popped chaff and pulled up in a hard, rolling turn back to the west, away from the road, the ground troops, and Baghdad. As the nose came up through the horizon, he bunted forward, grunted as his helmet whacked the canopy, then snapped the jet left.

It was a good thing he did.

Colored whips of tracer fire passed behind and below him. Twitching his tail the other way, Scorch pulled straight up, then rolled back to the southwest, sweating. Crossing the Euphrates at 10,000 feet, he began a left turn and looked at his fuel: 6,100 pounds.

Thumbing the transmit switch outboard, the data link crinkled in his headset and Toxic Two appeared on the MFD. He was on the other side of highway, off to the east by ten miles.

“Two, did you see the last burst of Triple-A?”

“Rog . . . came from the cloverleaf.”

It was a Zoose, he knew—a ZSU-23-4 anti-aircraft weapon system, radar guided, with high-rate-of-fire anti-aircraft guns mounted on an all-terrain vehicle. Very mobile and very nasty. Scorch took a deep breath. If it could threaten him in a Viper, what would it do to an A-10? Or an Apache helicopter?

“Say fuel.”

“Five-point-nine.”

“Confirm you’re clean?”

“Two’s clean.” Scorch stared at the glowing Gun Dish symbol on his RWR. The thing was only looking at him. Of course, there could be another one, but he had to go with what he could see.

“Listen up . . . arc northeast of the road four miles from the cloverleaf. Turn in when I clear you and empty your gun under the overpass. Come off to your right.”

“Two copies.” Four miles. Thirty seconds at this speed.

Scorch punched up the GUN symbology and checked his decoy. Still there. Racking the fighter up, he popped out chaff and stared sideways out at the road before slicing back. He was about five miles from the cloverleaf, passing through 9,000 feet and angling in from the southwest. He’d rather attack straight up the road, but that meant overflying the Iraqi shooters on the highway.

Pulling the power back to midrange, he held the speed steady at 450 knots. Dumping the nose a bit, Scorch knew he have to shallow the dive out to shoot under the overpass. Crossing some canals, the corners of the pilot’s eyes picked up the terrain changes from mottled darks to a shade of moldy green.

Three miles. 3,000 feet.

Popping more chaff, he put the bigger gun pipper between another canal and the cloverleaf. The chatter on the radio faded to a dull hum as Iraq slid up to meet him. At two miles and 3,000 feet he keyed the mike.

“Toxic Two . . . cleared in!”

The radio zippered. He stopped bunting forward and let the pipper slowly rise. Passing 1,000 feet the Viper was a mile from the overpass. He could see vehicles in the ditches on both sides of the highway, men running as the American fighter roared in above them. Scorch flashed over the last canal at 300 feet as the pipper rose into the darkness under the overpass. Bunting, pausing and holding his breath, he squeezed the trigger. The roaring whine of the 20 mm M61 cannon filled his ears and he held the jet rock steady.

It clattered on empty as he zipped over an orchard, so low he could see the irrigation pipes. Yanking the nose up, he rolled right, jammed the throttle up to MIL, popped chaff with flares, and pulled eight g’s to the right toward the road. Snapping upright, Scorch kept the Viper at 300 feet and thundered across the highway. From the corner of his eye he saw dust and chunks of concrete fly off the cloverleaf as five hundred 20 mm cannon shells smashed into it.

“BEEP . . . BEEP . . . BEEP.”

The RWR was frantic, still the Gun Dish. But no SA-6, he realized, twitching his tail right, then left. Right over another canal . . . great way out. No Triple-A. Cranking up to the left, he followed the greenish water due east away from the road.