I wondered how many admirals after me would experience this same temptation that technology now provided us, this yearning to try to coach the pilots through each air-to-air engagement. I'd almost made a fatal mistake, giving orders to Thor while he was in the air. I hoped the guy ― or woman, eventually ― that followed me would do better than I had.
Thor broke off with a dizzying series of barrel rolls that swapped open sky every other second. Then the camera steadied down, surveying the clear sky dotted with aircraft. It swung back and forth slowly as Thor assessed the current state of the battle and selected his next target. Then it steadied down again, rock hard, on a single MiG diving into the engagement from on high.
The shape grew larger quickly now as Thor kicked in the afterburner. Soon the MiG filled the camera screen, the sleek, deadly aircraft jetting gouts of its own afterburner fire out the tailpipes. The camera bobbled unsteadily as Thor hit the jet wash. He was too far away for guns and too close for Sidewinders. I could tell what he was thinking now ― trying to decide whether he should pull back and let loose the Sparrow, or simply press on in with the guns. In the end, he made the same decision I would have, pitched up in a hard, gray-out-inducing climb, then pivoted back down into position.
Not that the MiG was waiting for him. He'd cut, rolled, and gone into a long climbing loop intended to place him in position on Thor. The two craft passed each other belly-to-belly on opposite ends of the altitude-airspeed curve. Thor rolled out of the turn, converting his downward movement into a sharp, breaking curve to the right. The MiG rolled out of his climb and dove to meet him.
I groaned out loud watching it, seeing the inevitable fighter geometry take shape. The MiG was behind Thor now, closing rapidly and maneuvering so that the bright heat of Thor's tailpipes would serve as a perfect missile synch.
Thor sensed the same thing, because he broke hard in a roll, cutting inside the MiG's arc of turn and jockeying back into position himself.
That was the essential difference between a Hornet-on-MiG engagement and a Tomcat-on-MiG engagement. In the first, the battle tended to take place in a vertical plane since the aircraft were evenly matching power and agility. With the Tomcat, you use your greater power to gain a height advantage, keeping the MiG from cutting inside your turns as Thor had just done.
The MiG pitched nose-down and headed for the deck. It was a last-ditch maneuver, one designed to shake the hard lock of a Sidewinder on its tailpipes.
Thor was too quick for it. I saw first one Sidewinder, then the other leap off his wings and streak unerringly for the MiG.
The camera caught just the upper edge of the explosion, black and oily as it billowed burning fuel, shards of metal, and a few traces of the pilot into the serene sky.
So Thor was Winchestered now ― no, wait. He still had one Sparrow left. Would he go for it, without the potent Sidewinders as a close-in backup? He probably had some rounds left in his cannon too. I recalled the delicate way the rounds had traced their path across the hull of the MiG, and knew he hadn't shot his load on that.
Of course he'd find another one. No pilot comes back with weapons ― that's an unspoken rule.
The camera was back in that general to-and-fro hunting motion, a good retriever sniffing the air looking for prey. It took a little longer this time, but Thor picked out another one, one widely separated from the rest of the gaggle. A nasty, black cloud and the frantic cries over tactical told me why. The MiG had just nailed a Hornet and was rejoining the fray itself.
They were nose-to-nose now, each accelerating to well over Mach one. The closure rate was well over twelve hundred nautical miles per minute, increasing every second as the two aircraft accelerated. A game of chicken, one fought at seventeen thousand feet instead of on some dusty country road, but no less deadly.
Thor had the Sparrow selected, and I imagined he was hearing the high, wavering growl of the missile as it tried to obtain a lock. He was just inside the weapon's envelope, it appeared, judging from the appearance of the MiG. My mind automatically convened what I was seeing on the camera into distance.
A bright flash of light, then another missile off the wing, Thor's last.
"Break off," I said out loud. "C'mon, Thor ― you shot your load, get your ass back to the ship."
Lab Rat looked at me curiously, but said nothing. We both knew what the score was. A Hornet without weapons was simply a target waiting to happen.
But the camera stayed rock steady on the approaching MiG, tracking the missile as it bore in on him.
The MiG blinked. At what seemed the last possible second, it cut hard to the right, intending to break the radar lock and allowing the missile no time or distance to reacquire. It was a good move, one that should have worked. It almost did.
The Sparrow clipped the MiG on the canted tail structure, knocking off one portion of it. It was happening so quickly. All I saw was the thin, triangular shape tumbling away from the aircraft, then the fragments of missile pelting the air behind the MiG.
For a moment, I thought the MiG might make it. They were incredibly airworthy little beasts, and it was just possible that the pilot might be able to pull off a controlled descent, at least one long enough to give him a chance to eject.
But Thor had other plans. He was on him now, stitching the canopy and fuselage with the rapid-fire Vulcan cannon. I saw the MiG canopy shatter, bright shards of it reflecting in the hard sunlight.
The ejection seat fired. It must have been the pilot's last conscious act before the bullets penetrated the canopy and hit him. It slammed out of the aircraft at a forty-five-degree angle to the fuselage, hung in the air for a moment, and then the parachute deployed. By some miracle, the bullets hadn't shredded the ejection seat. It worked, just as its Russian designers had intended. But the pilot hung lifeless and inert below it. He and his aircraft both headed for the sea, one in a deadly flat spiral and the other drifting down gently.
"Now, Thor." I reached for the microphone. This time I would act, order the brash Marine back to the carrier rather than let him take on another MiG with his guns alone.
Evidently Thor had the same idea. The camera swung away from the battle, found the horizon, then hunted for a moment before settling on the massive shape of Jefferson.
"Admiral, look." I turned to see Lab Rat pointing at the large-screen tactical display. "It's Hunter 701 ― he's got a visual."
The NTDS ― Navy Tactical Data Display ― symbol made it clear just what Lab Rat was talking about. A submarine, classified as hostile by the S3 Viking orbiting above it. I could see the symbol for the aircraft almost superimposed on top of the hostile submarine mark.
"Well, it's about time," I said heavily. "They've got them, don't they? Why wouldn't they use them?"
"I'm putting up the ASW CRC ― the Anti-Submarine Coordination and Reporting Circuit." Lab Rat fiddled with the speakers and the dial-up box next to it. It crackled, then came to life in the middle of a sentence. "certain it's a Romeo," I heard a voice say. A familiar voice ― I strained to put a name to it.
Lab Rat saw my Questioning look and said, "Commander Steve 'Rabies' Grills, another Jefferson homesteader."
I nodded, calling up a face to match the voice. Rabies had been a regular mainstay of our ASW evolutions for the past several cruises. He was a lusty Texan, I recalled, one who drove his flight crews to sheer desperation by singing country-western songs on the ICS during their long hours on station. Another strong player, in his way just as good as Bird Dog or Thor.