“November-two-four has initiated attack runs. We have him gaining altitude above grid-reference three-two-bravo slash seven-nine-echo,” the radar console operator read off the numbers from the screen. Verma was already on the satellite communications link with the operations commander at WAC:
“This is Eagle-Eye-One actual. We show enemy strike package November-two-four initiating attack runs. November-two-five through eight still southbound with AWACS support.”
By this time, Air-Marshal Bhosale was monitoring the air situation personally along with his staff. It was the beginning of a long night for all of them. The giant digital map overlay in the operations center showed everybody exactly what the Phalcon radar was seeing. And it was getting very crowded up there…
“Who do we have up today to greet the reds?” Bhosale asked.
“Three Mig-29s from Leh inbound to greet the single J-10 attacking Shiquanhe in case it gets any closer to the border. Three Su-30 escorts from Eagle-Eye-One flight have assumed BARCAP positions and we have another four Su-30s heading north to assist. Eagle-Eye-One is being pulled south,” Bhosale’s operations chief replied as he read off the details from recent memory.
“Good. Pass the word: I want weapons tight on this one. No mistakes,” Bhosale said and turned his gaze to the real-time updating data on screen. The aircraft were rapidly approaching the border from both sides…
Leh airbase had been unusually busy ever since the crisis in Tibet had escalated to the threat of military clashes with China. The Indian Army was surging forward larger number of units into the Ladakh sectors. The IAF was doing its best to ensure a solid logistical node existed for those units at Leh. As such, the number of flights inbound and outbound from Leh was immense. Between the transport flights during the day, the helicopter and UAV operations by the resident units at the airbase and the fighter operations by the Mig-29s of No. 28 Squadron, the traffic pattern over the airbase was almost always filled to capacity these days.
But one section of the airbase was removed from the chaos of these operations. Amidst a bunch of high-tech trailers at the end of the airbase covered with camouflage nettings, were a group of men whose job demanded discretion. Their unmanned aircraft were deployed near to the trailers and were put in small protective shelters. An acute observer at the airbase might have noticed that one of those shelters was wide empty tonight.
The person wearing a green flight overall put down the phone in one of the trailers and walked up behind the other two sitting in their seats and staring intently at several small digital screens in front of them. One of these men had his right hand sitting on a small black joystick hard-fitted into the console. He deftly piloted the unmanned aircraft from his seat inside this trailer. His partner on this mission sat next to him, staring into a screen of his own but with a different view. This latter person was the operator for the drone’s electro-optical systems that scanned the terrain below. It was this screen that the two other men in the room wearing similar green flight-suits were interested in.
“That guy must have wiped out half of the village in that first run,” the EO operator noted to the two senior men. One of the two men, with a balding head bordered with thinning white hair, leaned forward at the screen and then nodded in agreement:
“Indeed! An absolute lunatic. He might have killed some of his own people in there. Not a good sign of FAC coordination.”
The EO operator switched the view from visual to thermal. Now the screen showed the black and white live-feed video. The screen was showing the struggle of the TI data computer to resolve and correct for the fluctuations in light as white color fireballs raced into the sky and then turned black again in seconds.
Three hundred kilometers away and ten thousand feet above them, a Heron unmanned aircraft was silently flying over south-eastern Tibet with its eyes pointed downwards as part of a covert intelligence gathering mission. Part of this mission tasking involved collecting intelligence on PLA dispositions that would later end up in the hands of Lieutenant-Colonel Gephel and his team on the ground below. It was no mistake that they were over the same terrain where Gephel and his team had been expected to meet up with local Tibetan informants before the PLA battalions had ruined that party. So now the high endurance aircraft was orbiting over the village of Shiquanhe, observing from above what Gephel and his team had seen firsthand. But while the latter were now escaping to the north on foot, the Heron crew at Leh was recording on their cameras the devastating J-10 strike against the village outskirts that had left dozens of buildings destroyed or on fire.
The skies were getting crowded and they had just received word from their contacts within Military Intelligence that Chinese airborne radars had been detected on their way south towards the border. With a powerful Chinese airborne radar aircraft entering the skies, and enemy fighters approaching, it was time to leave.
The Heron pilot inside the trailer at Leh now pushed the joystick slightly to the right while his eyes remained fixed to the HUD display in front of him. On this display he was essentially seeing what the Heron was seeing. The Heron was quick to respond to the remote pilot commands and it banked to the right before initiating a southern turn. The view on the remote pilot’s optics confirmed the same.
As the Heron initiated its escape, two hundred kilometers to the north four Chinese Su-27s tore through the skies on their way south…
Ten thousand feet above the snow clad mountains of Tibet, and three hundred and fifty kilometers away from its Indian counterpart, a ‘red’ IL-76 based AWACS, the KJ-2000, tore through the cold rarefied air on its way south. Its dorsal mounted airborne radar was fully active, and inside the aircraft fifteen PLAAF officers awaited the first contacts to appear on their screens. It didn’t take long. The lone J-10 near the border with India was soon picked up on active systems, though the passive ones suggested that there were Indian aircraft also in the skies further south, most notably the Phalcon AWACS. The small airframe of the escaping Heron UAV was not picked up at this range, however. The Chinese commander on board rubbed his eyes as he walked over to the lead radar officer. Contact was imminent now…
The three Indian Mig-29 Fulcrum fighters under the command of Squadron-Leader Khurana were flying just over the peaks as they dashed to the southeast to barricade the lone Chinese J-10 just over the border. Rough geographical features and the curving nature of the horizon prevented their detection by enemy radar. But that was about to change. They were approaching the border now, and it was time to show themselves to the other side…
“Okay boys, time to look sharp. Weapons tight. Follow me in,” Khurana spoke to the other two pilots over the radio before gently pulling back on the control stick. The aircraft nosed up and lifted effortlessly into the higher air, and almost immediately the threat picture lit up.
The on-board Radar-Warning-Receiver or RWR bleeped an audio warning into the ears of the three pilots as the emissions from the Chinese AWACS saturated the skies. Khurana looked instinctively to his left to see the threat far to the north, but of course the skies were as dark as ever with only stars above and the rocky peaks below.
He knew this was deceptive. There were Su-27s out there somewhere, potentially flanking his flight of three. But his job was to keep his eyes peeled for the single J-10 doing mud-moving work in the hills to the east and leave the Su-27 threat for the Indian Su-30MKIs also sharing the skies with him over Ladakh.