SR-71 — Extremely high-altitude (hundred thousand feet), highspeed (Mach three) strategic reconnaissance aircraft, the fastest air-breathing aircraft on Earth. Can photograph one hundred thousand square miles of the Earth’s surface an hour.
STALL — A condition when a wing can no longer produce lift. Usually occurs when airflow on top of an airfoil (wing) is disrupted or breaks free from the airfoil by slow speed, low power or high alpha (angle-of-attack) flight conditions.
STOL — Short Takeoff and Landing. A combination of high-lift wings and vectored-thrust engines to produce very short (less than one-thousand-foot) takeoff and landing distances, three hundred to five hundred percent shorter than normal.
SUPERCOCKPIT — A combination of computer graphics, multifunction displays, high-speed computers, voice-recognition and sight-pointing switch-activation systems that improve efficiency, integrate numerous battle management information sources and decrease pilot workload in a modern combat aircraft’s cockpit.
TACAN — Tactical Air Navigation. A ground or aircraft based radio used mainly by the military to provide distance and bearing information between two aircrafts or between an aircraft and a ground station.
TOW — Tube-launched Optically tracked Wire-guided. An antitank missile launched from ground or airborne vehicles.
TR-1 — Improved version of the U-2R high-altitude strategic reconnaissance jet. Subsonic but capable of reaching altitudes of eighty thousand feet. Mainly used for signals intelligence, electronic eavesdropping, and monitoring of data transmissions during Soviet space launches and missile tests.
VECTORED-THRUST NOZZLES — Nozzles and louvers on special fighter aircraft that can direct engine exhaust in many different directions, including side to side, downward, and forward. These nozzles improve takeoff and landing performance, enhance maneuverability, and can act as speedbrakes or drag devices.
X-29 — An experimental aircraft developed by Grumman Aircraft Corp. in the early 1980s, featuring forward-swept main wings, canards, strake flaps and aeroelastic computer-controlled wing surfaces in place of conventional flaps and ailerons. Used as a technology demonstration aircraft to explore the problems and advantages of forward-swept-wing aircraft. Airflow on a forward-swept-wing aircraft is channeled along the fuselage, increasing maneuverability and performance over conventional aircraft.
XF-15F (FICTIONAL) — Modified two-seat McDonnell-Douglas F-15E fighter, designed as test-bed aircraft for the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Technology Fighter program. First fighter to combine SMTD, mission-adaptive wings and supercockpit technology in one operational aircraft. Capable of air-to-air and air-to-ground missions.
XF-34A (FICTIONAL) — The first fighter aircraft to combine forward-swept-wing technology, vectored-thrust engine systems, mission-adaptive wings, and artificial intelligence computer systems that allowed digital neural transfer of information from the aircraft’s systems to the pilot and back.
ZSU-23 — A highly mobile Soviet anti-aircraft artillery weapon system on a fast-tracked vehicle, composed of four radar-guided twenty-three-millimeter cannons. Range of one mile, capable of firing eight hundred total rounds per minute against all kinds of low-flying aircraft.
Prologue
The Connecticut Academy, USSR
“Ken James” stamped his feet on the half-frozen dirt, rubbed his hands together quickly, then wrapped them around the shaft of a big Spaulding softball bat.
“Cmon, dammit,” he yelled to the tall, lanky kid on the pitcher’s mound.
“Wait,” yelled the pitcher, “Tony Scorcelli.” James made a few test swings, hitching up his jacket around his armpits. Scorcelli pounded the softball in his glove, then carefully, as if trying to toss a ring over a Coke bottle, threw the ball underhanded toward home plate.
The ball sailed clear over Ken’s head.
“What do you call that?” James stepped away from the plate, leaned on the bat, shaking his head at Scorcelli.
The catcher, “Tom Bell,” trotted back to retrieve the ball. When he picked it up from under a clump of quack grass along the backstop, he glanced over at the bench, noting the displeasure of the school’s headmaster, “Mr. Roberts,” who was making notes on a clipboard. The catcher knew that meant trouble.
All the Academy’s students were serious about these once a-week softball games. Here, even before perestroika, they learned competition was necessary, even desirable. Winning was all, losing was failure. Every opportunity to prove one’s superior leadership, physical and intellectual skills was monitored and evaluated.
“All right,” James said as the catcher, Bell, tossed the ball back to Scorcelli. “This time open your damn eyes when you pitch.”
Scorcelli’s second pitch wasn’t much better than the first, a high Gateway Arch that dropped almost straight down- on top of home plate, but James bit on it, swung the bat with all his strength and missed.
“Hey, hot shot, you’re supposed to hit the ball …”
James swung even harder at the next pitch, clipped it foul up and over the chain-link backstop.
” One more foul and you are out,” the first baseman “Kelly Rogers” sang out. “Intramural rules—”
“Shove your intramural rules up your ass, Rogers,” James yelled at him. The first baseman looked confused and said nothing. Roberts made another notation on his clipboard as Scorcelli got ready for the next pitch.
It was low. James wound up, gritted his teeth … then stopped his swing, clutched the other end of his bat with one hand. He held the bat horizontally, tracked the ball as it in and tapped it. It hit the hard ground in front of home plate, bounced once, then rolled out between home plate and the pitcher’s mound and died. James took off for first base. Bell stood up from his crouch, stared at the ball, then at James, back to the ball, then at Scorcelli-who was looking on in confusion. James had reached first base and was headed for second before someone finally yelled to throw the ball.
Bell and Scorcelli ran to the ball, nearly collided as they reached for it at the same time. Scorcelli picked it up, turned and threw toward the second baseman. But it was a lob, not overhand, and instead of an easy out at second, the softball hit the ragged mud-choked grass several feet in front of the second baseman, did not bounce and skipped off into shallow right field as Ken James headed for third. The right fielder charged the rolling ball, scooped it on the run, hesitated a second over whether he could make the throw all the way, then threw to “Johnston” at third base. Johnston corralled it with a careful two-handed catch. A perfect throw. James wasn’t even halfway to third.
Johnston stepped triumphantly on third base, tossed the ball “around the horn” to second base, held up two fingers. James, though, was still running. Johnston tapped James’ shoulder as he ran. “Makin’ it look good for Mr. Roberts, aren’t—?”
“You idiot,” Bell was yelling to Johnston. “You’re supposed to tag him out.”
The second baseman understood and threw the ball to Bell at home plate.
By now James was getting winded. The throw was right on target, and Bell caught the ball with James still fifteen feet from home plate. Bell extended his glove, crouched down, anticipating a slide into home. James liked to do that even if it wasn’t necessary — he once did it after hitting a home run.